Tag Archives: #metaverse

There’s Blood On The SLine

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SLSalon virtual audience

Sometimes the bleeding edge gets a little bloody. Such was the case last night with Accelerating Change’s monthly virtual conference held inside Second Life, a commercially-run virtual world. This Future Salon meeting was only the second in what will be a continuing series, and as such it’s setting some precedents… at least within the Second Life simulation. For this meeting, two new services were being introduced/ tested/ attempted: VoIP within the Second Life world, and streaming video to the web from within the simulation.

Unfortunately there were problems and the event went into the kind of chaotic spiral one might expect with so many twitchy-finger avatars in one place. Due to those difficulties the first speaker, Clark Aldrich, was unable to properly present as the delays cut into his time (hopefully he’ll be back). It did finally get back on track in time for Dr. Julian Lombardi to give a pseudo-talk/Q&A on Croquet, the open-source cyberspace project (I owe that to both the circumstances and to people not doing their homework before asking questions easily answered by a quick review of the project website). However, Betsy Book finished off the event with a brief but interesting talk on virtual brands. I’ve been planning on writing a piece on the subject so the additional information was of particular interest (and I believe her talk will be available online in the near future).

The highlight of the night, however, might have been when the video stream first aired as my mother called to say she saw the video; after which I stood up so she could see “me”. What some of us think nothing of, the majority of people in the real world find almost beyond comprehension. Not so long ago, this would have been called witchcraft.

Redefining Brain Dump

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File this one in the “too good to pass up” folder. Excerpted from a CNN article:

By 2020 Pearson also predicted the creation of a “virtual world” of immersive computer-generated environments in which we will spend increasing amounts of time, socializing and doing business.

He said: “When technology gives you a life-size 3D image and the links to your nervous system allow you to shake hands, it’s like being in the other person’s office. It’s impossible to believe that won’t be the normal way of communicating.”

That’s actually not what the CNN article is about. But it’s the part you’ll want if the other prediction bears fruit. Guess the next question is: Will this virtual world be another Eden or will it be a Deathmatch Level? Read “Brain downloads ‘possible by 2050’” here.

Hmmmm. Maybe it’ll be more like the set of an Ed Wood flick?

My First Prediction… and Maybe My Last

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{May 14, 2007: For all the reddit visitors, this post is almost exactly two years old, so it’s a bit dated imo. I’m not entirely sure MS is on track, though they may be based on this Where 2.0 event scheduled for the end of this month (Link), or this one at the same conference (Link).}

I wrote the following prediction some weeks back and then bit my lip; didn’t want to look too “out there”. But having just read a news item over on PCWorld.com, Gates Unveils MSN Virtual Earth, I’m ready to own up to it since this marks the first in what I expect to be a series of moves. So here it is:

Prediction: Microsoft is building a virtual 3D world.

And I’m talking virtual world [actually a virtual “mirror” world] as in Snow Crash’s “Metaverse”. I’m making this prediction based on not just recent news, but on some very old things. Here’s the basic breakdown:

– MS purchases Groove (two days ago), software designed for virtual collaboration; good for real world product development, but possibly better for virtual world development [or even better, transreality development]
– MS announces Xbox 2 specs to include “Marketplace” and “Micro-payments”
– Xbox picks Unreal engine 3 as primary engine platform, by far the most realistic 3D on the RT block.
– Meqon unveils radically advanced physics module, also to be compatible with Xbox
– Rumors that MS is pulling out of MSNBC; MS learned the big media ropes and it’s now time to move on perhaps.
– Allegorithmic’s “procedural textures” – infinitely subdivided, efficient, and perfect for games and virtual worlds
– Valve’s creation of the STEAM distribution system, paving the way for online content delivery as well as upstream content creation/distribution/sales
– The emergence of “virtual economies” and studies of their real value
– Longstanding MS goal to be not just a software company, but a major media player
– MS’s ongoing purchases of high-quality game development houses such as Bungie, Ensemble, etc
– MS’s initial involvement with VRML, and then it’s move out and into gaming where the real advances were being made without the concessions and compromises of a consortium
– MS’s positioning of the Xbox as a home media device instead of a game console*
– MS’s attempt to kickstart content development in the mid-90’s by purchasing ultra-pricey SoftImage3D, porting it from the Unix OS to Windows NT, slashing retail prices, and then inexplicably selling it off – leading to a freefall in 3D software pricing
– MS’s seemingly odd practice of hiring artists and content creators (including people studying esoteric musical instruments and such as reported – I believe – in the Seattle press) since the early 1990’s

Note the * item. Seems we got alot of that message from MS during E3. And I’d now add to this list the following:

– the announcement of Will Wright’s Spore (posts here and here) videogame which uses both parametrics and procedurals to allow unprecedented consumer creative potential (it may someday mark the turning point in the deployment and eventual mass acceptance of virtual worlds, imo).
– Sony’s policy shift regarding virtual commerce and the announcement of their new Sony Exchange virtual marketplace (posted originally here).

I already said we should expect a run-up in MS stock here when they were trading $24.19 (March 29) and I see they’re now up to $25.82 barely 7 weeks later. Effectively meaningless, but not bad.

Thiel On Virtual Money

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Via Jerry Paffendorf’s SL Future Salon blog entry, comes word that IT Conversations has a 2004 talk posted on their site by PayPal co-founder and former CEO Peter Thiel. The topic: Virtual Money.

Since the bridge between design, virtual product, and personal manufacturing will be largely built as a result of some kind of monetary incentive, it’s perhaps appropriate to begin considering the different avenues by which this incentive will arrive. It’s an issue that’s currently near and dear to me. Even though I’m not particularly interested in money, one still has to pay for this stuff, so I’ll be giving it a listen soon.

Parisi Speaks

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Nice couple pages over on C|Net about the (re-)emergence of web 3D in an interview with vr pioneer Tony Parisi. Good article. The only issue I have is this quote from Mr. Parisi:

The bulk of the interface design will come from (the) gaming community, with additional innovation through these proprietary 3D chat worlds. But in most of these chat rooms, there’s nothing to do! You see someone’s avatar, and they’re picking their nose. It’s a piece of glitz attached to text chat. In an application like “Everquest,” you have exactly the same environment design and you’re there to do something. There has to be a purpose.

There is no real “purpose” in Second Life either other than what people who sign on bring to it, yet they somehow either manage to find things to do or not – just like most people do in real life. The assumption that people want to do more doesn’t really jive with what I’m discovering. Not everyone wants to spend their evenings slaying dragons or mining virtual gold or, for that matter, creating virtual content or managing virtual property; alot of people just chat about real life issues. So in that way, these 3D interfaces are more like teleconferencing than gaming. Now that the technology is here, we might discover that most people would rather just talk than fire their BFG’s at each other.

I also wonder if Parisi is aware of the serious discussion going on about open-sourcing Second Life. I mean, how can Linden Labs not be aware of the open source solutions beginning to invade their space… one of the people behind Croquet is giving a virtual talk inside Second Life! Interesting times. Now excuse me while I load Maya and work on a nose-picking animation.