Sun's Virtual Workplace

"Virtual worlds are islands," says Victoria Coleman, a vice president and chief technology officer at Samsung Electronics. "Because they are islands, they are not very valuable."

But what if this isolation were to change? And what if you could easily take virtual environments with you on your mobile phone? These are goals of a new industry organization attracting some of technology's largest companies.

Already Intel and Samsung have signed up with the Virtual World Roadmap – along with Electric Sheep, Digital Space and ngi Venture. IBM and Sun Microsystems are expected to become members, says Coleman, a founding member. And Linden Lab, Forterra and Multiverse are in the group's sights.

Coleman said the objective of the organization is to encourage mass adoption of virtual worlds. As a first step, the Roadmap will set up working groups to determine the best practices for bringing virtual worlds inside a company, hosting live events and for tailoring worlds to mobile phones and devices.

Last night's game however was a completely different story. This past week I have been roller blading, not just because my car died but mostly to be ready for game time. My strength with playing hockey has always been my skating and my speed. I am not much of a goal scorer but mostly a very aggressive fore-checker. In order for my skating to work for me I must be in shape. This is something that I have been lacking. So, all week I have been conditioning for this playoff game knowing that if we loose this game its all over and there will be no shot at the championship.

We came out buzzing during the first period. The first goal in was from us then something dramatically shifted in the game. They scored three goals and left us behind two goals for two periods of the game. The start of the third period came rolling around and I was thinking to myself, "I hate loosing, there is no way we are going down this way." We are a winning team. 11-1 throughout the regular season, we cannot go down without a fight. And within the last five minutes of the game we scored four goals. Bengi scored to tie the game at 3. And a winger on the team named Rick put away two goals.

I would have to say that what inspired me to skate hard was my fan club that decided to show up. Cara, Katie, Sarah, Brooke, Kristen and Jen Mcarthur (she's The Ruckus Journal's biggest fan). Looking up in the stands and knowing that I had some fans certainly was a motivator to not loose. Thank you ladies for helping us win the game.

We are going to the championship. This Sunday the 24th at 6pm we play the Norsemen. If we win this game then we are the official winners of the summer season of C league hockey at the Pepsi Ice Midwest. Hope to see you there, if you can make it.

Det blir träff på den söderliga malmen vid sex-snåret och sen vet man som vanligt inte vad som kommer att hända.

Imorgon ska jag ut till sommarstugan vid Koludden, Erken och äta svenska kräftor i stora lass. Varje år styrs det upp en kräftskiva i grannskapet och det bjuds på svenska Erken-kräftor. Förra året var riktigt grymt och har svårt att tro att det inte skulle bli skoj i år också. Vad kan gå fel med kräftor och en massa vin? :)

Helt apropå något annat: Någon som vill gå och se Bladerunner på Bio med mig? 

En av mina absoluta favoritfilmer (ja, jag äger den sjuka dvd-boxen som kom ut förra året med fem (!) olika versioner av samma film) och nu när den går upp på bio igen så känner jag mig nästan tvungen att gå och avnjuta den på den stora silverskärmen.  

Poesi, science fiction, musik, konst och det skitigt vackra  ... det blir inte bättre än så.

Nej, nu ska jag jobba lite och samtidigt drömma om elektriska får.
Tjo!

For the technically challenged:

Don’t dismiss this blog because of the terms you see here. Just note that I have hyped both memory units and time – memory units are large and time is extremely small. So forget the yottas and the zeptos.

---------------------

It is the lordless year of 200981 AD.

3day r@m wakes up from his slumber and starts planning his day’s itinerary. He syncs up with the Solar Power Grid placed on Mars to see if he has been allocated his daily quota of power. He has been. He checks his inbox to see if he has any new mails. 754. He does a quick scan and deletes the spam, reads the personal ones first and keeps the office ones for the last – the most important of them being the one from his boss who has asked him to master some robotics related topic. The mail contains a 25 Yotta byte attachment and he goes through it completely. All this takes him 0.36 micro second.

Really ain’t a big deal if you got a partitioned brain with independent processors governing each half-lobe. The right brain is creative so he has got a processor that enables him to paint, dance and flirt and he reserves it for his personal and social purposes. The left brain being logical, he has a processor that solves complex problems, finds patterns, sifts through information and this half of his brain is dedicated to all office and professional work. Not that he ain’t a “professional” when it comes to flirting ;) Well, what if some creativity is required at his office? In that case, he replies like Presented Bai of Channel [V] – itna paisach mein itna hich milenga!

Having a separate processor for each of your brain lobes is really cool man. Takes the least amount of time for any shit you can think of. For chaps who freak over multi-tasking, this is the thing to get. Imagine you are attending a meeting and the presenter is damn sexy. You can understand and analyze all that she is saying with your left processor and ogle at her and make plans to invite her out for lunch with your right without each disturbing the other! You are doubly efficient!

Of course, the PROM containing morals and ethics runs across both lobes and this is a government mandate. You can’t avoid it and it is inserted by the doctor even before you are spanked alive and brought into the world. So you are almost born with it.

Sitting in his office he is applying the robotics concept to some complex algorithm. Nothing is impossible now because everyone knows everything. Competitive tests have been done away with and meritocracy is a thing of the past because everybody has equal access to every single bit of info. You might have better RAMs than a few others so you might get it a zepto second earlier. Big deal, huh?

An alert prompt flashes in front of his eyes as he is working: “Call from Pete – Accept | Ignore.” He wonders which Pete this is and considers himself lucky for having such a unique name. His parents had really seen the info glut coming and had given him a name so unique that all the search engine related queries for his name would throw results pertaining to him alone.

He triggers his social processor to accept the call and one part of his brain dedicated for receiving calls gets activated. You don’t have to open your mouth and form words when the call hits your brain directly. It is brain-to-brain communication and you don’t need those old, redundant fancy gizmos called mobile phones.

“Hi 3day”, brains Pete.

“Oh hia there Pete”, 3day brains back as his brain recognizes. It is his good friend from the days, or rather, zepto seconds of electronics engineering.

“You in India right now?”

“Yea”

“Well, I got a party tonight, make sure you attend. You’ll love it”

“Oh great! What time and where?”

“Well 7:00 pm. And all folks wanted to have it in Paris. So it’s Paris”

“Damn! 7:00 pm is just 2 nano seconds away. Paris is fine but I got some things to wind up dude”

“See if you can make it. Will wait for ya. Chao” and he brains off.

Now attending Pete’s party is no big deal because of the processors. Going to Paris isn’t as arduous as it used to be because all the world is nothing but a computer generated 3D rendering and you can teleport your mind from one place to another easily. Earlier you had to lug around your entire body just to get your brain to experience a few things about the new place and people. But now, thanks to the microprocessors linked with the 3D virtual rendering of all places across the earth, physical travel is passe. Now, it takes as much time to go from Bangalore to Mysore as from Bangalore to Greenland; the only constraint is your bandwidth. Distance has collapsed and you can no more vent your frustration on the government for bad roads in your city.

What 3day is actually worried about is the power levels. Both partying and working takes a heavy toll on the processors. Since power is rationed from the Mars Solar Power Grid, he might just run a blank and might mean shut down until he gets it exactly 24 hours after he got his previous quota.

He decides to risk it. He puts his robotic algo on self propagating mode, throwing in a sub-routine to generate only critical alerts and teleports to Paris.

The party is live and happening. Takes him no time to spot a blue-haired babe dancing seductively in the corner. He runs a semantic search on her – giving descriptions as he sees her and has all info about her. She is N*ksh*t* - hmmn that’s a cool name. Her bio data, qualification and every other possible info floats in front of his eyes. And the way she is looking at him in the eye, he knows she has all his info floating similarly in front of her lovely hazel eyes. It takes both of them only a fragment of a nano-second more to know that each is interested in the other because they searched each other’s brains out. This search is possible only if the feeling is perfectly mutual and the firewalls are temporarily down to enable this.

Ok it’s fun time. They embrace each other and begin to dance. 3day looks into N*ksh*t*’s eyes and gets the shock of his life. The colors are changing from red, to blue, to black to, white. He pushes her away – damn she might be a virus! He looks at her and her whole self is turning black and white and then fuzzy. He runs a full system bio-scan and it returns normal – 0.000000 infections. The logical part of his brain throws up a critical alert with a red exclamation mark and then….piff! blank!

--------------

His worst nightmare came true – he ran out of power and now with the processors totally dry he has to make do with his biological brain, which has taken over automatically. He is now in what his ancestors called “The Real World”.

Ha! He mocks his ancestors – those bloody wasteful bastards. Imagine living a life like that – having a house for yourself, wasting so much fuel on travel, inventing all crappy gizmos like television, laptops etc. Really ridiculous. And to top it all, they even went berserk over “environmental conservation to save future generations”. Save trees, save ozone layer, avoid plastic etc so that future gens also follow their wasteful example. And the amount of effort, money and resources they spent on entertainment and work was just too much. Mindless buffoons.

Little did they realize that mankind will evolve. "The trees might have vanished. So what? We live great on plastic. Our clothes are plastic and I think they are far better than those cotton Arrow shirts they used", thinks 3day. Suits the current environment conditions. And all of that colossal space and effort wasted on travel, communication, entertainment and work is now just a small silicon molecule in everyone’s brain !

He is settled on his row and watches all the hundreds of others around him on other similar rows. It is like an MS Excel file and each has his/her own cell space. They are all plugged into the virtual world because they have power, lucky guys. He eats his vitamin dry soup – a small pack containing all the 26 essential vitamins and minerals identified by research, to keep human life going. He smirks again as he thinks of all the farm lands and restaurants that his ancestors had once maintained in the pretext of eating and staying alive. And yeah! Those crimes, wars etc that one human being perpetrated on the other - just ruled out now because every one had the same set of morals and ethics in his/her PROM. And how can one forget the healing procedures, doctors and dentists who pretended to cure/heal you. One didn’t even know if one was sick and had no way of finding out. No self-check, no auto-heal. Bah! He just couldn’t understand the world before 3000 AD.

--------------

Only 2 seconds had elapsed since he had woken up from his slumber. And in that time, he had done enough work that would otherwise take 1000 man-years for his ancestors. And he had entertained himself quite a bit. Now he had to wait for another 23:59:58 hours to get his power quota replenished and considering the way time and things moved in the “real” world, it was a heck of a painful wait.

-------------

Author’s note: (pinch of salt advised) ;)

First things first. This entry is certainly inspired by Neal Stephenson’s ‘Snow Crash’ that I am currently reading but I really believe in the following things:

One: is the migration of the human existence onto the virtual platform with a processor to control most mundane processes and also to assist decision making. Our life is governed by information and its processing. An IITian, for example, is considered special only because of his superior brain – in other words, superior source of information and its processing. I believe in democratizing meritocracy and making all info available to everybody. Also, I seriously fail to understand the word ‘Real Life’. Who told you what is real? Can I choose my reality?

Two: is the futility of environmental conservation. I know this is the hep thing right now and my anti stance on this issue might raise a lot of hackles, but I think it is futile. I might switch off a bulb now and turn off a tap which might help one of my great grandsons to keep his bulb and tap on for 3 more minutes, a few centuries down the line. But what the heck is a few centuries as compared to geological time? Every species and entity has its span and nothing can prevent its elimination. Environmental protection stems from man’s ego of being the most supreme creature to ever walk the earth and the desire to keep mankind alive always. So, at the root of it is pure human selfishness with a pretext of temporary sacrifice. Sorry my dear great grandson, I am headed for a 30 min shower right after posting this blog! You mind?

-----------------

PS: Whew, these after-notes look like an entry in itself. Well, I have used a few subtle things in this entry most obvious of them being 3day r@m. (or is it?). Can you guess the significance of the digits in the year mentioned in the very first line? ;) And you of course can’t get Pete, but I hope Pete will!

]]> http://independentfame.wordpress.com/?p=242 Tue, 27 May 2008 05:40:08 +0000 jackson http://independentfame.com/2008/05/27/today/ okay, so items of the day:

1) we had a memorial day bbq. it ended up being incredibly difficult since none of us knew how to bbq b/c josh always was the over possessive grill guy. great at the time, but in retrospect i wish he had taught some of us what to do when he wasn't around.

2) trader joe's korean short ribs are fucking INCREDIBLE. i want to buy 2000000 packs of them and grill them every single day. only one meal a day though. more than that would just be over doing it.

3) dave brought me a bottle of champaigne. yay!

4) people hung out at the house until about 15 minutes ago during which we found the following movies:

utter insanity. josh would jump out of his grave right now if he could see this.

that lead to dominos which lead to the discussion of this, a movie i had seen long ago and can't wait to own:
Der Lauf der Dinge aka The Way Things Go
i found it on youtube!!! woooooo!

5) we also talked about this crazy amazing screen saver called electric sheep. according to wikipedia, the name is in reference to the book "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" Interestingly enough, one of my favorite movies, blade runner, was loosely based on this book.

6) NIGHT.

Essa é a minha dica para quem está procurando um protetor de tela bacana.

O porquê de ele ser tão legal é difícil definir, mas os adjetivos que podem descrevê-lo são colaborativo, mutante, abstrato, hipnótico e online.

Toda vez que esse protetor de tela é ligado, baixa pequenos pedaços de animações abstratas (sheeps) e cria com elas um looping dando um efeito que uma animação é continuação da outra. E com o tempo, quanto mais arquivos são baixados o protetor de tela fica mais legal. É uma parada muito doida, toda vez que fico muito tempo assistindo parece que meu cérebro está fritando!

E ainda qualquer um pode dar sua contribuição desenvolvendo suas próprias animações que no futuro podem ser baixadas por qualquer um.

It the above paragraph not clearly stated? Do not pass it to anyone wearing a feather bonnet and face paint who doesn't speak Roman. They don't know that horseshoes are good luck to carry, because if you need to change one, you go to a blacksmith with the right sized shoe or your horse walk funny. Indian horses have no iron shoes, nor do Arabians, says red face. That's because you never go into a city, fool. Now get the fuck out of Torrance we don't shit in the street. I'm glad the arks of the world who forsook their children below have all been overturned. Bhaal (the bull) mostly keeps his feet on the ground.

Further conversation with some celestial Navajos: "If all you wanted was a credit card, you should have been reincarnated. No, uh uh, you would have to talk to Disney about that..."

Thing is, a number of years ago I went to this Internet conference. 1998 I think it was. Maybe 99. Yeah, I was a child really (uh huh). And everyone had this sort of money-eyed happiness, a sense of prosperity and limitless futures, and I was walking around trying to figure out where all this money was supposed to come from, because for all the portals and aggregating eyeballs and paradigm shifts in industries and pet food online and groceries online and B2B and B2C and who knows what else, I didn't see anyone actually PAYING for anything, and so ended up being very confused and decided that this Internet thing was TOO big and TOO massive and just TOO, and I couldn't handle it, so I'd just plod along with my weary little life and make money by doing work and getting paid for it.

So fast forward a decade or so to the Virtual World Conference, where Cory Ondrejka (formerly of Second Life) came in and had a look around and sounds a little glum about the prospects. And Prok observes that (until we hit Toronto) there is no Metaverse. And it all feels a little slow and sad and the shine is off.

But then, I've never been here before, and maybe if I went a year or two ago I would have walked away, scared off by too much gushing and too many wide eyed adventurers, but instead I showed up THIS year, and looked around, and figured, well, hey, people are just trying to make a living I guess, trying to cobble together some ideas and find someone to pay for it, so it can't be THAT bad.

So here's my take - if you hang out in virtual worlds, don't worry - you didn't miss anything. Sure, there's some improvements coming, Multiverse has a "flat app" version of their platform so you can view it in a browser. Vast Park is plodding along. RealXtend was there, and they have some neat stuff to say, and open source is a bubbling little corner of progress. But really? Nothing much is gonna change - not until Blue Mars comes out, at least, and they have a LOT of proof-of-concept before they're anywhere close, and besides you'd better power up your computer because it's gonna take a monster to run.

So go about your business everyone, there's nothing to see here. A new mouse maybe, for Second Life, kind of cool. Servers behind the IBM firewalls, but that hardly affects your beach side property or store selling Gor slave gear. Some amazing new technologies integrating better voice in VWs, which will make collaboration a lot easier. But otherwise, well...if you have kids, there's a lot of Habbo/Club Penguin lookalikes on tap. And otherwise...well. Hmm. Not much to report.

Oh. But hold on. Because I forgot to mention who WASN'T here.

EA wasn't here. Because isn't the next version of the Sims kind of a virtual world? Their next iteration will include user generated content and a better economy and some good looking avatars and nicely textured builds.

And surely Spore isn't a virtual world, is it? Because you don't have multiple concurrent users, you just have millions of users playing separately in a universe where their creations co-mingle.

And Sony Home wasn't here either, because it's one of those *ick* platform things.

And while we're at it, the New Media Consortium wasn't there either. And the university guys weren't there with their expressive avatars and 3D cameras and mixed reality platforms. And the 3DVIA guys weren't here with their emerging virtual world platforms. And Google wasn't there (well, some Google guys WERE there, but they were always at the back of the room and they were VERY low profile).

The Electric Sheep were there, too, and Sibley was even a keynote, and while he's no doubt a genius, I can't help thinking that ESC protests too much, Giff having recently thrown in the towel on Second Life and then said on this blog "no, we haven't" and then Sibley saying "well, yes we have" ... for NOW, because the issue isn't Second Life, said Sibley, it's that it had a nice blip on the technology up ramp and then stopped, and virtual worlds are stalled in general because there's so much damn WORK to do on the underpinning code, and those blasted advertisers still measure things by eyeballs, how the heck will we ever convince them unless we get the eyeballs.

I'm simplifying, for sure, and will get into it more I figure once Sibley gets his blog up and running where he's promising a big old fashioned conversation to try to get our IT acts together and plan and move this thing up a notch or two, headed to that gold pot of the metaverse of which they all supposedly dreamed.

But I don't get it.

For all this stuff about all the things that virtual worlds need to pop, for the metaverse to happen, well...well...see, what everyone seems to say they want are things like:

Brand Experiences
- Immersive experiences - "engagement" is the key thing. Like places you go to, and people hang out, and listen to music or live DJs, and really, really get INTO their little virtual lives.
- Objects as branded experiences. As in, things that are made are bought or won or traded or sold amongst users. Objects are coveted and loved and treated as status symbols and are given away, shared, admired.
- The ability to create ambassadors for experiences and brands, kind of like how there's Facebook, or how there's communities of bloggers who generate lots of traffic and cross interest and cross posting and "buzz".

Education and Collaboration and New Ways of Doing Business
Places where people can go and have a sense of presence, and share ideas, and work together in new and different ways, and maybe invent some new business processes, or new thing kind of like 3D Wikis or who knows what, the possibilities are endless. Meetings in virtual spaces with people from all over the world, chatting using text and/or voice and sharing ideas.

Actually, you know, I won't go on, because my point is sort of made already.

A couple of brands came in to Second Life and they flopped. And the Sheep people can blame the technology, but it wasn't the residents or the Lindens who said that 10s of thousands of people would be soooo grabbed by a CSI episode that they would be compelled to get up off their comfy couches and turn on the computer, it was NBC and ESC. It wasn't, I'm sure, the Lindens who said they'd better set up 400 sims so that their entertaining and engaging Cisco signs wouldn't crash the Grid.

(By the way - did you SEE the episode? I was too lazy to get away from my computer to watch, but maybe ESC should blame the network TV people for a lack of creativity, from what I heard.)

So in the meantime, I figure, let all the people who are looking for venture money plod away at the Sibley technology road map. Because every time I log on to the Grid I find some new little application, some new branded experience (it's just that they're branded by RESIDENTS not by the multinationals), some new education methodology, some little piece of script, some improvement in the way we communicate and collaborate.

The Metaverse is alive and well.

It may not be where we think it is. Maybe it's hidden in the universities and in mixed reality, and augmented reality, and gaming platforms. Or maybe it's still where we once thought it was, it's just that a collective blind eye has been turned (even by the Lindens themselves but thank goodness not by IBM), which gives me a big sigh of relief, because we're safe for now, we can go about our normal business, we can build the Metaverse in relative quiet, until one day it's just there...and if we do it right, we'll build it before someone else has the chance to co-opt the dream again.

It was disgusting to see it happen. She left. She is like the woman in Ridley Scott's film who was played by Sean Young but that is her daughter in the future. She is so smart and specifically of a certain kind of awareness that they cannot track her outside of the citadel. Few fear her powers of memory though they have been fierce upon us.

Since most of the other software on the site is quality I figured I might check it out. The name is just icing on the cake. But I wasn't just going to install it on my machine because it has a nice name - I needed some screens, so here's one from my machine:

Looks good, I figure, so I install it. Then I it finally starts running... and I'm like oh yeah.

The screenshot really doesn't do it justice. This is the best looking screensaver I've ever seen, and it puts those old Winamp visualizations that you get high to and watch to shame. Philip K Dick would be proud.

Really, its awesome.

(The weird thing is, it has to sync with other machines, so it takes a while for it to start up the first time. You'll need to leave it for a while before it gets cooking, but its worth it for sure.)

Mike, if this isn't on your computer next time I come over, you're not getting the hoodie.

A company that develops content for virtual world “Second Life” has laid off several employees, including Austinite Joel Greenberg, who was profiled in this Statesman story in April. The Washington-based Electric Sheep Company, which develops content for virtual worlds such as Second Life, has laid off 22 employees, according to published reports. Greenberg, the vice president of marketing innovation, was hired to develop an ad network for Second Life, a virtual society in which online role players act out alternate lives.

Greenberg had left his job as senior planner at Austin ad agency GSD&M in March to work at Electric Sheep, which helps corporations market their brand and products online. He worked out of his home, or used his laptop at coffee shops like Austin Java.

In April, Greenberg said he wanted to help Second Life residents to sell their own ad space, turning ordinary people into moneymaking publishers.

Some wonder whether Electric Sheep’s layoffs are indicative of a broader problems with Second Life. TechTurn addresses this in a recent post.

There are some indications that the heavily hyped “Second Life,” isn’t as popular among marketers as it was when it first debuted. Fortune 500 companies such as Dell and Toyota clamored to set up virtual lands in Second Life. Dell sells customized virtual computers or allows customers to jump to its Web site where they can buy a real computer. Toyota created “Scion City’” where it sells virtual Scions.

Companies saw the society as an opportunity at cheap publicity and a shot at wooing the hip, computer-savvy Millennial generation.

But now some companies have left Second Life and other sites remain empty. A July 2007 story in The Los Angeles Times reports that shopping for real world products on Second Life isn’t a “main activity.” And that “some marketers are second-guessing the money and time they’ve put into it.”

The L.A. Times reports that Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. is closing its Second Life shop and donating its virtual land to a nonprofit. The article goes on to mention that many of the sites that remain on Second Life sit empty. Best Buy Co.’s Geek Squad Island was “devoid of visitors and the virtual staff that was supposed to be online.”

It also points out there might not be enough Second Life citizens to sustain this business model. Forrester Research says at peak times there are only 30,000 to 40,000 users logged on.

To read more about Electric Sheep, check out the company blog here.

(Statesman)

This article on Linux Insider is a good example. It doesn't ignore the bad and troublesome points of operating inside Second Life, but it also works through the many positives that exist in world as well. We seem to be at a bit of a crossroads for Second Life, a shakedown perhaps, what with the news of Cory's departure, Electric Sheep cutting staff and AOL and Pontiac's departure from Second Life.

Like real life, change is the one inevitable event, and perhaps this is just the start of a new phase for Second Life.

On order with Amazon today, I'm taking my virtual CSI Second Life interactive lessons and leaving them behind! And no need for giant arrows and screenshots explaining how to walk or use my hands!

Check it out kids!

CSI Facial Reconstruction Kit!


Editorial Review from Amazon
Creative, inquisitive kids will actually say 'wow' out loud to this mix of science, puzzle, art, and fantasy, as they work painstakingly to mimic the sharp investigators of the popular crime show, "CSI". This facial reconstruction kit comes with a featureless plastic skull totally stripped of identity. It's secured on a sturdy platform for easy reconstruction, using two pounds of good quality modeling clay and four plastic sculpting tools, all included. There's also a rolling pin and platform for flattening out the clay for certain facial areas. The contours of the face come to life with each dab of clay, and with the addition of removable, plastic brown eyes, a nose, and frames and spaces for ears and lips that will need to be filled in. A detailed CSI instruction manual tells step-by-step how to create the figure, even creating hair and eyebrows.

Wow! Rolling pin for flattening certain facial areas! Featureless plastic skill stripped of identity!
Well...now we know what NBC was really doing in Second Life - trying to find models for its kid's lines of products, seeking out the most featureless, bug-eyed newbie in SL. And B), by inducting kids now in the CSI brand, when they finally wander into Second Life they will have learned that eyes, nose, lips and ears are all removable....that you should use only prim hair....and that you can bring a face to LIFE using clay (or in this case an avatar mesh).

Boy....they sure didn't have toys like THIS when I was a kid! Imagine how much more creativity and imagination I'd have if mom and dad could have bought me some awesome, branded, pre-packaged storylines for my childhood!

I also offer my sincere apologies to the folks at Electric Sheep. Looks like you may have been working with a partner with a specific approach to managing their brand.

(Hey! Mom! I'm going to Disneyland!)

P.S. Don't forget to also order the, um, bug jar:

And the, um, paint brushes with baby powder kit:

Nobody Fugazi posted on his frustrating experiences to understand the commercially licensing costs of the SL viewer. Aside from the perception that Linden would prefer not to talk to you (unless you're worthy enough of a future press release) he has been put in a position where he can't provide information back to a client on options for a custom viewer.

While I'd argue that the push-back he got from the SLDev list is primarily because of a widening belief that the idea of multiple viewers may further fragment the SL landscape, rather than an aversion to open information, I can't quibble with the lack of service and support from Linden.

Anyone remember the Grid?

Announced with much fanfare by Linden as a resource for businesses wanting to work in SL, it's really nothing more than an elaborate brochure with links to sources on the main site, WIKIs, etc. Lack of updating reflects, to my mind, either confusion, a lack of focus or resources, or an early indicator of a shift in strategy.

While corporations continue to pile into Second Life, the coming flood of competitors including entries from Asia may have Linden either looking at a joint venture, IPO, or shift in strategy. The lack of a significant impact by the Electric Sheep Company on their CSI New York venture leaves me wondering whether SL's days as a potential consumer platform are numbered, smoothing the way towards more collaborative, educational and training type activities once considered the primary domain of ActiveWorlds.

Linden always treads a fine line between its various interests groups, and has adopted an open source strategy that is half in half out. It needs to negotiate the interests of the user community (and its interest groups), the property communities (mainland vs. island and those who have built objects in world vs. those who would import them from 3rd party applications), businesses, and developers.

Prokovy Neva looks at this balancing act and sees a 'fetid core', and I won't argue that (especially as I don't have the history to know). Nobody sums up:

It is easy to speculate that the Electric Sheep Company got a special deal - but effectively negating any option others might have through not having information available seems like the creation of a market owned by Linden Lab and the Electric Sheep Company. Whatever the reasoning, the fact that the information is not available to people who may be considered competitors of the Electric Sheep Company or part of some exotic group that Linden Lab whispers information to does seem unfair. It is dangerously close to giving even Prok some credence when it comes to the concept of a 'Fetid Inner Core' - I won't agree with that, but if you read the facts, it is certainly hard to make an argument against it.

It's interesting to note that the idea of the fetid core, or whatever you want to call it, has a long and well documented history in online gaming. Developers rely on a dedicated, passionate group of early adapters to drive a game and then, if the game is to have wider adoption, cuts the core loose. There is extensive literature on how this is handled - might be time to send the Lindens to a game developers conference to see what they can learn that can be applied to 'LifeSims'.

What seems increasingly clear is that Linden has not communicated a clear vision of where Second Life will be a year or 5 years from now if evidenced by its actions. It speaks a good game about portability but excludes, for example, Multiverse from considerations around a portable avatar. It speaks a good game about creating a more open architecture but sends mixed signals on timing, plans and progress. It speaks a good game about opening its arms to business but then leaves its brochure-ware online and does little to support business.

On a separate but related note, Nobody - you are not alone. I have 4 requests in to Linden on various business-related issues to which I've not received a reply in weeks or months. I'd suggest you not sit around staring at your in box, I don't suspect the reply will come any time soon.

SLurl

Site

The official release from Electric Sheep on its new viewer.

The release highlights viewer features:

Key OnRez features:

- Redesigned interface to improve the user’s experience
- Built-in search, shopping, and virtual currency purchasing services from the OnRez software suite
- Improved location navigation allowing users to easily ‘jump back and forth’ among Second Life sites, just as they do on the Web
- Improved integration and browsing of the Web from inside the virtual world

The press release highlights its roll-out in conjunction with a cross-platform marketing campaign with CSI. Viewers of the CBS TV show will be able to register for Second Life through the CBS home page, download the new viewer, choose an avatar, and participate in 'interactive events' that coincide with the CSI episode.

The video promoting the event gives a taste of what the in-world events will look like.

Having participated in Electric Sheep events, I'm actually kind of excited about this - first, they've always done a bang-up job with the technology, builds, and creating a content pathway with a steepening learning/experience curve rather than a steep one. This allows users to experience a build of skills gradually, to participate at different levels in the storytelling, and to craft their interactive experience from the perspective of different 'gamer types' (explorer, social, etc.).

As can be seen by the video, it looks like there will be both immersive social spaces (the dance club), areas for exploration, and interaction "sleuth" type games.

SL is in bad need of a jolt - some fresh energy, some new users, and improvements to the interface.

While I'm not sure this event will blow the roof off, it might just give a push in the right direction away from the "corporation abandoning Second Life" spin and back to the "users experiencing a world of imagination" reality.

Granted, the corporation who have left didn't stick around long enough to learn that charging for virtual cars and clothes is hardly a way to endear users to your brand (I mean, NIKE was charging serious Lindens for its shoes in a heavily branded environment that was EMPTY every time I dropped in, had no social or immersive content, and was just plain DULL).

The corporations who have remained can see beyond the latest PR and quarterly financial cycle and see virtual worlds for what they are - deep immersive places where people play, create, and bridle at any suggestions that their communities can be aggregated, sticky experiences created around them, or their eyeballs monetized, and are thus learning experiences for companies that want to know what a future will look like where their transparency and respect for their customers is as critical as having the right swoosh.

We have seen the hype and the spin and it was called the Internet Bubble.

However, as Electric Sheep has proven, these immersive environments can offer deep "face time" with users if the experiences are done with respect, creativity, and a layering of the story path. I deeply believe in the creative potential of these worlds, and that the field is an evolving one - our history is in games not in open worlds. The models are just beginning to make sense.

Finally, the CSI episode, in addition to possibly generating some new traffic and users looking for more of an "AOL experience" than what SL has given the typical newbie might do something even more critical - give Linden itself a kick in the butt. Although they talk a lot about progress, the sputtering launch of Windlight, the on again off again testing of the new Havoc physics engine, their mishandling of VAT, and their lack of communication beyond the initial postings of the age verification system, leave me feeling on the fence as to whether progress is REALLY being made or there is simply a lot of talk of progress.

Their announcement of porting their search function to a Google server is encouraging, as search is a total mess. Their comment on the metaverse collaboration with IBM is even moreso.

I don't envy SL - trying to balance scaleability with the need for user-generated content (one of the main drivers of caps to the number of avatars in a sim), trying to balance community communication and feedback with a structured plan for bug fixes and enhancements - tough juggling act indeed, and owning my own business I can attest for that! However, they're sitting in the sweet spot - it feels a bit like sink or swim time in Second Life. There are too many new platforms that will attract the user community with their shiny baubles. And if the new users attracted to SL based on a cross-platform project with CBS and CSI are then turned off by lag, crashes, or flying penises then the next major media company to be given a pitch on an SL project might pass and move on to other platforms.

I have mixed feelings about the viewer but will reserve judgement until I see a full working version. First, I tend to agree with New World Notes that with users having access to different viewers that their experiences of SL might "split" just as those who adapted voice "split" from those who refuse to plug in a microphone (I am one of the latter by the way).

Having said that, the current viewer is a bit of a clunky mess in my opinion and so any attempt at an improvement is welcome. A friend who went to explore SL for the first time found himself lost for all the usual newbie reasons - let's face it, the learning curve is pretty steep. If had been able to access the grid using a viewer that had a more user-friendly "Webby" interface it might have been useful.

Having a "clean" viewer will be helpful in attracting a wider audience. Much like a stripped down version of Word would be great for my grandparents or someone new to computers - the number of buttons and the lack of a "familiar" interface can be daunting.

Forget the Viewer I Wanna Chat!!!!
But more than anything, I would LOVE to see an improvement to the social components of the viewer and functionality of SL. Limitations to groups, a friends list that you can never quite be sure is working (are they REALLY offline?), inability to access region or sim chat channels, and a clunky chat interface in spite of the changes since the voice update can be frustrating.

* I've been told 100 times but I STILL forget how to initiate a multi-person conference.
* Did you know that in the group chat there's a little "more button" hidden as arrows that allows you to access a list of participants in a channel so you can initiate a dialog directly? I had no idea until I hit it by accident.
* Do you have a list as lengthy as my own and have trouble keeping some of your 'friends' apart? Why can't the friends list include little photos of the names on the list, much as MSN or Yahoo?
* When you turn off the "can see my status online" button does it REALLY make you invisible? Or just fade your name out on their list?

Maybe there's work-arounds to these issues and I've tried a few HUDs and other tools, but there are some basic infrastructure issues behind this frustration with trying to communicate on what should, by all rights, be a social platform.

In the meantime, kudos to Electric Sheep who continue to show leadership and solid development.

top sheep

electric sheep

Electric Sheep is a free, open source screen saver run by thousands of people all over the world. It can be installed on any ordinary PC or Mac. When these computers "sleep", the screen saver comes on and the computers communicate with each other by the internet to share the work of creating morphing abstract animations known as "sheep". The result is a collective "android dream", an homage to Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

Xenius Revere's Scifi Alpha prefab skyboxes are 216m of sculptie goodness, blended into a sci-fi style habitation that will fit neatly on the average (mythical) plot of First Land.

The entrance hallway extends from the airlock toward the cozy bedroom, which is separated by a partition from the elevated living area. The living area has built-in seating for about seven avs, with shelves on several sides to decorate it with the tiny details that make a home. Make no mistakes, this is a tiny, cozy space, but at 92 prims you'll have a well turned-out home where you can entertain and decorate. The texturing and baked-on lighting bring out the realistic feel of the skybox, and make it feel a bit larger than it is.

Xen has created several different styles of texturing of the base structure to fit a variety of tastes, from a clinical all-white cube straight out of 2001: A Space Odyssey, to a sumptuous glam-red lounge-like area, to designs with a more industrial feel of rust and decay. The blue lighting in the floor and ceiling of the Alpha 2 could be straight out of Battlestar Galactica, making it the one with the most cinematically accurate feel.

There are a few details with seams where the prim edges meet, and you know that cozy is a euphemism for really tiny. Also, the skybox will require you to build it a landing area if you ever plan to actually get in through the doorway, but these are minor details when talking about a build of this quality. There are also rumors of a "girly" version in the works, which may be a bit warmer in its decor than the mostly masculine dècored versions available at present.

Xen has built a successful business with his Maya experience and scuptie awesomeness. With these skyboxes, the in-demand work that he’s been doing for large scale corporate customers through the Electric Sheep Company is now available to the average avatar for L$5000.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Luxe%20Island/224/170/22

Blade Runner (Five-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition) (2007)

In celebration of Blade Runner's 25th anniversary, director Ridley Scott has gone back into post production to create the long-awaited definitive new version. Blade Runner: The Final Cut, spectacularly restored and remastered from original elements and scanned at 4K resolution, will contain never-before-seen added/extended scenes, added lines, new and improved special effects, director and filmmaker commentary, an all-new 5.1 Dolby® Digital audio track and more. Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Edward James Olmos, Joanna Cassidy, Sean Young, and Daryl Hannah are among some 80 stars, filmmakers and others who participate in the extensive bonus features. Among the bonus material highlights is Dangerous Days, a brand new, three-and-a-half-hour documentary by award-winning DVD producer Charles de Lauzirika, with an extensive look into every aspect of the film: its literary genesis, its challenging production and its controversial legacy. The definitive documentary to accompany the definitive film version. The Ultimate Collector's Edition will be presented in a unique 5-disc digi-package with handle which is a stylish version of Rick Deckard's own briefcase. In addition, each briefcase will be individually numbered and in limited supply. Included is a lenticular motion film clip from the original feature, miniature origami unicorn figurine, miniature replica spinner car, and collector's photographs, as well as a signed personal letter from Sir Ridley Scott.

Disc One
RIDLEY SCOTT'S ALL-NEW "FINAL CUT" VERSION OF THE FILM
Restored and remastered with added & extended scenes, added lines, new and cleaner special effects and all new 5.1 Dolby Digital Audio. Also includes:

• Commentary by Ridley Scott
• Commentary by executive producer/co-screenwriter Hampton Fancher and co-screenwriter David Peoples; producer Michael Deely and production executive Katherine Haber
• Commentary by visual futurist Syd Mead; production designer Lawrence G. Paull, art director David L. Snyder and special photographic effects supervisors Douglas Trumbull, Richard Yuricich and David Dryer

Disc Two
DOCUMENTARY DANGEROUS DAYS: MAKING BLADE RUNNER
A feature-length authoritative documentary revealing all the elements that shaped this hugely influential cinema landmark. Cast, crew, critics and colleagues give a behind-the-scenes, in-depth look at the film -- from its literary roots and inception through casting, production, visuals and special effects to its controversial legacy and place in Hollywood history.

Disc Three
1982 THEATRICAL VERSION
This is the version that introduced U.S. movie-going audiences to a revolutionary film with a new and excitingly provocative vision of the near-future. It contains Deckard/Harrison Ford's character narration and has Deckard and Rachel's (Sean Young) "happy ending" escape scene.

1982 INTERNATIONAL VERSION
Also used on U.S. home video, laserdisc and cable releases up to 1992. This version is not rated, and contains some extended action scenes in contrast to the Theatrical Version.

1992 DIRECTOR'S CUT
The Director's Cut omits Deckard's voiceover narration and removes the "happy ending" finale. It adds the famously-controversial "unicorn" sequence, a vision that Deckard has which suggests that he, too, may be a replicant.

Disc Four
BONUS DISC - "Enhancement Archive": 90 minutes of deleted footage and rare or never-before-seen items in featurettes and galleries that cover the film's amazing history, production teams, special effects, impact on society, promotional trailers, TV spots, and much more.

• Featurette "The Electric Dreamer: Remembering Philip K. Dick"
• Featurette "Sacrificial Sheep: The Novel vs. The Film"
• Philip K. Dick: The Blade Runner Interviews (audio)
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Cover Gallery (images)
• The Art of Blade Runner (image galleries)
• Featurette "Signs of the Times: Graphic Design"
• Featurette "Fashion Forward: Wardrobe & Styling"
• Screen Tests: Rachel & Pris
• Featurette "The Light That Burns: Remembering Jordan Cronenweth"
• Unit photography gallery
• Deleted and alternate scenes
• 1982 promotional featurettes
• Trailers and TV spots
• Featurette "Promoting Dystopia: Rendering the Poster Art"
• Marketing and merchandise gallery (images)
• Featurette "Deck-A-Rep: The True Nature of Rick Deckard"
• Featurette "--Nexus Generation: Fans & Filmmakers"

Disc Five
WORKPRINT VERSION
This rare version of the film is considered by some to be the most radically different of all the Blade Runner cuts. It includes an altered opening scene, no Deckard narration until the final scenes, no "unicorn" sequence, no Deckard/Rachel "happy ending," altered lines between Batty (Rutger Hauer) and his creator Tyrell (Joe Turkell), alternate music and much more. Also includes:

• Commentary by Paul M. Sammon, author of Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner
• Featurette "All Our Variant Futures: From Workprint to Final Cut"

The above information is copied directly from: Blade Runner (Five-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition) (2007). (I hope it's correct.)