Google Bets On 'Improbable' To Build A World In VR

That's the call from Google as it gets behind a tiny British startup called Improbable. Founded by two Cambridge graduates and backed by $20 million in funding from the venture capitalists at Andreessen Horowitz, Improbable offers a new way of building virtual worlds, including not just immersive games à la Second Life or World of Warcraft, but also vast digital simulations of real cities, economies, and biological systems. The idea is that these virtual worlds can run in a holistic way across a practically infinite network of computers, so that they can expand to unprecedented sizes and reach new levels of complexity. So far, the startup has shared its technology with just a handful of coders and companies. But today, Improbable joined forces with Google to offer its creation, called SpatialOS, to anyone who wants it.