Release Notes & Roadmap

Thank you for visiting the Digital Universe. This is just the beginning of a multi-year project that will involve thousands of people like you. Please help us build the Digital Universe by  supporting it and volunteering.

This beta release of the Digital Universe is the first version designed to work on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux/Unix computers. Supported browsers include Firefox, Internet Explorer 6, and Safari. Safari has some known problems yet to be resolved. While all of these are supported, FireFox is the recommended browser for all computer platforms.

Several basic functions planned for the Digital Universe are not yet available, but will be part of future releases:

1 - Searching in the Digital Universe

The full search engine for the Digital Universe is not yet available. We're still working on it! In the next release of the service, you’ll have an effective and complete search facility for all kinds of content in and linked to the Digital Universe.

2 - More Portals

Of course, many more portals will emerge regularly in coming weeks, months and years. You’ll be particularly impressed with the evolution of the Earth Portal, based upon a dazzling 3D Earth built in partnership with leading partners in the field. Think Google Earth in a browser, integrated with all the tools of the Digital Universe, free of advertising, and available for you to use in your own portals.

3 - Portal Building and Public Collaboration Tools

We’ve built a large and growing array of tools to help people create, edit and contribute to portals in the Digital Universe. These tools -- called DUST (Digital Universe Steward Tools) are presently available only to authorized editors, and will soon be opened up to enable you to make contributions to portals, and most excitingly, build your personal portal (or tree of portals!).

4 - New “Activities” in All Portals

When you visit a portal today, the sidebar reveals the “Explore” activity — containing mainly general and educational links. In coming months and years, additional activities will become available, providing chat and forums, links to great books, streaming television and radio programs, and ultimately even online games. These activities will be available on all portals, from Saturn to Soccer.

5 - Multimedia Digital Universe

We're in the process of packaging the rich-media capabilities of the ManyOne browser into a plug-in for all major browsers, which will give users of the Digital Universe 3D visual navigation and multimedia portals, made possible by advanced caching. Here is a snapshot of the forthcoming 3D user interface, showing the visual "UniNav" at the bottom of the screen, and a fully zoomable, pannable 3D Earth:

You'll also be able to move the UniNav around to any side of the browser, and choose whether you want visual or text-only navigation.

Please be patient as we continue to develop these features. Visit this site from time to time to check on the status of the Digital Universe.

More importantly, again, please help us build the Digital Universe by  supporting it and volunteering.

The world needs this.