SAN JOSE, CA.- The Tech Museum of Innovation (The Tech), one of the nation's premiere science and technology museums, announced the final group of winners of its virtual exhibit design competition in The Tech in Second Life®, also known as The Tech Virtual. Also announced were the special “Best of” $1,000 cash prizes for Best in SL, Most Educational, Best Collaboration, Best Overall, Best Participant, and Best Teen SL virtual exhibits. The winners were announced in a virtual awards ceremony held at The Tech Island in a collaborative, open-source celebration. These awards are the culmination of a first-of-its-kind virtual exhibit creation initiative that is revolutionizing the exhibit conceptualization and development process.

Three additional virtual exhibits have been selected to be built and physically installed in the “real world” Tech Museum . These three exhibits join the first four winning “virtual-to-real” exhibits that were announced in March; all seven new exhibits will be unveiled at The Tech in conjunction with the 01SJ Global Festival of Arts on the Edge in June. The new exhibits will be the first in a new gallery at The Tech focused on the theme of the science and technology underpinnings of art, film and music. Previously announced virtual-to-real winners were “Wikisonic,” “The Painter,” “Musical Chairs,” and “Connecting Point”. The latest winners are:

Reprojecting San Jose - Reprojecting San Jose was created by Richard Milewski, a San Jose-based photographer and former InfoWorld editor in chief. It explores the transformations involved in transforming flat photos into a 360 degree panorama.

Golden Age of MIDI - Golden Age of MIDI was created by Nick Chen, digital musician and director of a music outreach program for schools. His design is an exploration of the Music Instrument Digital Interface, a standard that has lasted 25 years and is still going strong.

Tilty Table - Tilty Table was conceptualized by Jason Nelson, digital artist and professor of digital poetics in Gold Coast , Australia . The exhibit lets visitors explore the artist’s interpretation of “the spirit of Silicon Valley ” with an intuitive mechanical interface.

The $1,000 “Best Of” cash prize winners in the virtual museum include:

Rebirth (Best in SL)
Soundscape (Most Educational)
Characters Alive (Best Overall)
Annie Obscure, Mars Voyager (Best Collaboration)
Garvie Garzo (Best Participant)
Rolling Ground of Color (Best Teen SL)