The Universal Studios unit of MCA Inc is to develop software for Enter Television Inc in return for an equity stake in the start-up company, reports the Wall Street Journal. Enter Television, which has raised almost $15m in venture capital for an entertainment service it expects to bring to market early next year, seeks to change the way users interact on the Internet and on-line services. Rather than typing text-based messages, subscribers to Enter Television’s ‘On Live Network’ will assume computer-generated graphic identities, speak to each other by voice in real time and navigate their images through three-dimensional, virtual worlds. The technology will operate on ordinary telephone lines. The walking, talking computer images, called avatars, take on the form of everything from a Roman centurion to a tree. Using a mouse or joystick and a CD-ROM, participants could chat with each other with their images’ lips moving, walk into a music store to order a compact disk or play games with a multitude of participants. For Enter Television, MCA’s Universal Studios Interactive unit will develop CD-ROM software and use its characters to create virtual worlds. Users will be able to disguise their voices. The avatars won’t look like full-motion video, but the characters will be animated, and voice transmission won’t have any more lag time than a regular telephone discussion.
