Microsoft's Craig Mundie has said that "synthetic virtual worlds" like Second Life, are a waste of cyber space.

Mundie, who oversees research and long-term strategy for Redmond, says it will not be until such worlds can use 3D tools that capture and model the real world that anyone will take any notice of them.

Speaking at MIT's Emerging Technology conference Mundie wax lyrical about what he called the "Spatial Web" which is  a blend of 3D, video, and location-aware technologies.

He showed off Photosynth, a Microsoft software tool that can create 3D models using 2D photographs taken with an ordinary digital camera.

Using a 3D model of a commercial district in Seattle that had been created with Photosynth, he showed how a  virtual visitor could come to the district using the Internet and enter an art shop.

He said that Microsoft will create a 3D "parallel universe" using tools like Photosynth.

Second Life is a synthetic virtual world that people came quite enamoured with, but Microsoft’s view was that there was a fairly limited audience who was willing to deal with the construction of avatars and operating in that virtual space. X

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