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Virtual worlds and blended reality
Foresight Vision Weekend November 3-4, 2007 Melanie Swan MS Futures Group m@melanieswan.com www.melanieswan.com Photo credit: www.ewels.info
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Summary, virtual worlds… have become routine as a platform for human activity like other newtech, are complementary and category defining exemplify increased visual data, interactivity and blended reality trend are not new, but are more likely to persist this time
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Agenda Metaverse overview and roadmap review Virtual worlds Second Life Demographics Activities Governance Economy Advanced applications LIVE DEMO: UK National Physical Laboratory’s Nanotechnology Island sim in Second Life
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Metaverse overview Demand for streaming video, data visualization and 3D data display Detailed capture of reality Geospatialization Life capture Augmented reality Simulation Persistent virtual worlds Fab labs, 3D printing Virtual reality 2.0 Mixed reality, blended reality
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Metaverse roadmap: pathways to the 3D web Metaverse Roadmap Summit, SRI, May 2006 A synthesis of survey questions into narratives Industry conditions Forecasts Issues and questions Problems and indicators Does not include collaborative identification of problems, solutions and key milestones Sources: http://metaverseroadmap.org
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Virtual worlds Definition: 3D online persistent world with a sense of presence and simultaneous experience in context Examples (over 30 worlds): Second Life ActiveWorlds Entropia Universe There MultiVerse Vast Park Metaplace Club Penguin (pre-teen) WebKins (pre-teen) Source: http://www.virtualworldsreview.com
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Game World Virtual world vs. MMORPG Source: Liana Holmberg, Linden Lab
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Second Life is the biggest virtual world 40,000 concurrency (at any time) 450,000 active users (last 7 days) 1.4 m active users (last 2 months) 10.6 m total accounts 2 m assets created per day 35 TB of user-created data 800,000 unique items sold or traded per month 500 events per day 15 m concurrent scripts 10 Gbps peak bandwidth Source: http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy-graphs.php Million Square Meters of Second Life Land Total User Hours (millions) Source: Linden Lab
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Diverse Second Life residents 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 18-24 25-34 35-44 45+ 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 18-24 25-34 35-44 45+ 43% female 60% international Top 5 countries: US, Germany, Brazil, Japan, UK Source: http://static.secondlife.com/economy/stats_200710.xls Resident market share by age tier Average monthly hours by age tier %
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Entertainment Rezzable.com “The Greenies” Rezzable.com “Black Swan” Showtime “The L Word” MTV “Virtual Laguna Beach” NBC “The Office” CBS “CSI NY” Traditional brands come in-world Rise of virtual world brands Scarlett JohanssonHBO
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Business Motorati SpokesAvatar: caLLie cLine H&R Block IBM Dr. Dobbs Life 2.0 Conference Cisco Best Buy’s Geek Squad Preen Principal: Aimee Weber Preen
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Academia, museums, non-profits Princeton Art Gallery Science Friday International Spaceflight Museum Computer History Museum American Cancer Society Relay for Life
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Government, politics and collective action US Congress European Community US Congress – hot topic legislation Campaign HQs Davos protest
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People come to Second Life to… Interact, enjoy, experience, relax, explore, entertain, earn Collaborate, recruit, conduct business Build, create, prototype, model, simulate, test Learn, teach, demonstrate Examples U Denver has a $250,000 grant to build a nuclear reactor in-world IBM spending $100 m on virtual worlds, $10 m in SL Nanorobics – a medium intensity chair-based workout New Babbage - a "steampunk" community 7 page list of science places in SL City of Arcadia CA Water Treatment Plant, Etopia Sim Second Health Operating Theatre, SciLands Sim
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Interact
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Build objects and structures
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Design neighborhoods and sims Second Health, SciLands Sim 34 island multinational cross-disciplinary SciLands science complex Dublin
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Learn and collaborate
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Have fun
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Relax
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Imitate life
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Be a virtual tourist
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Technical details Linden Scripting Language (LSL) Event-driven and states, not object oriented Havok 4 physics engine Primitives, assets and lag Open-source initiatives Client exists Server TBA Standards and portability Security Griefer attack Open standards information: http://opensimulator.org, https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Architecture_Working_Group Linden Scripting Language
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Legal issues Key rules Terms of Service Agreement Community Standards Privacy Policy DMCA Policy Recent cases Eros, LLC v. Doe (pending) • Copyright infringement, rollback copies, 50 copies sold for ~$2,250 total Marc Bragg v. Linden Lab (settled Oct 2007) • Unfair land acquisition through landbots (~$8,000)
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Self-governance Land covenants Self-governing Sims Confederation of Democratic Simulators (CDS), est. 2004 • Constitution and Code of Law • Sims: Neufreistadt and Colonia Nova Metaverse Republic, est. 2007 • Judiciary, parliament, executive Sources: http://slcds.info, http://neufreistadt.info, http://neufreistadt.info/id25.html (Constitution), http://colonianova.wordpress.com, gwynethllewelyn.net, http://www.metaverserepublic.org
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Currency: Linden$ Monetary policy LindeX exchange operated by Linden Lab Buy: USD $.30 transaction fee Sell: 3.5% transaction fee Sources: http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy-market.php, http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy-graphs.php, http://secondlife.reuters.com 270 L$ = $1 USD US$ Spent by Users (in Millions) US $ Exchanged on Lindex (in Millions)
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Economy Reuters Banks Stock markets SL Capital Exchange (US, 20 listings) World Stock Exchange (Australia, 15 listings) VSTEX (Italy, 7 listings) Ancapex (US, 3 listings) Financial exchange platforms Tax Source: http://secondlife.reuters.com
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Land can be purchased or leased Purchase raw land via auction or resident-developed land Premium membership required ($9.95/mo) USD $13 / $5 monthly for 512 m USD $1,675 / $295 monthly for 65,536 square meter island Rent resident-developed land Source: http://www.secondlife.com 200720052003 Available plots Available island areas
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Advanced: use of scale Genetic structure Dell XPS Carbon nanotube
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Advanced data apps Tools: HUD, BlogHud, scripted objects Greeter Bots, Landbots Dynamic Internet data displays GeoGlobe Urban planning mashup: Brooklyn Greeter Bot
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Advanced data apps Real-time LAX airport traffic Molecular rezzer Real-time NOAA weather data Babel Fish chat translator
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Advanced data apps Eolus real-time monitoring Svarga Artificial Life Ecosystem Visual representation of identity information Intelligent pets Artificial intelligence, artificial life Genetic algorithms
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Virtual worlds: emerging so far Step 1: Replicate the physical world Step 2: Diverge, experiment, extend Identity porosity and exploration Visual homogeneity: avatar and object New forms of communication, collaboration emerging Mainstream social reaction Different and offensive compared with other leisure activities Save travel expenses vs. electricity consumption
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Virtual worlds: what’s next? More activity Worlds, participants, hours, content • 1990s: website • 2000s: sim presence Interactive entertainment More structure Open source initiatives Security, legal, economic initiatives More tools Search, directories Uniquely identified objects Geotagged photos Virtual world archiving
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Summary, virtual worlds… have become routine as a platform for human activity like other newtech, are complementary and category defining exemplify increased visual data, interactivity and blended reality trend are not new, but are more likely to persist this time
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Thank you Melanie Swan MS
Futures Group m@melanieswan.com www.melanieswan.com Slides: http//www.melanieswan.com/presentations Virtual Worlds Provided under an open source Creative Commons 3.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ Photo credit: www.ewels.info
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Resources Getting started in Second Life http://sl.nmc.org/wiki/Getting_Started Second Life SLURL Directories http://nbhorizons.com/list.htm (companies) http://npsl.wikispaces.com/Tenant+Directory (non-profit commons) http://edumuve.com/tour/ (international locations) Event listings http://secondlife.com/events http://nanoisland.wordpress.com (re: Second Life Nano Sim) http://www.nanodave.com (re: Second Life Nano Sim leader) News, blogs, etc. http://secondlife.reuters.com/ http://www.virtualworldsreview.com/ http://pollywogpress.com/ http://www.metaversemessenger.com/
51, 51, 153
MORE Interactivity – chat, feedback, entertainment, object creation, documentation, machinima, play
Early stage, not a lot that is novel, but more activity, people, apps & traffic than before so less of a fad
blended reality – the physical mixed with the virtual
YouTube: 6% Comcast traffic, slowing Pac I’net traffic, each minute 6 hours video uploaded; complementary platform, new category defined and coexisting, user-gen content, citizen journalizm; promotional platform for traditional media
are not new, OVERHYPED, but are more likely to stick this time
VW umbrella 3D & virtual technologies
We have lots of data, bandwidth and graphics processing which has created the capability and demand for streaming video, data visualization and 2D and 3D data display and real-time manipulation.
Visual component to every activity
Traditional data vis and simulation
3D Geoweb, geospatialization: Google Earth, Nasa World Wind, GPS, google maps
Satellite and aerial imagery as the base layer to many apps
DOL: geospatial science = one of the three fastest growing job areas this decade
Life capture, life logging, presence management
Simulation for prototyping and testing is becoming standard in more areas
Augmented reality overlays are aiding physical world navigation.
The converse is also true, an increasingly detailed capture of physical reality with geospatial data and lifelogging is enhancing knowledge and simulation inputs.
Simulation and digital experience may be realized through social or private virtual worlds. The number of virtual worlds has been growing and Second Life is one of the best known with over 10m resident registrations and an economy in excess of $1m USD per day. Individuals and organizations are using virtual worlds to interact, collaborate, create avatars, objects and virtual offices and homes and have fun. Here is an example of bringing Internet data into Second Life, a simulation with real-time air traffic data from LAX.
The next generation of virtual reality could involve more senses like touch, taste and smell, here is the video game Wild Divine where you need to be mentally relaxed enough to move up levels as measured by a biofeedback device.
A broad theme here is the blending and fluidity of reality; the physical, virtual and augmented.
Visual data platforms
We have lots of data, bandwidth and graphics processing which has created the capability and demand for streaming video, data visualization and 2D and 3D data display and real-time manipulation in all areas of life
Increasing demand for data display visually and in 3D, already seen in ubiquity of streaming video
3rd annual American Cancer Society Relay For Life - $90,000 raised – 40 teams
Video games (9m World of Warcraft players), Second Life (9 million residents 40,000 concurrency, $1m daily economy)
Science 2.0 – simulation replaces experiment, hypothesis post-facto
BCI – brain computer interface with SL; headpiece with electrodes sensing motor cortex movement; think about walking
Geospatialization of data, Google earth KML, nasa world view, VIS demand; aug reality
Virtual reality 2.0: more immersive, incorporating biofeedback, touch, taste, smell
Aren’t distinct – blended
Presence management
Doesn’t have cohesive directionality
Interesting, not a tool; doesn’t id prob, solutions & milestones, is not collaborative, no community buy-in
near-term 2017 (10 years) longer-term 2025 (20 years)
No specific milestones; rather a synthesis into narratives of “inputs”
Inputs = 22 survey questions (2005) 30/50 summit attendee responses and 115-136 web respondents
Early indicators of significant developments ahead (none?)
Distinct scenarios when overlap is more likely
Survey questions responded to individually; no facilitated collaboration to coordinated results, collective goals agreed upon together; no calling out of the problems, no standards body, no identification of possible solutions by incremental and evolutionary R&D steps, no consolidated predictions on one calendar.
Public or private worlds
ActiveWorlds (supports 400 concurrent av present & chat; private label world platform; 47,000 active in their demo world; Tourist, Citizen, World Owner; can be accessed from FB (TEST VIA MOBILE)
Entropia Universe – swedish, 360,000 residents, MM virtual universe, own economy, sold banking licenses to RL banks
In Aug, Disney acquired Club Penguin for $700m
Not MMORPGs because open-ended, no universal goals
MMORPG examples: World of Warcraft, Ultima Online, Star Wars
Games have structure, beginnings and endings, Second Life does not. There are many games within Second Life, but the platform and reason for being there is not the game. It’s about the community and knowledge that on the other side of every avatar is another human being.
Another difference is that the content in games is created by large teams of developers and “consumed” by the customers. In Second Life, the customer creates all of the content and shares it with others in a variety of ways.
SL: the world SL grid: the underlying platform
Create an avatar, a visual representation of your presence. This is how you will appear to others in the world.
Who uses the virtual world? Ordinary people
Context re: TV hrs/month
In addition to individuals, there are organizations of every type in SL, the biggest is entertainment
Reality blend: Exclusively virtual world & Physical world organizations
CSI NY: 400 Sims (4 x 100), The Office, Law and Order
The L Word
MTV’s Virtual Laguna Beach
Rezzable
Again two main groups: RL enterprise entering SL; rise of SL brands, ‘local’ retail
Lots of press re: business & VW; Coke example
Paramount: strategy development. All feel like need to have a presence but have no idea re: appropriate strategies for the medium and don’t want to fail esp. publicly
Branding
Commerce: $1m USD/day economy; land, virtual goods (esp. av-related) and services
COMPANIES: reach new customers in new ways
exclusively in-world entrepreneurial efforts (Preen); RL cos. coming in to VW, engage in commerce; split commerce into more supplementary constituent parts
Demographics - registration
Over 1000 universities with presence; 700 av conf may 2007;
Extension of existing eLearning mechanisms, Conf w. 700 attendees
Non-profit commons hosting 50 organizations, Relay for Life raised ~$90K in its 3rd year
PhD research and collaboration
Information, education, campaigning
UN tight security
Individuals and organizations are using virtual worlds
nanorobics is a medium intensity low impact workout designed just for second lifers. sit in your comfy computer chair and spend 30 minutes working the muscle groups most affected (or ignored) by persistent computer usage.
http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2007/03/27/amsterdam-sold-for-us50000/
Over 1000 universities with presence; 700 av conf may 2007; many delivering content via SL
Classes only offered in-world; entrepreneurs, home schooling, SL-related (building, scripting)
Multi-channel communication
LSL syntax sim to C
Prim 3d object
Os – portable id and inv; transactions; platform stability
LSL Desired development: html on a prim
The OS Grid is one of several that run the reverse-engineered (but Linden-approved) Open Grid Services / OpenSim software suite. Each has a different goal, but OS Grid is strongly encouraging the creation of a completely free environment, and want to establish a foundation to draw resources (financial and human) to support a free, costless, Second Life-compatible grid.
OpenSim is a BSD Licensed Open Source project to develop a functioning virtual worlds server platform capable of supporting multiple clients and servers in a heterogeneous grid structure. OpenSim is written in C#, and can run under Mono or the Microsoft .NET runtimes.
http://opensimulator.org
Security: both re: org access (Cisco FW hygiene white paper) and in-world griefer attack; ban
http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2007/10/25/eros-lawyers-id-john-doe-avatar-youth-denies-hes-catteneo/
Robert Leatherwood, 19, of North Richland Hills, Tx., as Second Life avatar “Volkov Catteneo.”
Sold 50 copies illegally obtained of Stroker Serpentine’s EROS LLC SexGen bed with 150 sex animations (L$12,000; USD $45
Alderman’s team subpoenaed Linden Lab and PayPal for Catteneo’s Internet Protocol addresses, and then subpoenaed Internet service providers AT&T and Charter Communications to determine the real-world billing addresses associated with the IP information.
Taney, lawyer for Alderman. He said Leatherwood has 20 days to reach a settlement agreement, or he’ll move forward with discovery, where legal depositions will be collected from members of the two households that Catteneo’s IP addresses trace to.
Linden Lab ejected Bragg from Second Life after he allegedly used an exploit in the real estate auction system to purchase land below market value, and Bragg sued in response. The case recently settled out of court. Terms were not disclosed. LL’s TOS ruled not legally binding. 5 land bots currently operating.
In addition to the Linden Lab ToS and community standards which impact all of Second Life, user communities are evolving a variety of levels of self-governance
Legal system that would help enforce wage contracts or intellectual property claims. Disputes about land use could also be handled with real powers of enforcement, and the help of several real-life lawyers working in Second Life.
Simple/supermajority. The Confederation of Democratic Simulators (CDS) is the only self-governed region in SL. It has its own democratically elected government and judiciary. By becoming a citizen — all it requires is for you to buy a parcel in the land! — you have a vote and are able to be elected for government.
Regions in the CDS are differently themed, but the same Constitution and Code of Law applies. It can be changed by any citizen; all it requires is to pass a bill at the Representative Assembly And any citizen is entitled to participate in that process.
The judiciary also works to settle disputes — under a fair and impartial system where you have always the option to appeal. All this is possible because inside the CDS things can be enforced.
Colonia Nova, a Roman-themed sim, also under the same democratic government of the CDS.
Working backwards, under Article 1, Sec. 2 of the Constitution, we find ourselves obliged to begin a new term of the Representative Assembly biannually. Such terms last six months, beginning on February 1st and August 1st of each year. In order to seat this new Assembly, we have to somehow elect them. Art, 1, Sec. 2 thoughtfully requires us to hold open the polls for a 168 hour period somewhere in the middle of January and July, which complicated verbiage setting the date, along with a provision to extend the time period should the grid go down for more than 12 hours. This was done to enable a long period of time to ensure RL doesn't impede one's ability to vote.
The upcoming election period shall run from noon on Saturday, July 14th to noon on Saturday, July 21st.
How many seats are available? We don’t know. NL 5-17 sets the number. The number of seats in the RA shall be based upon the number of citizens as of the deadline for voting in the election that will elect that RA (per Article V) or the number of citizens as of the date the polls open in the aforementioned election, whichever is greater. So, we won’t know till July 14th how many seats are open. However, we suspect the number will be seven, we would need to have 91 citizens by July 14th to add another seat and we don’t have that much land available at present.
The only tool is monetary policy
http://www.benchmark.com/news/sv/2006/10_16_2006.php
Banks been around 3 yrs; mostly failed or reorganized; related to casino gambling
My Second Bank.com
“Unable to pay depositors, Ginko ceases banking operations”
The bank, which as of last week claimed to have 18,000 accounts worth a total of L$190 million (US$700,000), said it would issue what it called a “Ginko Perpetual Bonds,” a security on the World Stock Exchange, in an attempt to compensate depositors.
A gambling ban, insider theft at the World Stock Exchange and a bank run on Ginko Financial within the past week have combined to threaten confidence in the integrity of the Second Life financial sector.
Financial exchange platforms
Anshe Chung: Second Life, Entropia exchange
Stock markets
Completely unregulated
Nothing qualifying SL stocks for a registration exemption
Accounting, valuation and tax issues
1099 issue, depreciation (software, website precedents)
Land & RE market: 75 yr / 6 mo; 5000 yr / 450 mo; 13/mo = 150 /yr
Additional options: last name (e.g.; CiscoSystems)
Reserved; moved to eBay enabled auction system mid-Sept 3 mo grace period then reservations lapse
Island is about 16 acres
HUD used to provide location-based information dynamically
AL experiment on Svarga, where a complete ecology runs autonomously including clouds, rain, trees, sunshine, bees, birds, trees, flowers
Pets, behavior from environmental cues; code passed out of SL to a predictor
Eolus (yo-luss) swiss construction firm; integrated with SAP, RT monitoring of energy use and other factors
David Ourban – GP
avatars as online agents
Id: avie is diff, alts
Brown - avies all look the same – enhancement precedent
Mainstream social reaction
Somehow different and deeply offensive compared with other leisure activities, an implicit personal rejection
Save travel expenses vs. electricity consumption
Somewhere to go to be entertained for 30 minutes
Attention economy: Attention transactions intensity not present in the industrial market money economy
MORE Interactivity – chat, feedback, entertainment, object creation, documentation, machinima, play
Early stage, not a lot that is novel, but more activity, people, apps & traffic than before so less of a fad
blended reality – the physical mixed with the virtual
YouTube: 6% Comcast traffic, slowing Pac I’net traffic, each minute 6 hours video uploaded; complementary platform, new category defined and coexisting, user-gen content, citizen journalizm; promotional platform for traditional media
are not new, OVERHYPED, but are more likely to stick this time
When a web development shop builds a website for the NY Times do they charge sales tax? No
