Metaverse One

Second Life creator Linden Lab has announced that it has begun inviting creative people to test its new virtual reality world, code-named Project Sansar . Project Sansar is scheduled to open to the public in 2016, and its aim is to democratize virtual reality. Much like Second Life, the platform aims to empower people to easily create, share, and monetize their own multi-user, interactive virtual experiences, without requiring engineering resources. Linden Lab said the platform will enable professional-level quality and performance with “exceptional visual fidelity, 3D audio, and physics simulation.” Project Sansar will be optimized for VR headsets, but also accessible via PCs and mobile devices. “We want to lower the barrier of entry for VR experience creation,” said Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg in a statement. “Project Sansar will do for virtual experiences what WordPress has done for the web: empower a broad range of people to create with professional quality and reach globa...

On the heels of an 'augmented' good time at the ARE2010, I headed to Denmark as a guest of Roskilde University to participate in the Making Sense of Virtual Worlds and User Driven Innovation workshop. Held at the lovely venue of Magleaas, just north of Copenhagen, this three day (June 7th - 9th) workshop, funded by the Danish Strategic Research Council KINO, brought together academics and a few industry players from all around to share with each other the research they have been doing in virtual worlds. 'SENSE-MAKING STRATEGIES AND USER-DRIVEN INNOVATION IN VIRTUAL WORLDS is a collaborative project, running from 2008-2011, that joins university researchers at two Danish universities, Roskilde University and Copenhagen Business School, and a range of different partners who work practically with virtual worlds in different organizational contexts (encompassing both public organizations and private business). The project has a practice-orientation both in the sense that the a...

So it's 2010! The '00s are over and one doesn't need to be a historian from the future to see the Web has changed humanity and the world in the past decade in a way we are still trying to understand. There is a whole generation now that only knows life with the Internet, web2.0 is evolving, social networks are the new digital countries, cyber life to a growing number is as important as the real, and ignorance has become an option as people are able to connect, share, and access information about anything at the click of a button. For ten years I have experienced technology ever increasing in our daily routines and watched 3D on the Web become more common place with multi-user environments, games, digital globes, and more. Google Earth, Second Life, World of Warcraft, and the like have made this an exciting past decade of web3D and other mixed reality technologies for sure. To keep this post short, let's look at some of the highlights from the previous year. Augmented Re...

The Kira Institute , a nonprofit organization in Second Life, focuses on combining the elements of universality and personal involvement. Kira is exploring the use of virtual worlds to develop new forms of research and education, rooted in scientific and scholarly traditions but unconfined by the usual disciplinary and academic boundaries or by geographical limitations. Virtual worlds are media where professionals, amateurs, teachers, and students, from all over the globe, can engage in open dialog. In this setting, Kira facilitates peer based collaborations in fields as diverse as science, art, philosophy, and other ways of knowing. As their website describes it, science is basically universal in the way it is practiced, largely independent of nationality or personal belief system, where personal involvement is specifically discouraged. Systems aimed at developing and guiding personal aspirations, from religions to ideologies to humanistic programs, do encourage involvement, but at th...

I am sure most remember that Kevin Costner movie "Field of Dreams" and the line, "If you build it, they will come." This quote seems to also be the mantra for most if not all virtual world platforms. I have recently seen multiple companies build a platform, give people an avatar, movements, personal spaces to customize, and scenes to explore in hopes of catching huge numbers of virtual residents to monetize off of. Very cool idea, but then what? I have spoken with hundreds of virtual world residents in all kinds of platforms and most express a similar problem, nothing to do. A growing consensus that I think the virtual world operators need to address. 3D chat and Feng Shui'ing a space can only hold so much excitement. Personally I feel it is not about the number of unique visitors or account sign-ups, but the return patrons. Imagine if World of Warcraft had no quests, PVP, or story line. Just create an avatar, move/animate in various 3D spaces, and chat. Would t...

Second Life provides an online society within a 3D world, where users can explore, build, socialize and participate in their own economy . -Second Life website Due to the amount of fan * cough* email I receive from "Second Lifers," I want to state for the virtual record, that I really have no problems with Second Life (SL) for what it is . I do visit it from time to time, have good friends that enjoy it, know those that make a living building content within it, and even know cool people working at Linden Labs. Linden Labs, creators of Second Life, have done a lot to bring virtual worlds further into the public eye the past few years. Second Life is primarily composed of user created content. News of a virtual world millionaire , big brand interest , educational interest, congressional hearings, and a growing number of headlines show that people do see the utility of multi-user online 3D environments. I was in Second Life back when it had just a small following and not ...

I had to take some time to salute the work of Clive Jackson , CEO of Pelican Crossing , and his relationship with Peter Finn (Strategy and Innovation at IBM). They are working on a really cool idea for user travel between virtual worlds. Imagine a client with a cool interface that allows you to move between different 2D and 3D virtual worlds. So far supported are Blink3d , X3D , Second Life , Club Penguin , and more in the coming list. The inDuality client is embedded in a Web page using standard HTML. The client determines the type of content to be rendered, checks to see if the needed files have been installed to support the content, and that they are up to date. The user then interacts with the virtual world in the same manner as they would through the original client. I watched Peter give a demonstration where his avatar moved in-between virtual worlds by moving closer to the pillars in the plaza pictured above. Each pillar is an entry point to a virtual world. The transition fro...

I just finished reading " The Second Life Herald: The Virtual Tabloid that Witnessed the Dawn of the Metaverse " by Peter Ludlow and Mark Wallace . The book starts off covering the interactions between Urizenus "Uri" Sklar (Ludlow) and the citizens of the virtual world community of TSO- The Sims Online . Uri, a muckraking journalist, founds the Alphaville Herald, a blog that reports on shady in-world activities and controversial stories. Much of the book takes place in TSO until Uri is banned in late 2003, terms of service violations, for what seemed to be retaliation for critical coverage of EA and its approach to specific in-world issues. Ludlow then journeys to Second Life (SL), changes the name of the blog to the Second Life Herald and hires on Mark Wallace to help run the Herald. Despite the name, the last 1/3 of the book covers his dealings with SL and to this day the blog is still one of the most important sources of news for SL. More than anything, the ...

Lets time travel back to Oct. 10 2007. Perhaps you remember this headline: IBM and Linden Lab Launch Collaboration to Further Advance the 3D Internet . IBM and LL plan to collaborate on: 1. "Universal" Avatars: Exploring technology and standards for users of the 3D Internet to seamlessly travel between different virtual worlds. Users could maintain the same “avatar” name, appearance and other important attributes (digital assets, identity certificates, and more) for multiple worlds. The adoption of a universal “avatar” and associated services are a possible first step toward the creation of a truly interoperable 3D Internet. 2. Security-rich Transactions: Collaborating on the requirements for standards-based software designed to enable the security-rich exchange of assets in and across virtual worlds. This could allow users to perform purchases or sales with other people in virtual worlds for digital assets including 3D models, music, and media, in an environment with robust ...