Google Earth's impact on virtual discovery

Australian geologist, Arthur Hickman, now has a meteor crater named after him, thanks to his use of Google Earth. While cruising Earth virtually from up high, looking for channel iron deposits, Arthur discovered the now-named, Hickman Crater, North of the town of Newman, in Western Australia. Previous surveys in this mining area had failed to identify the crater, which stood out visually to Dr. Hickman's eye. He was able to have a fellow scientist corroborate his find by visiting the site and the rest is news history.

I thought the subtext of the news report, that Google Earth already has this demonstrated commercial geological value and use, was very interesting. I'd not known about it and wonder how many other scientific uses this and similar virtual tools are currently being put to. This discovery will no doubt inspire more such virtual "expeditions": eager professional and amateur virtual explorers will seek to add to our understanding of our own world, and thereby make a name for themselves, all from the comfort of their homes and offices.

I know the avatar I'm talking to isn't real. But is she real?

Presence can be costly. It's a lot of overhead to consider. And one has to figure that the virtual world never sleeps. Logging into Second Life at different times, it takes on a European, Australian, or Asian tone. Companies have to figure that a visitor might pop in at any time.

Which is why AI avatar "bots" are being developed that can take on that overhead instead of having a real person. They work quite cheap - free in fact beyond their build cost and they don't take breaks. The initial ones are likely going to be fairly simple responders but there are rumblings of some very savvy ones (see Artificial Intelligence Applications in 3d Virtual Worlds) that can do a credible job of mimicking the responses of a real person.

This of course undercuts one of the basic presumptions of virtual worlds, that an avatar represents a real person. One of the interesting aspects of virtual worlds and MMOs is that people tend to treat an avatar at face value, as if they were what they appeared to be. If that avatar appears to be a human man or woman, you, as a virtual world user, would probably respond accordingly. Imagine a virtual world where someone can seed avatars to make a space seem more popular as if other people really found it engaging, making you think twice about stopping to take a look around at the offers. This is already being done in MTV Virtual Worlds: when an event doesn't draw in enough people, bots are seeded to dispell the impression of unpopularity. Or that person chatting you up and that seems so interested in your latest real world shopping adventure could be a bot mining you for buying trends. Or your new "friend,", taking advantage of how viral marketing works, just swears by Eau'dee'doh perfume or MuskOxen deodorant.

"Cogito ergo sum" doesn't quite sum it up any more, does it?

Mobile Second Life? Dial me in

Mobile game vendor, Vollee, says you can access your Second Life from your 3G-enabled mobile device. Of course, this kind of activity has long been anticipated and others are viewing this with anticipation of a different sort: the first hint of that bridge between mobile devices and the most popular virtual worlds: MMOs. Given that many children seem to be umbilically attached to their cell phones and gaming, the pairing seems both logical and explosive, ushering virtual world use into more mainstream adoption for that age set and beyond.

Mobile devices have already overtaken PCs in some areas of the world as the platform of preference, and in terms of gaming, are projected to overtake consoles. It seems quite likely that they will be the nearly universal working and communication platform of preference in the not too distant future, if use trends in Asia, as they often do, continue to project themselves around the world, and if more useful and entertaining applications continue to migrate or be developed for mobile sets.

If you are interested in partaking of a more mobile Second Life, sign up for the Vollee Second Life beta, which will commence in May. There are some qualifications for equipment (promise of a supported list forthcoming) and reminders to check your billing plan to make sure it can support this kind of heavy media use without breaking your purse/wallet.

Aside: it occurs to me that the phrase "dial me in" is both dated and dating; it is either destined for obsolescence, or its literal meaning will get lost in time (like the horrible "rule of thumb"). I bought a refurbished (same outside, newer insides) 1930's phone for the home office. It works with modern phone systems just fine. It is quite angular in parts, intentionally functional, and the hefty solid weight of its handset and the cloth covering on the cord mark it as something not quite right with this time. In fact, the tinny voice you hear and project make it seem as if you're talking to or from the past. Though not obvious at first glance, you also soon realize that this is something that has seen a lot of use. Its black surface is spotlessly clean but dull, a few tiny but tell-tale chips and scratches found here and there. I imagine all the lives and passions that have spoken through that same handset while I'm holding it. Many of those voices were long gone to dust before I was even born. And yet here is that same handset, that same dial, bridging the years between us. If there was ever to be found a "ghost in the machine," this would be the one. Speaking of that dial, it used to be when people asked to "use the phone," it was only obvious and most courteous that they be given an accessible and mostly private room to use: the office. But then there would be that dial. It is not like the dial even accustomed dial users once knew. Not easy nor gently gliding, this dial is only for the serious caller. It takes a firm hand and resolution to see the number all the way through on its journey to the finger stop. But in recent years, everyone has a cell phone and no one asks to use the phone. So though people still step into the office for some privacy, requests for help have fallen off. I still get called in on occasion. I'll step inside to find someone sitting down, finger pointed at my desk. "Is that a phone?"

Thinking inside the box

Not that I have time for this sort of thing right now, but when I saw a post on the NMC Campus Observer advertising the availability of Stephane Zugswang's Virtual Reality Room (VRR), free and copyable for educational or non-profit uses within Second Life, I felt I couldn't miss the opportunity to observe the Tuesday demonstration, which as it turned out, included a whole wealth of attendant information.

The VRR is basically a square room. The nuance is in the application of seamless tiling to create an expansive vista that is not square but which appears, for lack of a better word, global - hence depending on the subject chosen, endless, as if you were standing in a real environment stretching all around you. This is achieved by using Apple Computer's QTVR technology. It is not a true QTVR viewed through the Quicktime player, but done to export textures applied to a Second Life cube to achieve the same effect.

And this effect can be quite remarkable insofar as Second Life graphics, that is as long as you can manage to stand inside the circular boundaries of the floor marker. As you can see if you have occasion to visit the NMC Resource Center to secure your own copy, stepping outside that boundary can sometimes lead to distortion as if you're standing in the sky for instance. Since the location at the NMC is also a working VRR, you'll have an option to judge for yourself by clicking on the HUD to change the setting and see the change render around you. Based on your choice, you can set the HUD on your own copy to be only visible by you or available to be clicked on by anyone as it is at the NMC. Depending on the speed of your computer, you'll just need to wait a bit for the scene to render. Examples ranged from real world vistas such as cityscapes to effectively shrinking one down in size to stand inside of a now larger than life room. And the entire affair can be rez'd or collapsed with hardly any effort.

To create the raw material for his rooms, Stephane prefers a good SLR camera along with a steady tripod. The process of photographic QTVR creation requires rotating the camera to take a series of overlapping pictures which are stitched together within a QTVR application. The pictures can be retouched if necessary using an application such as Photoshop. Stephane uses two lenses, depending on the subject. His Nikon 10.5 mm fisheye lens lets him capture his scene in eight pictures while he uses a telephoto lens that lets him do same in 16.

After capture, the whole affair is assembled and converted into a QTVR image using any number of available QTVR applications. Stephane uses and recommended the RealViz Sticher, which comes in three price options. The unlimited version, which depending on the exchange rate, currently costs just under $600 U.S, has features and options that Stephane recommends will be very welcome and worthwhile for anyone who seeks to create a number of such room textures. There are number of other applications and utilities that can create QTVRs, even freeware like Panotools (see SourceForge link). Given that it's free and has a user and knowledge base to draw from, Panotools is certainly worth more than you paid for it, but Stephane suggests that if you can afford it, you'll find it much easier and far less frustrating to use something like Sticher. A good application and a practiced hand can produce a QTVR in 10 minutes, depending on the subject.

Another exciting option is to create your landscape, even fantastic or otherworldly ones, within 3d applications and export the render as QTVR. Some applications already support this option (Bryce, Lightwave, Terragen) or require a add-on/plug-in (Mojoworld, 3DS Max) or a helper application to post-process (Maya). Post-processing output is sometimes done as well in lieu of internal or add-on methods for better speed to render.

Either photographically or via 3d rendering, the final output is exported as flat images to be imported into Second Life as textures: six, one for each wall, floor and ceiling. The process is described in a tutorial within the VRR Documentation packet. Also, there is a VRR Picture Controller for sale at Stephane's store, the VRR Shop if one would rather opt for that method.

This project is a cooperative venture between Stephane, the NMC, infoisland.org and the Commonwealth Islands to help expand the tools available to educators and non-profits. The particular version in question will only work on a select list of sims, all of which relate to education or non-profit use. Currently there are over a hundred such sims. To be added to this list, the requirements are that the sim must be founded for educational or non-profit use and be tied to a real-world organization. Parties interested in adding their own sim to this list need contact Lorelei Junot in Second Life.

Eight sizes of the VRR are included within the kit, starting at 20 square meters and going up to 120 sqm, which constitutes a near quarter-sim. There is a larger size that is a full sim that is available only in the retail unrestricted version (as in can be placed anywhere). That and all other retail versions, along with more environment textures and an application to help bring your own custom textures into use are available for purchase at the VRR Shop. The NMC has stated that they also intend to make more room textures available at their location as they become available, I assume through the product of community efforts now that this free version of the VRR is available.

I had been thinking that one of the effective uses for virtual world education might be to negate scale and as well place the student inside of a setting for a new perspective. This tool is pretty much an application towards that end. I'm very much looking forward to the novel uses that I'll have wished I'd thought of yet to come.

Newbie ponders what "there" is of IBM's and Cisco's Second Lives

Computerworld writer Gary Anthes was tasked to do a piece on Second Life, which, after spending nearly a week of his time within the simulation, he titled Second Life: Is There Any There There?

Within this piece, he is somewhat critical of the corporate presence within Second Life, having had a rather empty and underwhelming experience at the islands built by IBM and Cisco.

"Knowing my editor would ask me about practical IT applications, I sought out a virtual island owned by IBM. To get an idea of how exciting this place is, imagine a 1950s-era IBMer in a starched white shirt and tie with a "THINK" sign hanging on his wall."

Part of his frustration was his failure to find any company representatives to talk to about goods and services, or to just answer questions.

"I returned to IBM's main island determined to find an IBMer who could answer some questions. I didn't find such a person, but I had a long chat with a well-dressed wolf who said he was from FurNation. He said he was only there to use the public "sandbox," which is provided by IBM, to build things."

And failing that, finding any person was a welcome respite and at least a chance to ask some questions.

"I told him I was trying to find out if companies in SL made any money. Virtual companies make real money, he said, 'selling furry avatars, sexual bits, weapons and the like,' while real companies like IBM only advertise and recruit. The wolf was not applying for a job at IBM, it seemed, but he thanked IBM for providing the sandbox."

And of course, all of this begged the question of what function did all this corporate presence provide?

"Still fretting about bandwidth, I traveled next to the Cisco Virtual Campus and walked into the Cisco Training Center. A sign indicated that it was for use only by Cisco partners and employees, which raises the question of why it's on the public Internet and not on a Cisco intranet.

In any case, I found neither partners nor employees in any of the training rooms, and no books, computers or training materials of any kind. Never had it seemed so reasonable to ask if there really was a there there."

Though he did have a relatively better experience at Sears, the author I take it was not impressed with corporate presence within Second Life, or that much with Second Life itself for that matter. Some of his advice:

"Each major company location in SL should be staffed with a real person, at least during business hours. If some friendly and attractive avatar at the Cisco center had approached me and said, "Yes, sir, how may I help you?" and then had given me useful answers to my typed in questions about training, employment opportunities or products, I would have fallen out of my chair with amazement and delight."

So what do I make of this? I'm not sure where the subjective "attractive need play into this. Well-groomed would do for me. Otherwise, I think it's a good piece. And it's original. As far as negative criticism goes, it's not some regurgitated bit of anti-hype backlash. Nor is it a piece written to reclaim credibility damaged by over-reaching optimism by riding the pendulum swing going the other way. I wouldn't even argue that it's all that negative. I don't think this writer had any axes to grind. I think he came to the assignment with a fairly neutral standpoint. What Anthes is describing here is a very typical regrettable newbie experience. (And it probably didn't help his experience that some web links were broken).

If you read the full piece, you see that he spends at least two days of his assignment just trying to learn his way through the interface and figure out how to find places. Out of desperation, and having wasted time through misunderstanding and bad advice from another confused newbie, he buys a book. Now, if he had me to help him out, I could have handed him a Notecard with some landmarks to visit later, maybe even checking out a couple places with him. I could have taken him to New Dove and New Citizens Incorporated (NCI) to get him started on his own look and get him hooked up with help resources, even classes if he was interested.

But Anthes didn't have me there to help him, did he. He, like most newbies, was left stranded in an empty virtual landscape having to rely on people just as new, confused, and ultimately as bored and frustrated as he came to be. Experiences like his are one of the reasons that though Second Life can claim millions of registrations, they can only muster an active user population of 30,000 - 55,000 on most days. People try it, go "huh?" and leave, never to come back.

In fact, I was one of those. When I first went to a meeting showcasing Second Life for uses at work, I dutifully created an account; I logged in; I then had my "Huh?" moment. I forced myself go through orientation and get onto the mainland. But my experience only degraded the more time I was there. Totally underwhelmed by the perceived function , the lag and abysmal graphic quality, I thought, "Are people serious? Someone has got to be kidding me, right? This is lame. This is a total waste of time." And I left, never to come back, or so I thought. Had it not been for an overdue promise to visit a co-worker's build in Second Life, I would never have given it another look. And the virtual light bulb above my head would have never gone on.


Truths out of the mouths of newbies

Yes, having a real person staffed in Second Life is a big overhead for a company. Server space (aka "land") is not cheap, let's face it. Tack on some employee cost tasked against really no revenue for most Second Life corporate uses, and how does one justify that on the books?

Well, I would ask, how much is your company image worth? Do you want to build a presence, which I presume has some underlying marketing potential, and then leave it to a a visiting anthropomorphic wolf or rabbit with no company affiliation to explain your presence for you? Even if you have staff in simulation, not being able to find them is just as bad. In a large build, teleport signs can be your friend, and the friend to visitors.

I wouldn't expect my local GAP store, even if they could lock down the goods, to just leave their store abandoned, hoping that I'll come in to admire the goods but not having anyone to talk to, and expect me to still walk away with my questions answered, a good feeling about GAP, or likely to buy something. The GAP doesn't have a virtual store that I know of, but if they did, I would ask: why treat a virtual space any differently? Insofar as how a person (and the force driving that avatar, at least for now, is a real human being) is going to react to your company, a virtual space can have the same impact, good or bad, as a real building. That's why companies staff people to help greet and guide visitors in real world lobbies.

If you have goods or services to sell, jobs to offer, information to give out, have someone there to do it for you that speaks for you and has your interest in mind. If you have a virtual space that you are using for a corporate function, do what you would for a real building when not in use - lock the doors (or in Second Life parlance, just restrict access). In the former, you're going to improve experience and maybe actually drive some use and results; in the latter, the lock will probably give the impression the space is important and actually sees use. In most corporate builds, I suspect that the space probably isn't and doesn't but they don't have to know that. Perception is everything.

Doppelganger cleverly controls perception by use of space in vSide, making it appear larger then it really is. In fact, restricting the overall space has the positive benefit of channeling people into the same area, giving the perception of popularity and a crowd, even with a small number of users. Let's face it, we're social animals and many people feel more comfortable in a crowd, even a virtual one. People imply popularity, that you're in the "right" place, and that there's something engaging to do there. Effective virtual builds, like real world buildings, are probably going to need to adopt architectural solutions for crowd management, but at least for Second Life, factoring in the ability to fly.

Nothing is more lonely or gives a sense of a places unpopularity in Second Life like coming into it and seeing that there's only one green dot on your mini-map - and it's you. Now maybe you are visitor number 2,001 that day and you just happened to come at a time when no one else was there. But you don't know that. Unlike web pages, we can see who's visiting at the same time we are. And it doesn't matter how many people were already there or who will come back later. If you're a newbie, you probably got the impression that the space is unpopular, and that feeling maybe carries over to the brand behind it, like there's something wrong with it maybe?

When Electric Sheep opened the Virtual CSI:NY presence in Second Life, I first peeked in after the show just to see what's what and to try out the OnRez viewer to see how different it was. Well, it was crowded, with a bunch of lost newbies who were tripping over their own interfaces. There was a clever use of audio media and a HUD to explain the CSI game. But the game wasn't the problem. It was Second Life. Even more sad was a veteran SL user who popped in to see and who was valiently trying to explain the interface. She didn't realize that all these newbies were using a different world viewer, the OnRez viewer provided by Electric Sheep, where buttons and functions could be in different places than the Second Life viewer provided by Linden Lab. I could just see the thought bubbles going up all around me: "Huh?" <-- brought back memories; "I don't get it"; "I'm so confused"; "How do I get my clothes back on?"; "This is silly." I tried to do my part and both help guide the newbies by giving them links to helpful places like NCI and New Dove, as well as help flag the veteran Second Lifer that there was a new viewer, hence the mismatch between what she was trying to explain and the reality in place. Well, after such a fiasco, you'd expect to come back to Virtual CSI:NY and expect to see few or fewer dots. But such is not the case when I've peeked back in. Why? I can't be certain but one of the things that I noticed was that there was a staffer, I presume from Electric Sheep (maybe CBS) to greet, answer questions, and help new users get started in the entry zone. Wander farther into the simulation, what does one find but more helpers. And those little green dots on the mini-map? There seem to be quite a few of them, all congregated in various spots. Just in case this was an aberration, I checked back a couple more time and the dots at a glance, seemed about the same. I don't know how profitable Virtual CSI:NY is given all that manpower investment, but I'd have to say in Second Life terms, it's popular. Green dots it seems have a way of attracting more green dots.


I know the avatar I'm talking to isn't real. But is she real?

Presence can be costly. It's a lot of overhead to consider. And one has to figure that the virtual world never sleeps. Logging into Second Life at different times, it takes on a European, Australian, or Asian tone. Companies have to figure that a visitor might pop in at any time.

Which is why AI avatar "bots" are being developed that can take on that overhead instead of having a real person. They work quite cheap - free in fact beyond their build cost and they don't take breaks. The initial ones are likely going to be fairly simple responders but there are rumblings of some very savvy ones (see Artificial Intelligence Applications in 3d Virtual Worlds) that can do a credible job of mimicking the responses of a real person.

This of course undercuts one of the basic presumptions of virtual worlds, that an avatar represents a real person. One of the interesting aspects of virtual worlds and MMOs is that people tend to treat an avatar at face value, as if they were what they appeared to be. If that avatar appears to be a human man or woman, you, as a virtual world user, would probably respond accordingly. This probably belongs in its own post, but imagine a virtual world where someone can seed avatars to make a space seem more popular as if other people really found it engaging, making you think twice about stopping to take a look around at the offers. Or that person chatting you up and that seems so interested in your latest real world shopping adventure could be a bot mining you for buying trends. Or your new "friend,", taking advantage of how viral marketing works, just swears by Eau'dee'doh perfume or MuskOxen deodorant.

Let's forget about the ethics of AI bots for the moment. Until such bots are available to help "staff" virtual builds, companies who are going to spend a lot of money and time investing in virtual worlds need to consider the whole experience if they want to make it a success, imho. That means considering staffing such builds as if they were real locations, at least to the point of offering someone to help answer questions and take down contacts. I pity the poor person stuck in an empty Second Life island all day but hopefully such exposure will help that person suggest ways to bring traffic and make the spot a purposeful destination point with the intention of conducting business or inquiry of some sort.

Otherwise, just hope that the visiting furry using your sandbox is polite and friendly (I have to say, they often are) while she tries to answer people's questions. I'll conclude with the rest of Anthes' advice:

"Yes, I know that would cost serious bucks. One or more real people would have to be paid real dollars to do that. But if a company can't make its virtual experience substantially better -- and I mean really head-and-shoulders better -- than its existing Web capabilities, it might as well not bother.

Because my wolf friend isn't going to buy an IBM computer because he spotted it through the window while playing in the IBM sandbox. The IBM island must be a destination deliberately sought out by people with an interest in IBM, with the knowledge that they will have a really cool virtual experience there while being treated like a real human by a real human."

Eyes inside virtual worlds

There's been some good buzz here and there recently about the iWear VR920 virtual reality goggles from Vuzix. Given the mostly positive vibes I'd been reading, I had been expecting a lot more coverage by now in my fav blogs. Haven't seen a word dropped therein. So I'm going to kick this out there. Hopefully someone with some more spare cash than I've got can give them a look-see and get back with some more feedback for the rest of us. I'm especially keen to read about their use in Second Life.

Just like you read it, these are virtual reality goggles. They simulate a projected 62 inch (157 cm) screen via two small LCDs parked in front of your eye-balls. Now, I'm not in favor of strapping another source of EMF radiation directly onto our heads, but I can't say I haven't been dying to give these a spin nevertheless. And though the current drivers are mostly for games, as you would expect, I think there is a huge potential for use in virtual worlds.

The difference is perspective. One of the strengths of virtual worlds, and why they are so attractive in their varied forms, is the projection of a formed self, aka avatar, interacting with other counterparts. But you, as a user, are still mostly removed from the setting, peering at your avatar from above, or even in mouselook, through a window that is your computer screen. In other words, there's still a bit of distance between you and the medium and between you and other users. What these goggles do is to put you into the setting, removing the boundaries. They react to your movements by changing the perspective and reaction of your view as if you were really there. It's a not so subtle distinction and I think the experience could be a great driver for interest and use of virtual worlds as it makes them a bit more natural, at least to our eyes. They are also a step, I think in the right direction, of removing some of the construct of the interface for virtual world use, and let us function more directly in the medium. In this case, it's merely a visual perspective but that's a lot and the difference I imagine (until I find a spare $400 that's all I can do) is profound and if popular, could lead to other inputs such as hand and facial gestures recognition. And though not really enabled as yet (these work, but only with older graphic cards - sometimes), there is a potential for stereoscopic 3d and the creation of depth perception as well.

Getting back to the here-and-now, the linked review and a commentary I read about a user finally getting to use these in Blizzard's World of Warcraft underscores the wow!-factor. Unlike some predecessors, the price-point for these goggles is not unapproachable for the masses, though still far too high for mainstream use. And they are said to be finicky to calibrate and set up and require learning a slower head-turning response. But, this is a point that was underscored in the reviews, they actually deliver as promised. In fact, I'm hearing there is a bit of a backlog in getting one of these so perhaps they are catching on after all.

These goggles currently work with Second Life and a select list of games. But there's no reason that drivers for more virtual worlds and games can't be created given interest and time. Like virtual worlds in general, game use can provide the adoption bridge that brings these into more common use and the non-game virtual world spill-over I think could really help bring new users into that medium. I can imagine these goggles would make Forterra's already excellent training simulations all the more engaging and, after Second Life, I would just love to strap these on and visit an ultra-high DX10 session of LOTRO or Entropia Universe's promised DX10 makeover.

Just want to make a final note that despite what the reviewer erroneously states for supported systems, my understanding is that these work as well on Apple's OS X, not just Windows. So we Mac'sters are apparently covered.