Touring the Digital Universe

Every student will be exploring the Digital Universe in the coming months, if Joe Firmage has his way.

Firmage, a cofounder of Digital Universe (digitaluniverse.net), a Web resource that went live in January, says his product is intended to be a learning portal to all aspects of the world at large, with an emphasis on the earth sciences. The resource will incorporate related links, participatory journalism, and an open-content encyclopedia similar to Wikipedia. The difference is that experts—from General Wesley Clark to Dr. Robert Corell, senior fellow at the American Meteorological Society—will vet all data.

Scientist Carl Sagan also has a hand in Digital Universe. Firmage says the late astronomer’s 1980s television series, Cosmos, helped inspire the project. “Sagan revealed and showed a vision where anyone who had access to a screen could touch their way through human knowledge,” Firmage says.

While today’s travelers will be using a computer mouse, Firmage hopes for a similar exploratory experience in which students can access a “21st Century Library of Alexandria.” “All educational content on the site is expected to be free,” he says.

Those willing to pay a $7.95 a month subscription fee, however, will get premium services such as access to chat rooms, streaming television programs, and even a travel service. Fifty percent of the revenues will be used to pay for the expert reviewers, Firmage says, so that “we can get productive participation.”

Future versions of Digital Universe, which was launched with $10.5 million in seed money from “angel investors” and others, will offer new features, including 3-D navigation. “This will be a public service, and a public utility,” says Firmage. “We want it to be in all classrooms without schools having to sacrifice their precious budgets.”