Second Life Future Salon

Second Life and Ideal World Get Rocket Boomed

It rains screaming Amanda Congdons as Second Life gets Rocketboomed with a thanks, jerry! (a nice little surprise present on my 24th birthday :-). The vlog episode features Pierce Portocarrero's interview with Nephilaine Protagonist for the Ideal World movie trailer. I left a comment saying we still need to hook them up with an SL correspondent. All as SLTV approaches...

Batten down the hatches!

FYI, I did a follow-up post on Egratz about an article yesterday in The Economist that casts doubt on the conventional wisdom that global warming is responsible for the increase in Cat. 4 and 5 hurricanes.

GoogleNet?

I just posted an entry over on Core's Software & Technology blog. Given all the posts here on the growth of Google, seems appropriate to point it out. Also note that the "other blog" mentioned in that post brings you right back here.

Katrina and entropy

On Egratz, I have posted some ruminations about entropy, hurricane Katrina and weather simulation supercomputers if you are interested. BTW, the amount of new information created each year in the world is almost equivalent to one complete download of World of Warcraft for every person on the face of the earth! If only they all had computers! :)

Brave New Virtual Worlds slides

Accelerating Change participants, click here to see my slides that were missing some pics in the print-outs. I'm obviously the only one at the ASF offices who uses a Mac ;-).

Avoiding A Short Shot

{Preface: I originally wrote this in June with the intention of submitting it to WorldChanging.com. This was prior to the Second Life Relay for Life event when I was giving some thought to the role technology - and virtual world simulations in particular - would play in our lives. Yesterday I posted an entry over on the Core "Software & Technology" blog that is relevant to the point I was making below. I don't know about the rest of you, but I can hardly wait to interact with some of the people mentioned in the article I reference in that entry. In any case, I had second thoughts about posting this long entry, but that article reminded me that it may still be worth posting. I hope my rambling, verbose style doesn't interfere too much with the message.}

Until recently I'd not closely followed developments in Product Life-cycle Management (PLM) software, even though as an industrial designer I'm very much involved in product development and use software created by a large PLM developer. However, a few recent press releases have snapped me quickly back to attention. It started with news of Dassault's acquisition of ABAQUS and ended with BusinessWeek's article on UGS's impressive software offerings (independently picked up and blogged by both Jerry and I). After the features and capabilities sank into my grey matter, I had a kind of mini-revelation: we're potentially on the verge of "something wonderful".

Not so long ago high-end 3D graphics of the kind those PLM programs are now leveraging was the exclusive domain of U.S. DOD military contracters and a relatively small clique of multi-nationals. It was cutting edge stuff. As recently as seven or eight years ago those of us using the tools could only dream of actually owning them. That is until videogames and the hardware necessary to power them tapped into the mass market and fueled their rapid development; the companies behind them developing so much market muscle they simply swallowed the old guard. As someone interested and involved in both product design and videogame/virtual world modding, I had perhaps a rather unique perspective observing two communities first colliding in competition and then merging.

As the saying goes, it's deja vu all over again. The situation is similar, I'm just observing now from a slightly different perspective... one which includes time interacting within Second Life. And this is what I see. On the one side are the well-heeled PLM software companies with their full spread of offerings, and on the other side are the relatively small virtual reality software companies hungry for success and eager to innovate. This looks familiar. And is there really any doubt of the eventual outcome? Is there any question that in the near future all the capabilities (and more) in the corporate arsenal will not find it's way into the toolbox of the average person? that what amounts to a collection of applications which links people for the primary purpose of creating and managing corporate "product" won't find it's way into every facet of our lives much in the same way iPods and blogs have become tools for everyone from goth kiddies to CEO's? I think there's little doubt that it will.

Comfortable in that prediction, let's forget about hardware and software. It may be fun, and those details may seem especially important to the engineer in me, but there's little doubt in my mind that those issues are becoming increasingly secondary. Truth is, it's taken this supposedly forward-thinking geek overly long to realize that social networking is the real prize now. Time for everyone to get on board... and here's why.

Imagine future PLM/virtual world/blog tools/social networking apps as a train - a public vehicle on which people from all walks of life come together to move forward toward a more-or-less common destination. Typically the media focuses on big stories like successful open source applications or gee-whiz technology; and the fun, sometimes unexpected ways people use these things. It's easy to package those stories for consumption. It's good business when there's so little good to report in today's world. As a result it feels to me a little like the train is still being viewed from a corporate news satellite. And not just by the broadcasters, but by most of us who tune in to their future vision of the world. But all they've really done is refocus their lens on the outside of the train (and you only have to read some of the poorly written articles on videogame and virtual world developments to get a sense of how underqualified some journalists are to report on these things). The truly interesting stories seem to me to be what's happening inside the passenger cabin - between the people.

At this point I want to shift to something seemingly unrelated (I like doing that sort of thing and I guarantee I will do it again). I want to apply the same kind of "history" regarding videocard technology as discussed earlier to social networking software. Now for all I know this exercise has been done, documented, discussed, and debated to death in academic circles about which I have no clue and/or to which I have no access. I'm no social networking guru. Truth is I barely leave my Second Life virtual plot of land. No matter. I'll assume this is new for some others out there.

Let's start by taking a look at the people in that passenger cabin (people using the new social software): the corporate executive using PLMware, the blue collar laborer playing team-based videogames, the student documenting their life on a blog, the drop-out connecting with other people via the latest web-based social app, the statistically-documented middle-class soccer mom running a virtual business in Second Life, etc ad nauseum. Wait a sec... to some degree, there's already a kind of "creative abrasion" taking place; the kind which Nissan Design Chief Jerry Hirshberg wrote of in his book "The Creative Priority" (and here's a nice article on how Mr. Hirshberg employs this method). And that's mostly a good thing. People communicating thoughts and ideas is important for everyone because even if we don't realize we're learning, we are. And it's happening in profound ways even if the mainstream media doesn't quite understand and communicate that aspect of the interactions taking place. But that's not the melting pot I'm now thinking about.

Shift again. The cool thing about having a gameboy-playing mother who's old enough to collect social security is that when I explain concepts like augmented reality and PLM software and rapid prototyping, I have to give relatively straightforward explanations (unlike this post), and have to search for everyday analogies. During a recent phone conversation, as I flailed about attempting to find analogies to teach her some geek concept related to all of the above (someone send her gifts for exhibiting patience above and beyond the call of motherly duty), two names came up in the conversation: Stephen Hawking and Steve Jobs. Amazingly to me, she wasn't entirely sure who they were. And in the course of talking about these two extraordinary individuals I realized that there were people entirely missing from her perception of the world. Shift back to that passenger cabin.

The significant juxtaposition isn't between those on the train; it's between "Us" and "Them" in a much broader context. There are people missing from our general perception of the world. Us being everyone actively involved in the world, and Them being all those who are, for whatever reason, excluded from actively engaging with the world. They're the poor, the disadvantaged, the challenged, the terminally ill... just to name a few. We need to get them on board. And this isn't a justification for giving charity, although that's the format in which it's often presented. In fact it's even smart business. Imagine how many brilliant minds are out there. Imagine how much those of us already on the train could learn from those still at the station; it doesn't have to be a one-way relationship (which I naively suggested in an earlier entry). There's the obvious: just one more Stephen Hawking would be an immeasurable find. But there's also the less obvious: like those who are confronting or have faced death who can remind us all (as Steve Jobs did recently) of something far more important than all the software and hardware and corporate product we engineer, manage, distribute and/or consume.

It's not about the hardware or software anymore. Let's not short shot this.

Brave New Virtual Worlds Presentation Slides v1.0 for Accelerating Change 2005

OK, just posted my slides for the Accelerating Change 2005 conference happening this weekend at Stanford University. I'll be hopping in and out between now and then, tweaking things, making notes and adding links for each slide, etc. so this is very much an open book for the next week. Please take a look and let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions. Hope you enjoy! (Click "Continue reading..." below for the slides, and click any slide to enlarge.)

Talk Title: Brave New Virtual Worlds

Abstract: User-created virtual worlds like Second Life are pioneering the media-rich 3D Web, as in Neal Stephenson's Metaverse. Searchable, interactive virtualizations of our planet, like Google Earth, are opening the geospatial Web as in David Gelernter's Mirror Worlds. As an introduction to our Explorations session I'll take a brief look at these emerging platforms, building up and tearing down some ideas about their short- and long-term potential.

Introduction

Greetings fellow futurists and Second Life citizens!  It's been a little over a week since Jerry invited me to join the roster of contributors for this blog, so I suppose it's about time that I introduce myself.  :)

Known inworld as Lyre Calliope, the avatar that my brain most directly interfaces with goes by the name of Timothy Moenk.  I'm a college student taking some time off to explore the vastly expanding innerverse that we're creating, and join in on the discussions that I see occurring around the topics that interest me.

The SL Future Salon in the past few months has been engaged in discussion dealing with the metaverse concept, Second Life as a platform, and a few other related topics on the periphery.  In the future I'd like to see our extended conversation start to expand outward a bit and explore some bigger questions.  In respect to the already established internet and the non-virtual world, what characteristics would define a metaverse?  In regards to identity, how do the various mediums of communication help us to define who we are in this modern connected age, and how can we bring these different mediums together into a single more coherent whole?  If both the semantic web and the metaverse are touted to be the future of the internet, where do these two very different concepts converge and how will they eventually affect each others development?  At what point will brain-computer interface technology develop to the point where I'll be able to jack into Second Life to fight the evil AI overlords that will replace the FIC?  After my mind has been uploaded into the Second Life grid following a near-fatal accident, will strong nanotechnology allow me to generate a physical avatar so I can again interact with the 'real' world?  Just how blurry is the grey line between virtual and real anyways?

These are just a few of the questions I'd like to explore.  Even more interesting however will be the unexpected developments that will be happening while we have these conversations, and as a result of these conversation.  I look forward to communing with all of you.  :D

SL Community Convention Kick-Off Party and Charity Raffle

Hot off the presses! A Second Life Community Convention-related inworld event announcement:

SL Community Convention Kick Off Party and Charity Raffle

To raise money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina

Where: Club Belle Feu (Olive 226,214)

When: Thursday, September 8th from 6pm - 9pm PST

*Hosted by the organizers of the SL Community Convention and the owners of Club Belle Feu

Please join us for an evening of music and dancing marking the Second Life Community Convention Kick-Off Party and Charity Raffle to raise money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. All of the SLCC event organizers will be at the party to talk about the convention and to answer any questions. Raffle tickets are L$250 each - No Limit - Buy as many as you want to increase your chances of winning some truly remarkable prizes. All proceeds will be donated to the Red Cross to aid in disaster relief.

Stop by Club Belle Feu in advance to purchase raffle tickets prior to the event.

Hop to the SLCC news page for the full announcement, including a list of donated prizes.

State of Play MMORPG Public Space Design Competition

The State of Play conference has just announced their MMORPG Public Space Design Competition. If you're up to the challenge, first prize includes free airfare, hotel, and registration for participation at the State of Play conference, and the top 10 submissions will be displayed on the State of Play conference site. The contest is open to public space builds in all massively multi-player worlds, with a submission deadline of September 28th (my birthday!). Boy, yet another reason to head to New York for State of Play and the Second Life Community Convention back-to-back at the New York Law School early this October! =)