Come join us at University of California, Irvine on Tuesday evening from 6:00 -8:00 for what promises to be a truly fascinating "metaverse" panel discussion. We've gathered four stellar people - all working on enterprise initiatives in virtual spaces (two of which will be just returning from Virtual Worlds 2008):
Each will be sharing their view of the business opportunities of virtual environments. specifics of what they are working on, and we'll have a intimate chance to meet and greet and ask questions.
Try as we might, we haven't been able to organize and secure the UCI resources to stream the panel online or in a world, but we're trying for a conference number to at least provide the opportunity to listen in. I'll update this when I have teleconference info.
Here is the official description and please join the Facebook group whether you can attend or not:
Fully immersive 3D virtual worlds such as Second Life, There.com, Gaia Online and HiPiHi are seriously entertaining, and 30-40 million people are currently living, working and playing in them. In an April 2007 report, Gartner projected that 80% percent of active Internet users and Fortune 500 enterprises will be engaged in virtual worlds such as Second Life by the end of 2011.
Virtual spaces and technologies represent a serious business opportunity. More than 170 major brands in categories from automotive to consumer products, education to tourism are experimenting with the innovation, marketing and business value of virtual worlds. A recent Forrester report predicted that within five years, the 3-D Internet will be as critical a business tool as the Web is today.
What’s the opportunity for virtual world innovation and investment? Bring your questions and join our panel of digerati for an exploration of how organizations are using virtuality for collaboration, branding, R&D, recruiting and research.
The event is being sponsored by OCTANe Orange County. If you aren't familiar with the organization, it is a 15,000 member strong hub of innovation, investment and people fueling the technology and biomedical sectors in Orange County, CA. Check out their web site here.
Location details and registration link: http://www.octaneoc.org/calendar/view_event.asp?CalendarID=667
Hope some of you can make it!
April 2, 2008
Our meeting SL Business Communicators meeting last Friday with UCI professor Crista Lopes a.k.a. Diva Canto flew by - literally. We got the chance to see the coolest rezzing process ever -and it was the SL prototype of the RL magnetic levitation transportation pod project, SkyTran. Below Professor Lopes explains the project and how she is using SL to inform the RL engineers and planners.
We're aiming at organizing an upcoming meeting with Unimodal who is driving the RW transportation system in California.
Introduction
Diva Canto: I gave everyone a landmark for our workshop in the sky
Znetlady Isbell: Got it.
Diva Canto: we'll move there in a bit
Csven Concord: Gracias, Diva.
Brandon Catteneo: OK
IYan Writer: ty Diva
Znetlady Isbell: Diva, maybe I should introduce you? Should I do that while
we wait a moment?
Csven Concord: Speech! Speech!
Diva Canto: yes, you're the master of ceremony!
Znetlady Isbell: LOL!! Diva Canto is an associate professor at University of
Calif., Irvine.
Znetlady Isbell: She came to UCI via Xerox's PARC
Diva Canto: http://www.ics.uci.edu/~lopes
Znetlady Isbell: and she is the headmaster here at SkyTran, helping the RL
company Unimodal bring it to life in the RL.
Znetlady Isbell: She'll tell you more about that, AND..
Znetlady Isbell: she is the developer of the new SLBrowser SL search engine
Znetlady Isbell: which is both a HUD and a web-based google-ish SE.
Znetlady Isbell: I use it all the time - a fast way to locate things out of
world.
Znetlady Isbell: She's been written up in the the Orange County Register about
this project and she tells me it is getting a lot of attention.
Znetlady Isbell: Diva, what did I miss?
Diva Canto: that's right, lots of web publications picked that up
Diva Canto: oh, that's about right
Znetlady Isbell: She's a fast typist too. lol
Diva Canto: :-)
Diva Canto: ok, so let me talk first about skytran, ok?
Znetlady Isbell: Please!!
SkyTran Project
Diva Canto: this is a prototype of a PRT system that's being designed by a
company here in Irvine
Diva Canto: PRT = Personal Rapid Transit
Diva Canto: it's the kind of transportation system that we see in sci-fi
movies :-)
Csven Concord: Maglev?
Diva Canto: they have developed a magnetic levitation technology yjay yjey
believe will enable that to happen
Csven Concord: *shuts up
Diva Canto: :-)
Diva Canto: np ask questions, interrupt me
Diva Canto: anyway
Diva Canto: they are looking to deploy a small prototype, proof-of-concept,
somewhere in California
Diva Canto: within the next couple of years
Diva Canto: they needed some help with the control software
Csven Concord: Attractive or repulsive?
Diva Canto: what do you mean?
Diva Canto: maglev?
Csven Concord: Yes
Diva Canto: oh, I'm afraid I don't know enough about maglev technology
*lughs*
Csven Concord: Just curious.
IYan Writer: isn't it repulsive by definition? otherwise it'd stick to the
track
Csven Concord: No.
Diva Canto: you can ask them or check their web site
Diva Canto: anyway, we helped them on ghe control software
Diva Canto: that's not the low-level control, but the logic control of the
cars
Diva Canto: -- when cars start and stop moving, their velocities, etc
Diva Canto: background --
Diva Canto: real-world systems have two or more levels of control
Diva Canto: the lowest one is very close to the physics of the system
Diva Canto: so, making sure thaty when the upper layers says "go at 100 mph"
it stays at 100mph
Diva Canto: stuff like that.
Diva Canto: but above that there are more layers of control
Diva Canto: so, we ignored the low level layers -- because SL's physics
sucks
Brandon Catteneo chuckles
Diva Canto: we made some emulations of the low level behavior, and proceeded
to study the higher-level logic
Diva Canto: the controller here controls the scheduling of the cars
Diva Canto: plus we did, as you see, 3D modeling of their system.
Diva Canto: this is actually very accurate, it was dsone according to their
specs
Diva Canto: and during the process, we found several bugs in their design,
which they promptly corrected
Bruce Voight: can you descrie, if any, safety features that are or will be
installded.
Diva Canto: oh there's all sorts of safety controls. we haven't simulated
those yet
Diva Canto: what you see here is just the beginning -- the scheduling --
making sure that the cars don't collide
Diva Canto: with each other, that is
Diva Canto: the engineers at Unimodal think this has been a super-valuable
tool for them
Bruce Voight: and also earthquake and power outtage features I assume.
Diva Canto: oh yes, lots and lots and lots of safety issue here!
Control System: The Guideway Brain
Csven Concord: Could you explain the control system a bit?
Diva Canto: safety will basically account for most of the code
Diva Canto: hmm, I'm afraid I can't go into the details of their control
Diva Canto: that's been NDA'ed
Csven Concord: So, if I were to ask if there are any levels of autonomy, you
couldn't answer - ?
Diva Canto: I can answer that.
Bruce Voight: will the controls be controlled by the driver or a master
steersman.....Like a rollercoaster?
Diva Canto: the autonomy is in each station controller
Diva Canto: the cars are relatively dumb
Csven Concord: ok
Diva Canto: I measn "passive" -- that's a better term :-)
Diva Canto: the guideway is the "brain" in a way
Diva Canto: it's also the guideway that makes the cars move
Diva Canto: that's part of their maglev technology
Diva Canto: so the staion controller sends signals to the guideway bricks
Diva Canto: if you zoom in, you'll see that the guideway is made of small
bricks
Csven Concord: Did you emulate it in SL?
Diva Canto: there's over 500 of them
Csven Concord: I mean, code-wise.
Diva Canto: yes -- everything
Diva Canto: there's a lot of "talking" between the bricks and the controller
Brandon Catteneo: So those are all scripted to align to each other?
Csven Concord: So each brick is "sensing" the train.
Diva Canto: yes. I wanted to show you the rez of the guideway, cos that's
really cool to see
Diva Canto: but this guideway down here is not responding to my commands --
my studemts must have messed it up yesterday
Diva Canto: let's go to our worlshop, shall we?
Diva Canto: it's it on the clouds.
Diva Canto: I gave most of you the landmark
Diva Canto: for the others, please pull up the map, notice a platform on the
upper left corner of this sim, and TO there
Diva Canto: or fly -- if you have a device that allows you to fly above the
clouds
To the SkyTran Workshop in the Sky
Bruce Voight: OK....The TP is too close...Have to TP somewhere else and then
to your shop.
Pebbles Hannya: It won't let me TP to the landmark.
Brandon Catteneo: I have the LM I can give it to whomever needs it
Csven Concord: fyi, @IYan, an "attractive" system has a T-shaped rail.
Magnets are under the "t" arms, and the attraction raises the vehvicle above
the top of the "T"
IYan Writer: ty csven, checked it out on wikipedia in the mean time :)
Csven Concord: Kind of a wrap-around.
Csven Concord: Ah. That'll work.
IYan Writer: but thanks :)
Csven Concord: I'd originally planned to get into maglev design after the
military.
RezTrackV29: Resetting Bricks
RezTrackV29: Resetting Virtual Points
Csven Concord: Not much in the U.S> unfortunately.
Diva Canto: ok, I made the whole thing disappear :-)
Diva Canto: Let me try to pull those other people up before I show the demo
Diva Canto: oh, try not to click on the objects!! :-)
Rissa Maidstone: / I'm sorry I got here late, this may have been covered. Is
this a project for CalTrans?
Diva Canto: this is an active workspace, you'll probably mess things up :-)
Znetlady Isbell: Hi, Rissa!
Diva Canto: no, not caltrans. This is Unimodal Inc. -- SkyTran
Brandon Catteneo: Just looking at the properties
Rissa Maidstone: Hi Znetlady :)
Brandon Catteneo: But thanks for telling me
Znetlady Isbell: I think it's what you are looking for Rissa!
Diva Canto: Anyway
Rissa Maidstone: Unimodal must be planning on "selling" this to
someone--it's a huge initiative.
Diva Canto: there's still one person down.
Rissa Maidstone: Me too Znetlady
Znetlady Isbell: Let me see if I can go help. Please go ahead Diva
Diva Canto: ok, I'll rez the track
Diva Canto: Is the machinima person here?
Diva Canto: Hi John and Rissa, aren't you guys from the Dr. Dobbs events?
John Zhaoying: Yup.
Rissa Maidstone grins.
Diva Canto: I thought I knew you
Rissa Maidstone: Part of what we do
John Zhaoying: How are you, Diva?
Diva Canto: Linda, are you here?
Pebbles Hannya: I think she went to try to find the missing person.
Diva Canto: ok, I'll wait a bit for her, cos the rezzing of the track is
really cool to see
Diva Canto: any questions?
Diva Canto: oh there she is
Znetlady Isbell: I think we have everyone.
Diva Canto: ok. zoom out everyone!
Rezzing and Riding SkyTran
Csven Concord: Do the track elements receive speed info and relay propulsive
commands to the vehicle?
Pebbles Hannya: Is there some sort of emergency button in the cars? For example, what
if someone is in one and it's already set to go somewhere and they have a
heart attack?
Diva Canto: I'll answer all of those questions in a bit. Let me create the
system
Diva Canto: look now!
Diva Canto: zoom out
IYan Writer: cool!
Diva Canto: really out
Post Wylie: neat indeed!
Diva Canto: the engineers wish they could do this in real life :-)
Rissa Maidstone chuckles.
Pebbles Hannya: Even in SL it's a neat trick!
Post Wylie: wont be too long....
Diva Canto: so, these bricks -- their size, position, rotation -- are made
according to the specs
Csven Concord: Imported track geometry data?
Diva Canto: "import" is a strong word :-)
Csven Concord: Granted.
Diva Canto: it was done manually
Diva Canto: the guideway has sections
John Zhaoying: Neat rez process.
Diva Canto: we were able to codify each section into an algorithm
John Zhaoying: Do the tracks form based on a call signal from the red
spheres?
Diva Canto: there ar ethe vehicles
Diva Canto: and some decoration
Diva Canto: now three of you can ride
Diva Canto: one at a time
Diva Canto: anyone wants to sit on the first car?
Central Station v87: clock start
Central Station v87 shouts: Station Assigned logical vp: 20
Central Station v87 shouts: Station Assigned physical vp: 20
Vehicle_1 shouts: Bogey got LVP: 20 brick calc starting pos: <67.99619,
238.45389, 260.97198>
Diva Canto: yuo can only ride to the car in front
Diva Canto: you have to wait
Vehicle_1 shouts: starting pos: <65.85220, 238.43889, 260.97198>
Diva Canto: off he goes!
Diva Canto: second person?
Brandon Catteneo: lol
IYan Writer: let's see if he comes back safely first ;)
Brandon Catteneo: I was unsuccessful at that
Diva Canto: lol
Rissa Maidstone: laugh!
Diva Canto: just sit on the first car
Znetlady Isbell: anyone?
Diva Canto: I can send it off empty too
Central Station v87 shouts: Station Assigned logical vp: 4
Central Station v87 shouts: Station Assigned physical vp: 4
Vehicle_1 shouts: Bogey got LVP: 4 brick calc starting pos: <67.99599,
238.45399, 260.97198>
Vehicle_1 shouts: Be Patient, bogey is waiting to start
Vehicle_1 shouts: starting pos: <65.85200, 238.43900, 260.97198>
John Zhaoying shouts: Hey! I can see my house from here!
Diva Canto: you can't sit on the car unless it's in the front of the line
Znetlady Isbell: lol
Rissa Maidstone: laugh!
Pebbles Hannya: In RL will there be one single route, or will cars branch off to go
different places?
Brandon Catteneo: maybe its my AO
Central Station v87 shouts: Station Assigned logical vp: 16
Central Station v87 shouts: Station Assigned physical vp: 16
Vehicle_1 shouts: Bogey got LVP: 16 brick calc starting pos: <67.99599,
238.45399, 260.97198>
Vehicle_1 shouts: Be Patient, bogey is waiting to start
Diva Canto: in real life there are two phases for this project
Vehicle_1 shouts: starting pos: <65.85200, 238.43900, 260.97198>
Rissa Maidstone: The red and black balls are acting as a traffic
control/signal system?
Diva Canto: Rissa: yes. it's a visualization of our control system
Rissa Maidstone: Great.
Diva Canto: so they want to build a prototype first
Rissa Maidstone: You work for Unimodal Diva?
Znetlady Isbell: No, Rissa UCI
Diva Canto: the first prototypes will be exactly like this
Rissa Maidstone: Ok
QueueManager v10 shouts: vehicles_id:
QueueManager v10 shouts: curVehiclesInQueue: 0
QueueManager v10 shouts: last in queue vehicle id: 0
Znetlady Isbell: Professor Crista Lopes
Diva Canto: one single loop, one single statin
Diva Canto: but the idea is that there will be branches and lots of stations
Diva Canto: that's where the fun starts, fromthe control perspective
Central Station v87 shouts: Station freeing logical vp: 20
Rissa Maidstone: What is the advantage/cost compared to existing light rail?
Diva Canto: welcome back John
John Zhaoying: Wow, neat.
John Zhaoying: I hadn't realized I'd been unseated.
QueueManager v10 shouts: vehicles_id: 0
QueueManager v10 shouts: curVehiclesInQueue: 1
QueueManager v10 shouts: last in queue vehicle id: 0
Csven Concord: Frictionless
Diva Canto: you'll have to ask that to the Unimodal people, and people who
are into PRT. But from what OI understand
Pebbles Hannya: So the person would stay in a single car for their whole journey rather
than having to change to a different track at a station like on a subway?
Rissa Maidstone chuckles at John.
Diva Canto: yes -- this is a point-to-point system
Diva Canto: no need to go in bluks of people
Brander Heron: ETA for a working prototype?
Central Station v87 shouts: Station freeing logical vp: 4
Diva Canto: theoretically this is a lot more efficiently
Brandon Catteneo: This must've been dirt cheap for them.
IYan Writer: very cool!
QueueManager v10 shouts: vehicles_id: 0, 2
QueueManager v10 shouts: curVehiclesInQueue: 2
QueueManager v10 shouts: last in queue vehicle id: 2
Diva Canto: ETA: according to Unimodal, 2 years
John Zhaoying: Is there something about the track construction or other
details that doesn't make point-to-point incredibly wasteful of resources?
IYan Writer: /ao on
Diva Canto: I guess it's their maglev technology
Rissa Maidstone: Frictionless--smoother ride, lower maintenance costs, lower
energy usage?
Diva Canto: they say they can do it relatively cheap
Central Station v87 shouts: Station freeing logical vp: 16
John Zhaoying: Well, that's the engine. But you can do maglev for 'subways'
too. I'm talking about the logic of providing a capsule per person, vs. a
capsule for many people.
Csven Concord: I'd expect maintenance to be higher initially; new tech is
usually full of surprises.
Diva Canto: to give you some context -- I'm not a magle or PRT expert. I
think it would be great if we could hav ethe Unimodal people here too, so
they could answer those questions better than me
Brandon Catteneo: I mean this mock-up, doing it in SL, must've saved them a
good deal of money.
Design Problems Identified Through Simulation
John Zhaoying: Absolutely. Plus, with more moving parts, you have way more
points of failure.
Csven Concord: Tho the Japanese and Germans have been working on it for
quite a while now.
Diva Canto: yes that was the point of the simulation
Diva Canto: they were able to detect some design problems
Rissa Maidstone: Could you give an example?
John Zhaoying: i.e., the intelligence in each car, here, is equivalent to
the intelligence required to drive a whole subway train. So you have a point
of failure per person.
Diva Canto: and we're able to show this to a wide audience -- press, VCs,
potential partners
Csven Concord: Diva, are you moving this to Havok 4 anytime soon?
John Zhaoying: Whereas on a subway train, you take extra processors and
cheaply provide redundancy to your limited points of failure.
Diva Canto: no, not anytime soon. I want to focus on the high-level control
first
Diva Canto: physics is another whole thing
Diva Canto: there's another group
Diva Canto: in another UC campus that may do that part
Rissa Maidstone: Are they planning on carrying more than 1 person per "car"?
Diva Canto: I think it's a 2-people car
Rissa Maidstone: And back to design flaws, can you be more specific on
how/what was discovered?
IYan Writer: if you want to go "backwards", do you have to traverse almost
whole of the track? ie, is it one-way?
Diva Canto: @rissa, let me answer that
Rissa Maidstone grins.
Diva Canto: first, we found problems with their calculations of the
positions and rotations of the bricks
Diva Canto: so they fixed that
John Zhaoying: iYan -- yeah, that's interesting. A system without
T-junctions would compel a lot of backtracking. But can you do a T-junction
in maglev?
Diva Canto: then we found a serious design problem with the station
Diva Canto: on their first design, they had the upper track right on top of
the lower track at the station/
Diva Canto: in their concept drawings it looked good. let me get you a
picture
Rissa Maidstone: Great and this is next queston since I already typed it :)
Interesting--and this was all brought in from AutoCadd? or how was the
conversion to SL performed?
John Zhaoying: So you guys came in and fixed an SL design-in-progress, then?
Diva Canto: but when we made it here and looked at it in this immersive
manner, it didn't look so good
Diva Canto: it looked quite unsafe to me
Diva Canto: so I told them, brought them here, and they agreed that it was a
bad idea
IYan Writer: RL design, john
Rissa Maidstone: Makes a big difference to be able to "see" the conceptual
design.
Diva Canto: they went back to the drawing table and produced this other
layout
Diva Canto: where the station if horizontally offset
Csven Concord: What tools *are* they using?
Diva Canto: there was yet another design problem
Diva Canto: when they rode the car and used the mouselook view
Diva Canto: they realized that they had to be very carefull with the roof of
the car
Diva Canto: it must cover the sight of the track above
Diva Canto: because people prone to eppileptic attacks may have one :-)
Rissa Maidstone: Are you doing noise simulaton too?
John Zhaoying: Because they're seeing a rapidly-flickering pattern?
Rissa Maidstone: That's got to be part of the concern with this type of
infrastructure.
Diva Canto: no, no noise simulation
Diva Canto: @john - yes
John Zhaoying: Maglev is very quiet
Diva Canto: here: http://www.unimodal.com/
John Zhaoying: It's levitative, so no friction to produce noise.
Diva Canto: that's how their original concept was
Rissa Maidstone: I'm sure, but it's likely it went through some kind of
"hush house" or noise simulation in order to become very quiet.
Diva Canto: they changed it to pull the station out
John Zhaoying: No, it's just that when there's no contact between any
physical component, there's no noise.
Csven Concord: There are no "touching" elements.
Diva Canto: right. you know what? maybe Linda can invite the SkyTran people
here one day
Diva Canto: PRT is really interesting in itself
Diva Canto: and their technology too, obviously
Rissa Maidstone: Yes, and I'd love to talk to them if they come in.
John Zhaoying: Your worry in systems like this is EMF. The Gauss on maglev
magnets is huge, and you have all sorts of power going to maintain flux.
Rissa Maidstone: Agreed
Diva Canto: yeah, there are all kinds of problems. They think they have good
solutions for them
John Zhaoying: Component hum might be - almost certainly is - an issue if
there's anything conductive in the tracks besides the magnet coilbars.
Diva Canto: anyway, we're focusing here on the logic control and failures at
that leve;
Diva Canto: this has been quite useful for everyone
Rissa Maidstone: I'm only asking these questions because it's interesting to
see how a project like this is incepted here and how far you can take it to
simulate
John Zhaoying: So what's the logic architecture, Diva?
Pebbles Hannya: Speaking of that, will you do the next stage of simulation here too --
where different people want to go different places?
John Zhaoying: All asynchronous state machines talking to each other?
Diva Canto: the part that controls the scheduling of the cars and their
speed at any point of the track
Csven Concord: You could simulate the noise. Each brick could trigger a
sound event as it was propelling the vehicle.
John Zhaoying: Is it controlled deterministically from toplevel?
Diva Canto: I'm afraid I can't go into details, I'm NDA-ed on that
Rissa Maidstone: Understood :)
John Zhaoying: Or are the cars smart enough to figure out the world on their
own?
Diva Canto: no the cars are relatively passive in this system
Diva Canto: the stations are the brains
Diva Canto: the stations "talk" to the guideway bricks
John Zhaoying: Oh, interesting.
Diva Canto: and the bricks are the ones that make the cars move, slow down,
speed up, etc
John Zhaoying: So it's like routers talking to each other about
packets-in-transit on an out-of-band connection. MPLS for concrete and
steel.
Diva Canto: "routers" is a great keyword!
Diva Canto: this is, in fact, a physical object network
Diva Canto: not unlike the internet
Central Station v87: clock pause
Diva Canto: but, of course, we can't "drop" packets here :-)
Farley Scarborough smiles
John Zhaoying: No ... that would be bad. (grin)
Rissa Maidstone chuckles.
John Zhaoying: But you can _stop_ packets here.
Diva Canto: yes, indeed
John Zhaoying: the lines are the input buffers.
Diva Canto: so there are similarities and differences
John Zhaoying: So in that sense, you can produce 100% QoS on all
connections.
Diva Canto: the model of the internet is a good one to look at, but there
are differences that cannot be ignord
John Zhaoying: In terms of packet retention. Not delivery.
Diva Canto: yes - retention must be 100% :-)
Pebbles Hannya: Unfortunately I need to go, but this has been really interesting.
Thanks Diva, and you too Z.
John Zhaoying: It's really more like an MPLS network. Where you have a fixed
channel architecture.
Austen Scanlan accepted your inventory offer.
Diva Canto: let me know if you have more questions about this, Feel free to email me or call me
Diva Canto: lopes@ics.uci.edu
Diva Canto: http://www.ics.uci.edu/~lopes
Introducing SLBrowser
Diva Canto: I have another cool project to talk about, but I'm not sure we have time?
Farley Scarborough is all ears
Znetlady Isbell: Please go ahead = SLBowser?
Diva Canto: yes, it's a search engine
Post Wylie: shoot, Luke, your faded....
Diva Canto: http://slbrowser.com
Csven Concord: Out of curiousity, why SL instead of... for example... a game engine (where the physics would allow lower level investigation)?
Diva Canto: @Csven
Diva Canto: that was because I wanted to find out if SL could be used for these kinds of things
Diva Canto: the immersion factor is a great thing to have
Csven Concord: Makes sense.
Diva Canto: so I wanted to find the limits of a tool like SL
Diva Canto: there are limits, of course, and not all modeling should be done here
Diva Canto: anyway, sens more questions by email. let me talk a bit about my bots :-)
Diva Canto: slbrowser is a search engine like google
Diva Canto: it works like this: we have 14 bots that crawl the grid twice a week
Diva Canto: right now they look like snowmen :-)
Diva Canto: they go around looking for objects on sale
Diva Canto: and we store that information on a server outside.
Diva Canto: We then index it and serve search.
Diva Canto: the indexing has some notion of relevance
Diva Canto: we use an relevance method that is quite unique
Diva Canto: since the bots can see who created the objects inworld, we then compute the statistics of who are the main builders of SL
Diva Canto: there's about 50,000 people who have built SL, essentially
Znetlady Isbell: ah - the 1% rule.
Diva Canto: :-)
Diva Canto: so then we crawl Linden Lab's web pages and scrape the Top Picks of thode 50,000 people
Diva Canto: then we use that to boost those places and their products
Diva Canto: so it's a recommendation-based relevance, where we choose the recommenders very carefully
John Zhaoying: There's a level, though ...
John Zhaoying: ... at which, at first blush, you'd think corporations in SL would _fear_ that.
Znetlady Ibell: lol
John Zhaoying: That's a hard system to game, right?
Csven Concord: And you haven't had the kind of *polite* feedback which other search engines received?
Diva Canto: yes, very hard
Diva Canto: hard to game
Diva Canto: oh...
Diva Canto: actually, the amount of complaints has been really really low
John Zhaoying: But in another sense, they shouldn't. Because (I guess) the search would inevitably be weighted heavily to the picks of the most prolific builders, all of whom are metaverse developers, mostly in the employ (direct or indirect) of corporations.
Diva Canto: some people have contacted me, sometimes very annoyed. I simply do whatever they want
Diva Canto: if they want me to delist their products, I do that in a couple of hours
Diva Canto: so, it has been a relatively smooth ride
Znetlady Isbell: so, basically though it is weighted against a newcomer or less frequent builder?
Brander Heron: What's the rationale for a delist?
Diva Canto: yes
Diva Canto: only if people ask to be delisted
Brander Heron: What reason do they provide, I mean?
Diva Canto: oh, they have all sorts of fears
Csven Concord: What about the freebies? They're sometimes everywhere.
Rissa Maidstone: Diva, Znetlady, thank you, this has been great. Must go get ready for our noon event with the Sci-Fi Writer coming in.
Diva Canto: some people think that our bots are copybots
Diva Canto: other have fears about other people stealing their texture
Csven Concord: (which they might have stolen)
Znetlady Isbell: lol
Brander Heron: Indeed.
Znetlady Isbell: Where can we get the HUD?
Znetlady Isbell: Is it all over SL?
Diva Canto: oh, there's a HUD-giver downstairs near the other guideway
Diva Canto: but you can also use it on a web browser AND...
Diva Canto: you can hook it up to the search window in the SL viewer!
Diva Canto: Here, if you;re interested: http://metaverseinik.com/OpenSearch
Diva Canto: it's really great to be able to use 2 search engines in world
Brandon Catteneo: Link didn't work
Diva Canto: oh sorry
Diva Canto: http://metaverseink.com/OpenSearch
Brandon Catteneo: OK, got it ty :)
Znetlady Isbell: Has LL had any input on the SE?
Diva Canto: well....
Diva Canto: yes and no
Diva Canto: they know about it very well
Diva Canto: but officially they ignore it, because they don't really know what to do of it :-)
Znetlady Isbell: :-)
Diva Canto: we don't make waves eithers
Brandon Catteneo: I think they are realistic about this platform becoming more and more open
Diva Canto: so far, we've been focusing on figuring out how to do google-like search in virtual worlds
Csven Concord: How will you deal with Hetgrid?
Diva Canto: our search technology will scale to OpenSims
Znetlady Isbell: It does not search groups - only locations and objects, right?
Diva Canto: right -- we stay away from Linden Lab's person-related DBs
Znetlady Isbell: of course..
Brandon Catteneo: Is it able to crawl 100% of the Grid?
Diva Canto: it doesn't go into protected sims
Brandon Catteneo: (other than closed sims)
Diva Canto: but other than that, the bots go everywhere
Diva Canto: about 13,000
Diva Canto: bots are really fun
Brandon Catteneo: I mean, has it been successful in doing so wiht lag and all?
Diva Canto: yep
Brandon Catteneo: Cool
Diva Canto: I mean, there are failures here and there
Diva Canto: but overall, it collects most of the information
Diva Canto: it's not 100% deterministic, but it works relaly well
Znetlady Isbell: We should probably wrap up.
Diva Canto: yep -- I need to go to a class
Znetlady Isbell: Thanks so much, Diva!
Brandon Catteneo: The reason I ask is that more lag may cause lower results, so some vendors would be disadvantaged unless they get their stuff out of laggy sims
Diva Canto: thank you for inviting me!
Znetlady Isbell: This has been fascinating.
iAlja Writer: thanks Diva, very informative!
Brandon Catteneo: OK, Diva, thanks a lot
Butch Dae: Thanks.
IYan Writer: this was very interesting, thank you Diva
Znetlady Isbell: I will follow up with Unimodal and perhaps we can have them come into SL a well.
Diva Canto: thank you all. Feel free to contact me
Csven Concord: Enjoyed this. Thanks. Appreciate your time, Diva.
Farley Scarborough: Yes, thanks so much.
Post Wylie: Thanks, Diva.....well done!
Znetlady: Thanks, everyone.
Diva Canto: bye all!
February 5, 2008
Now that 2007 has passed, we may be stepping into the “slope of enlightenment” on the Gartner Hype Cycle as far as Second Life – indeed virtual worlds – is concerned.
As we entered Q3 of last year, the media launched into their predictable backlash against Second Life after they had wrung their fun out of hyping it. But as we turn our calendars into 2008, it seems the self-replicating media echoes of the much-touted “marketing failures” is losing its attraction. Even the silly references in massive media reports to all things provocateur are fairly limited these days.
Of course, it helps that the activity in and around virtual worlds as an “industry” is accelerating ever more rapidly. In addition, enterprise experimentation with them has reached a point where some of those high-profile, cutting edge enterprises are now going more public with their otherwise quiet initiatives. And, the technological commitments by the likes of IBM, Sun, Cisco and other large technology, entertainment and media companies fuels the “let’s get serious” attitude that is almost palatable now.
In just the past week, I’ve found several rather sensible media stories in my news reader that hopefully reflect a coming media era of more widespread knowledge and discussion of the applications of virtual worlds. There is plenty of deep discussion going on in sectors other than the press, but let’s face it, mainstream perceptions are [still] largely influenced by mainstream media. So, here’s a sampling in case you’d like to peruse:
Virtual World Workforce, Part 1: Promising the World
Virtual World Workforce Part 2: Real-Life Pitfalls
By the way, TechNews World has a very nice ongoing series on virtual worlds of which these two articles above are a part.
Businesses look to online world Second Life to create virtual enterprise.
Asperger’s Therapy Hit Second Life
Pixelanthropy: Charities tap into Second Life
NASA investigates virtual space
On a related note, Shel Holtz in the Hobson and Holtz For Immediate Release podcast interviewed Forrester’s Erica Driver, Principal Analyst and co-author of the recently released Forrester report, Getting Real Work Done In Virtual Worlds. Nothing new and pretty fundamental for those of you already familiar with virtual worlds, but the interview provides a nice overview of what Forrester’s report covers relative to “real work” being done in immersive 3D spaces. You can listen to the 30-minute podcast here.
Image via Wikipedia
January 21, 2008
The World Economic Forum held each year in Davos, Switzerland will again be accessible, at least in part, to Second Life visitors and residents. Reuters reports they will be there interviewing several business leaders from Davos next week, January 23 - 27.
I haven't found information as yet on any panel sessions that may be streamed into SL or on the web, although rumors are afloat. The WEF blogs page has a note in the sidebar: "watch the discussions in Second Life" which links Reuters' SL coverage page.
This year the Forum theme is "The Power of Collaborative Innovation" within five concept "pillars:"
Business
Competing While Collaborating
Economics and Finance
Addressing Economic Insecurity
Geopolitics
Aligning Interests across Divides
Science and Technology
Exploring Nature’s New Frontiers
Values and Society
Understanding Future Shifts
These topics will hopefully reach the broader ears of leaders and trigger discussions in every sector - but admitedly collaboration + innovation happens to be a topic in which I am fully immersed in business and for an upcoming publication.
The blindingly rapid shifting market and civic power basis due to collaborative behaviors, expectations and technologies make it imperative that global communities begin to rethink and remodel themselves within that very context in order to successfully address global challenges.
The pre-Davos press conference addressed how the WEF program of 240+ sessions embraced its own theme by tapping into more than 1000 people and organization in shaping this year's program. The Davos Question initiative using YouTube is inviting questions for discussion (and voting on them) from the global community.
In addition, two new WEF collaborative projects will be launched during this Forum. The first is WELCOM (World Electronic Community), which is a platform to extend Davos discussion into virtual space - "a virtual Davos" in the words of Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum. And the second is a "global agenda council" - a series of panels each with 15-25 key experts who will collaborate on 100 issues WEF has identified for collaborataive discussion.
You can get more information on all aspects of WEF 2008 here.
A pre-Davos press conference is available on YouTube here.
You can submit your question or suggestion on the Davos YouTube channel here.
Watch the Reuters SL page for its schedule of interviews from Davos.
January 16, 2008
Conventional wisdom (and big media) would have us believe that using copyrighted material in today’s consumer generated media is just plain illegal – end of story.
Well, not so fast. While some are strong-arming social online sites to remove consumer media for copyright violation, a good percentage of that CGM may very well be legal under the doctrine of “fair use.”
An engrossing study, Recut, Reframe Recycle, just released by the Center for Social Media at American University points to a wide variety of consumer activities that are actively incorporating copyrighted material – and it highlights how in many cases these are perfectly legal and can be considered “fair use.”
“Fair use” is the right to legally use copyrighted material under certain circumstances, and more broadly, according to the study, when the value to society is greater than the value to the copyright holder.
The study authors Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi categorize our collective CGM activities into: satire, parody, negative commentary, positive commentary, discussion-triggers, illustration, diaries, archiving and remixes and mashups.
In essence, Auferheide and Jaszi illustrate, through the lens of online video making, that new “consumer maker” online activities are often “quoting” copyrighted material to create new pieces of popular culture, which falls under the “transformative” definitions of fair use.
One of the most salient points in the study is that fair use is not something written in the stone tablets of copyright law. That it necessarily evolves in concert with our culture:
“The provisions of the Copyright Act codifying fair use were intentionally made non-specific, in an acknowledgment of the constantly changing state of cultural production.”
I’m not a lawyer, but I have to believe these same ‘transformative” and “cultural production” concepts might apply equally, if not almost more persuasively in MUVEs. Virtual worlds like Second Life are cultural production down to the very core and that norms there could push "fair use" into new interpretations.
I’d be most interested if Benjamin Duranske over at VirtuallyBlind and other IP experts would weigh in on the study and comment on its application to virtual world CGM production.
Most importantly, the study warns that our emerging participatory media culture is at serious risk with current industry practices - including the sites that comply unquestioned - aimed at shutting down what may be fair use consumer activities in the name of piracy control:
“Legal as well as illegal copying could all too easily disappear. Worse still, a new generation of media makers could grow up with a deformed and truncated notion of their rights as creators.”
Know your rights as a "maker." (2 links)
To protect the hands, attention, and minds that feed them, content creators need to examine ways to adapt to IP in a shifting media culture.
The Recut, Reframe Recycle PDF and web page include a list of the researchers' top five videos. The Center for Social Media has posted a video, titled Remix Culture (3.5 minutes) that is itself a mashup of "unauthorized" material, hoping to stimulate conversation on their blog. The video is also downloadable.
January 5, 2008
"...the house will become a place where you are - even when you’re not there." --Syd Mead
Syd Mead, award-winning visual futurist, industrial designer and artist treated us yesterday via National Public Radio to a rather fun and sometimes slightly disturbing peak into our near future. Mead consults with companies helping them to design entertainment, environments and products based on his legenary future-vision. He designed the scientific worlds of StarTrek, Bladerunner and Tron; the interior of King Fah’d’s private 747; and the 360-degree format Jules Verne time tour for EuroDisney, to name a few Mead projects.
Luckily you can listen to the full 7.5 minute segment at All Things Considered, but a couple of things are just too fun not to share here.
Mead was asked about the future of transportation – enter mainstream holography:
Mr. MEAD: "The future of travel involves getting there either physically or by electronic means of duplication. And as we perfect the whole art of holography, you will find that a lot of human contact, face-to-face, will be accomplished by telemedia, duplicating the person, much like portrayed in “Star Wars” when Princess Leia appears on his little, tiny holographic figure. And it’s reality reduced and then recreated at destination, and it’s very valid."
Mead guesses mainstream holography is less than 15 years away, but says it has been proven through technical history that we “always estimate too conservatively.”
I have to admit, it was this one that really caught my attention - a new service model?:
Mr. MEAD: "Bill Gates is housed up in Redmond. He is buying the rights to some of the world’s best known paintings. So you will rent the picture on your wide-screen or your wall-screen. You’ll rent “Pinkie” or “The Blue Boy” or a Degas or a Rubens. And you’ll rent that picture on your wall on your screen for a certain length of time, just like cable TV."
Mead mentions fabrics that will instantly change colors and patterns, and tells us that Mercedes is working on automobile colors that will change on demand through shifts in light refraction.
It all sounds just a little like my current Second Life.
Hear the All Things Considered segment here.
You can purchase the transcript here.
January 2, 2008
It took me some digging to put all the pieces together, but this is just too fascinating not to have made the effort.
Without a doubt Second Life is helping companies innovate products and processes - even though 2007 mainstream media was seemingly all about SL marketing efforts. Often such innovation is being done inside organizations that are quietly tapping the collaborative, cost-saving virtuality of it all. But Double Happiness Jeans is a public and shining example of the innovation potential of Second Life. This is product innovation, design innovation, process innovation, business model innovation - and perhaps much more lying just below the surface.
Double Happiness Jeans are real world custom-made jeans that are "manufactured" virtually – and then delivered to your local Kinkos or Double Happiness Jeans express store location. The jeans are the product of the Invisible Threads, project that explores telematic
manufacturing through Second Life.
The project is virtually replicating a RL assembly-line manufacturing facility, with ten manufacturing stations each correlating to a specification of the custom jean order. The physical “just in time” inventory system allows customers to place an order for one of several styles of jeans with a live factory representative at a terminal. The process then enters Second Life.
Customers can watch their jeans being created in real time in the virtual factory via projection screens. At the end of the manufacturing process the jeans are output on Tyvek material to a large-format printer in physical space. With simple assembly the jeans are ready to
wear. The manufacturing process takes about 20 minutes.
Double Happiness Jeans is employing an “indentured servitude” model for its SL workers. Workers will be given land (and Lindens) in exchange for their factory service over three months’ time, emphasizing the relationship of the exchange of real world dollars for virtual assets.
From the Invisible Threads web page:
"At the start of each workday, workers will need to clock-in. The worker will then be assigned to a specific department and workstation and given a specialized task to perform. Just as in a real life factory, workers will be monitored by a department supervisor and be held accountable for their speed and efficiency and any production errors. The erratic flow of supply and demand and extenuating circumstances such as equipment failures and irrational dispositions may result in docked pay, layoffs and overtime."
Project collaborators and Double Happiness Jeans co-owners, Dr. Stephanie Rothenberg and Jeffrey Crouse of Eyebeam also hope to shed light on the politics of outsourced labor and the role of “play” in cultural production, according to Adam Elenbass over at Reality Sandwich.
The project will have a special debut at the Sundance Film Festival in the New Frontier Theater on Main Street in Park City, Utah January 17 – 27. On-site sales staff in Park City will help you customize your jeans, or you may order your jeans on the web site through February 2008.
Double Happiness is currently hiring and training SL factory workers. Check out their promotional video.
Eyebeam is supporting the project on their Second Life Island, and the profits from the project will be used to maintain the project and pay factory workers.
Double Happiness Jeans is located in SL here: secondlife://Eyebeam%20Island/204/43/27.
Questions come to mind:
How might this disrupt the clothing manufacturing industry?
How might this open up unseen revenue opportunities for Kinkos?
What new businesses might develop to “receive” in the physical world that which was “manufactured” in virtual space?
Might this potentially impact equipment manufacturers in the future?
Edward Castronova’s book Exodus into the Virtual World dicusses the possible impacts on the economy when segments of the population are spending time and energy producing in virtual economies rather than real ones. How might such virtual telematic workers impact economies, labor, laws, society?
Are you at least considering how practical virtuality might impact your business?
Is SL really just some cartoon interface?
December 31, 2007
IBM Metaverse Evangelist, Roo Reyonlds, has posted his excellent presentation, Enterprise 3D: Living and Working in Virtual Worlds, delivered this week at Online Information 2007 in London.
Roo discusses the internal virtual world IBM is building for its eventual use by 300,000 employees in the context of the importance of social networking in the enterprise.
Favorite concept: WoW (and virtual worlds) is the new golf, with structured rules, funny clothes, and almost entirely for socializing and conducting and brokering business.
His remarks harken back to my previous post... here is a snapshot of Roo’s desktop (from his presentation) that beautifully illustrates my point about distributed virtuality:
Case in point: The "avatar" is the most valuable asset in the cosmos.
December 8, 2007
Yesterday Gartner Finland released their predictions to retailers about emerging shopping habits and venues. These are actually not so much predictions as a “heads-up display” of what is already happening.
By 2010, says Gartner, 20% of global Tier 1 retailers will have some kind of marketing presence in virtual worlds and online games. This isn’t surprising considering Gartner’s 2007 Emerging Trends report from their April Symposium predicted 80% of active Internet users and Fortune 500 enterprises will have virtual world presences by 2011. And, with virtual worlds on track with Moore’s law of doubling every 24 months, it is no big stretch of the imagination that retailers are riding the wave.
Networks are a Channel and a Place
No matter what lens you look through, 2007 saw an enormous embrace by organizations of “virtuality,” from social networks to Second Life. The various different types of virtuality (2D and 3D) which organizations are trying to get their heads around are simply mashing up into an information and social space. Soon we won’t be making distinctions among the technologies used to facilitate these spaces.
And shopping certainly isn’t waiting around.
Brookstone launched their Kinset store for this year's holiday shopping season.
Social shopping networks like Kaboodle, ThisNext and Stylehive were built as ‘visual’ social sites, socially bookmarking through images rather than text. Stylehive is now offering “Nectar Hives” allowing retailers to "snap in" social shopping communities around their brands.
H&M set up shop in SimCity (video link), and have launched their initiative at My Virtual Model, also distributing it to Facebook.
Of course, Sears and Circuit City are experimenting with virtual-to-real retail via IBM in Second Life; and in-game advertising and product placement is old news.
Gartner encourages retailers to expand their definition of customer touchpoints to online games and virtual worlds – and cites the mobile shopping web as a big growth opportunity, as well.
The important point in all this is this: it is not about the virtual “place.” Like everything else today, the shopping opportunity lies with the avatar.
See Gartner’s press release here.
See Kinset’s 3D shoppping videos here.
December 8, 2007
SL Avatar Name: ZnetLady Isbell
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