TechnoSphere

TechnoSphere was an online digital environment launched on September 1, 1995 and hosted on a computer at a UK university. TechnoSphere, created by Jane Prophet and Dr Gordon Selley, was a place where users from around the globe could create creatures and release them into the 3D environment, described by the creators as a "digital ecology." Earlier incarnations of TechnoSphere didn't have the advantage of web-accessible 3D graphics, but was still governed by chaos theory and similar algorithms that determined each creature's unique behavior based on their components and interactions with each other and their environment. This online program was one of many digital artificial life simulations that evolved as the World Wide Web began to grow. Many museums and classrooms found the tool to be a valuable complement to learning material on natural selection and ecosystems. The experiment operated online until 2002 and was unavailable until January 15, 2007 when it was launched again but as of November 2012 is again off-line.

TechnoSphere was a real-time, 3D simulation of an environment that was populated by virtual creatures. Users across the globe had the capability to create their own creatures through a website. TechnoSphere III, one of many incarnations of the original design, used an artificial life program and fractal landscapes, which were governed by a complex set of rules and algorithms that determined how the virtual ecosystem reacted. The program was capable of modeling such concepts as simple evolution and carrying capacity. Despite limited available creature designs, no two would ever behave in the same way, due to chance interactions with its environment and other creatures.

Physically, the virtual landscape of TechnoSphere consisted of 16 km² of terrain. It was capable of supporting approximately 4,000 creatures, though other sources suggest that as many as 20,000 creatures typically would coexist in the virtual environment at one time. After the relaunch, it was explicitly stated that the software limited the number of creatures at 200,000. Because each creature's behavior was unique, no single event could have been predicted, though some significant patterns developed. For example, even though there was no explicit flocking algorithm written into the program, creatures could be found organizing themselves into groups, most likely impelled by urges to mate and eat. The programs that supported the website were scalable, and could be modified to support a larger or smaller community of creatures.

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