Virtual Environments: As Seen on TV!

Tags

future, radio, second life, technology, television, virtual worlds

On New World Notes today, Hamlet Au throws out this challenge: can anyone come up with a convincing reason that immersive virtual environments will replace the web? He said,

“Over the next few years, virtual worlds of all kinds will become an integral part of the Net; I have no doubt about that. User-created, realistic 3D worlds like Second Life will become an important niche platform; I have no doubt about that either. But where’s the evidence that they’re on track to become even more than that, eventually replacing the web itself? So far as I can tell, there is none.”

Well, I don’t think that virtual environments will replace the web, any more than the web has replaced books or television has replaced radio. I do think, though, that eventually virtual worlds will become very important in business, entertainment, and daily life – maybe more important than the web. And I can prove it! Sort of. Here I go:

We all know that virtual worlds are very young and rough right now. Second Life, the cream of the virtual world crop, is difficult to learn, confusing, often unrewarding (think of those ghost town malls scattered throughout the world), sometimes glitchy, and limited. But most people seem to agree that over time, virtual worlds will get better: it will be easier to use them, and they’ll be able to do more things. When someone can sit down at a computer, put on a helmet, and find themselves in the middle of a good historical recreation of the Battle of the Bulge or a live football game or an acting class, without spending hours upon hours or even days upon days learning the ropes and getting outfitted, then virtual worlds will have arrived, and their benefits will far outweigh their inconveniences. Not that we don’t have a long, long way to go!

But virtual worlds won’t replace the web. Why? Because some things are just as good – or better! – on a flat screen than in 3-D. For instance, let’s say you want to look at pictures of a friend’s vacation with your husband or wife. Is there any real advantage to doing that in a virtual world? Not really. If you do it in First Life, you can sit down together in front of a screen – or when electric paper comes along, just sit on your couch with that! – and look at it. The same goes for reading blogs, look up reference information, viewing calendars, composing letters, and anything else that works perfectly well in 2-D.

But some things are definitely better in 3-D! If you want to look at a hotel before you book a room, 3-D is much better. The same if you want to view a sports game or a dance performance, have a virtual meeting, recreate a historical event, socialize with friends, discuss a new design, act, explore…I won’t go on. These things are better in 3-D, just like movies, plays, documentaries, painting demonstrations, and those kinds of things are better on televisions than on the radio.

Which leads to the proving part. People don’t think of virtual worlds as having any precedent in history, but they do for *this* purpose, and that precedent is television. When television came on, it offered a more immersive form of broadcast sharing than radio. Radio offered just sound, television offered sight and sound. An immersive, virtual broadcast would offer sight and sound too, but in a 3-D environment where you could look around. People will adopt more immersive environments when they’re better suited to the task (like telling a story through a movie rather than a radio play) even if they’re more expensive (like television) and less convenient (like having to sit down in front of the television rather than move around freely while listening to the radio).

We’re not there yet, and I don’t know when we’ll get there, but sooner or later, the things that virtual environments are good at will start happening more and more on virtual environments. Like radio, books, and other simpler technologies, the web isn’t going anywhere, but it’s going to decline in importance compared to virtual worlds, just as radio did compared to television.

How’d I do, Hamlet?

^^^\ Kate /^^^

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Only short for a short time

Tags

appearance, avatars, bodies, height, second life

Well, I’ve tried being “actual size” (which is to say, I tried shrinking my avatar to more closely match my First Life height) and I don’t really think there’s much in it for me. Here are some reasons for that.

First of all, Dale Innis pointed out that even people who have measured themselves may well not know what size they are! joshooahlove kindly sent me a height detector (thank you, Joshooah!), and although it tried very hard, it told me I was a good bit shorter than I thought I was. Here’s the picture:

The detector measured the prim, which wasn’t exactly my precise size …

So the chance of other people being properly scaled to my height is not very good at all, even if more people were to become interested in matching their First Life height.

Second, as I shrunk myself down, things started fitting worse. The one hug I tried at that height worked all right, but there have been other animations that shortchange me even at my usual, taller height. When I was small, my jewelry floated above by skin, and my hair began to look like an ill-fitting wig.

And third, there were some excellent points made in comments to my last size post that convinced me that a “normal size” in Second Life is not the same thing as a “normal size” in First Life. It’s not much use trying to recreate First Life exactly in Second Life, not only because Second Life isn’t capable of it, but also because a lot of other people in Second Life are going out of their way to make it a place that *isn’t* like First Life. But then, I probably fall into that camp, what with the wings and all. 🙂

One thing I really did like about being shorter, though, was that my body felt more real to me, a little less stretched or skinny. For a long time my Second Life self has felt comfortably proportioned, but in the last month or two for some reason I’ve been feeling too skinny. I don’t mean that I’ve felt like I needed to add pounds to be more realistic, because I’m pretty slim in First Life too…it’s just that I felt stretched out. So when I moved my height slider from 40 back up to 57, I also moved the next slider, “body thickness,” from 0 up to 10 (after experimenting with 15 and 20, which looked too blocky and heavy to me). The difference seems barely noticeable in these pictures, below, but it feels nicer somehow. 🙂

OK, who else is experimenting with their body these days? My friend Eveline made a beautiful transformation from a form she’d had for quite some time (that was also quite pretty). Any chance of a guest post, hon?

^^^\ Kate /^^^

Have Crazy Fun While Providing Toys to Hospitalized Kids…Tonight!

Tags

charity, fun, jen shikami, second life, seven shikami

I’ve posted other posts where I wax awestruck about the wonderful creations of brother-and-sister team Seven and Jen Shikami, so I won’t crush on them in this post, too, except to say: here’s something fun to do tonight! Jen and Seven are doing their second annual benefit for Child’s Play, a charity that provides toys and games for children’s hospitals, in which they give all of their profits during the event–including sales of Jen’s beautiful wings and Seven’s cunning video game virtualizations, profits from the Insert Coin arcade, and Seven Seas fishing game income (they invented it, you know) to Child’s Play – and they’re matching the first $500 raised, out of their own pockets. 🙂

Jen and Seven. Photo by (I think!) Crap Mariner

The event is from 4 to 10 PM Second Life time, and you can participate anywhere on the grid you find Seven Seas fishing, or come to the stores or to the event at Jen and Seven’s Flotsam Beach sim. I live nearby, so I hope to stop in and take a walk down the street to participate for a bit, if I can. 🙂 Have fun, and provide some toys, OK?

Thanks to Lanna for the tip… 🙂

^^^\ Kate /^^^