UgoTrade

Cyrus Huffhines of blueair.tv interviewed Long Now Executive Director Alexander Rose,Wednesday, bringing yet another dimension to the global creative context of Second Life. Alexander Rose, is deep into the production of the new Eno piece, 77 Million Paintings, in San Francisco. Also, he is known for pioneering Rosetta and Long Server, the Long Now 10,000 Year Clock and prototypes. (See blog.longnow.org for more!) Cyrus Huffines of blueair.tv, a member of Long Now for ten years, is instrumental in bringing The Long Now Foundation to Second Life.

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Metaverse Meetup at Jerry’s Loft - A Generation Y Think Tank

Jerry Paffendorf’s loft is a true Generation Y think tank, tingling with orgone energy radiating from a new cosmos of connectivity, social networking and mobility, where immersive virtual worlds are a natural habitat.

Generation Y - 20 to 35 years old [a.k.a the 3pointD generation], are living demonstrations of the potentiality of digital and electronic media in supporting/shaping our social environment (Wonderlust).

Current metazens of JLoft include Metaverse Architect Christian Westbrook a.k.a Christian Prior, rising Machinima star Pierce Portocarrero, who has recently come to town to work on his upcoming machinima sitcom for Virtual NBC, and the legendary Glitchy - a contributor to 3pointD who “stands astride a number of virtual worlds.” Mark Wallace notes, Glitchy is “a card-carrying member of the 3pointD generation.”

This was the setting for a Metaverse Meetup, last Thursday, on the topic of Global Online Cities: Trevor F. Smith and Ogoglio. The meetup was packed with metarati listening, questioning, and giving Trevor F. Smith feedback on his new metaverse technology, Ogoglio (click here to listen to the whole talk).

Ogoglio is inspired by car free city design - city planning based on human scale space. Ogoglio takes ideas of city planning online to create virtual cities by dropping 3D spaces into the web where they can connect using existing patterns of web development.

Satchmo Prototype a.k.a. Chris Carella - the Creative Director, Electric Sheep Company, and Becky Carella, Software Developer at The Electric Sheep Company, Hiro Pendragon a.k.a. Ron Blechner, CTO of Infinite Vision Media, and Murat Aktihanoglu of Holoscape, creator of Unype - the multiuser Google Earth experience, and Donald Schwartz, Image Link Productions, and many other movers and shakers of the metaverse listened and asked important questions about Ogoglio.

While this post is going to focus on this real life Metaverse Meetup in Jerry’s loft, I would like to point out that thanks to the miracle of Second Life you don’t have to live in the New York area to participate in a full on Geek Meet. Nick Wilson has organized The Metaversed Geek Meet:

a weekly networking event where we discuss the weeks business and technology news, make new friends swap blog and twitter urls and more. Join us today at 11am SLT/PST at the this landmark!

Dreaming Up A New Social/Virtual Environment - First Some Back Story to A Metaverse Meetup

The ideas of Tufte - dubbed the Leonardo Da Vinci of data - are resonating with the 3D generation. Tufte is famous for his analysis of the shortcomings of Power Point that “disrupts and trivializes,” and whose poverty of information he points out has not only turned business meetings into arenas of excruciating boredom, but contributed to calamities like the Columbia Shuttle disaster in 2003.

As new ideas of virtualizing reality are integrated into immersive worlds and reworked in 2.o thinking, mirror worlds, or whatever you want to call them, are going to become rocking places to hang out in.

To get a glimpse of some of the ways the high end technology is developing see Photosynth. Photosynth combines the Seadragon technology which obliterates limitations of screen resolution with 3D photo tourism, allowing people to create immersive 3D worlds from hundreds of thousands of different photos and form interconnected user generated environments.

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Mirror Worlds on Second Life

Epredator (a.k.a Ian Hughes) and Yossarian Seattle a.k.a Rob Smart, both of IBM and Eightbar, gave Destroy TV a guided tour of Hursley. “The Unofficial Tourists’ Guide to Second Life,” says “the IBM island Hursley, is being kept strictly under wraps.” But, thanks to Epredator, Yossarian and Destroy TV, a tour of this inner sanctum of innovation - invention and insight, IBM’s incubator for pervasive computing and the meaningful virtualization of reality and more, on Second Life, is documented and searchable online in Destroy TV’s Flickr stream. Destroy TV has created the most searchable archive of Second Life to date.

“Innovation has to be part of your life.” (Andy Stanford-Clark)

The Real Life house pictured above is IBM Master Inventor Andy Stanford-Clark’s Real Life farm, and Llama trekking business on the Isle of Wight, UK. On the right is the virtualization this house which is part of a Second Life Real Life Home Automation project. The pictures in the bottom row shows Stanford-Clark’s Real Life Llamas on the left and their virtual counterparts on Second Life on the right. Real and Virtual Llamas are linked through GPS and MQ telemetry so that Andy S-C can be a good shepherd when away from his farm (see this IBM podcast).

Pervasive and Mobile Computing and Virtualizing Reality: Why High End Business Executives Care

“because it’s what enables an event-driven, on-demand business.”

While his Llama mapping project began because Andy S-C needed to protect his trekking lamas from theft and misadventure, it evolved into a solution to a customer demand for “Pay As You Drive” insurance for Norwich Union.

If you want a detailed explanation of how IBM inventors are using Second Life and IBM’s MQtt messaging to virtualize and make meaningful data from Real Life on Second Life there are many relevant posts on Eightbar. Also see my earlier post on C.J. Chowderhead’s virtual lab.

Virtualized Worlds Are Key To Sustainable Development

Also, described in the IBM podcast and virtualized in Second Life (and visited by Destroy) is the bridge below where in Real Life Andy Stanford-Clark invented a flood monitoring system that has wide applications not only to the insurance industry for better flood prediction, but for monitoring the effects of global warming.

If you have read Ugotrade before you will know that I try to explore the possibilities of virtual realities and 2.0 thinking, pervasive and mobile computing in positive global development. The work of virtualizing reality has incredible significance for a sustainable future.

From an uber visionary perspective, this is a future where “green” means, perhaps, eliminating the need to build anything at all. This remark comes from Keystone Bouchard, Virtual Architect for Clear Ink, who was also visited by Destroy TV - more later this post about Keystone, and 3D Experience Architecture.

On Ugotrade I try integrate an expansive view that imagines an end to this era of industrial production, all it’s horrors of inequality, waste, pollution and scarcity, with an on the ground perspective that not only tracks corporate innovation, but looks at how people in developing economies (including Second Life) are using virtual realities in innovative ways, for example:

Mobile phones have enabled Africans to leapfrog lack of banking infrastructure and invent virtual banking. And, how ordinary people all over the world are reinventing their lives and careers in Second Life.

Virtualized Business on Second Life

Destroy’s visit to the IBM Business Center is also worth a mention. So much of business reporting on Second Life has focused on whether Second Life is “working” from a very narrow and often poorly conceptualized marketing/sales perspective. This kind of reporting on Second Life has been all too common lately, even by reputable business writers. But, it has been rife with inaccuracies and is based on many misconceptions - see here for a thorough analysis.

I found out, on the ground, some of the innovative ways IBM is developing their Second Life Business Center as a place to relate with their customers, on what is approaching a 24/7 basis, on Destroy’s Flickr stream!

A Searcheable Guide To Second Life

Destroy TV has, in the last ten days, created, an extraordinary guide to Second Life (which will be released as a DVD later). But this guide is available now as a searchable Flickr stream of more than 99,000 photos and the accompanying chat. You can check out Destroy’s flickr tags that logged every place she has been and every avatar she encountered here. Flickr tags were created from the Second Life chat lines and are correlated with a SLurl.

This is the first time that such a vast searcheable document of Second Life has been created. Perhaps, you can, tell how powerful it is by the way I was able to match up Second Life photos from Destroy’s record with Real Life photos I found through Googling Hursley Park on the web.

A toast to Destroy’s accomplishment!

The cover of “The Unofficial Tourists’ Guide to Second Life” is held in front of the camera streaming the Fuse Gallery event into Second Life.

Sharing The Experience Of Second Life

Steve Nelson from Clear Ink notes:

I think both machinima and exported live feeds will be an important part of one of the hurdles of SL, namely the learning curve. The more people are acclimated to the environment before they enter for the first time, the more accelerated I think their introduction to SL will be. It’s like visiting a new country after having seen videos - it isn’t as much of a shock when you actually get there.

As Destroy toured Second Life her adventures and chat were not only streamed live to the web at Destroy TV, they were also projected on a wall in Fuse Gallery, New York City, where people could watch and interact with the avatars. Also what was happening in the Real Life Gallery in New York City was streamed back into Second Life to the GHava{SL} Center for the Arts. This was quite a conceptual and technical achievement.

Pictured above is Clear Ink’s 3D Experience Architect, Keystone Bouchard. When Destroy accompanied by Jerry Paffendorf encountered the team from Clear Ink (one the most visionary agencies working on Second Life), they found people who really got the significance of the multiple levels of reaction this project created (photo from Destroy’s Flickr stream).

A good opportunity to check out Clear Ink and their work on SL will be this event on Autodesk Island HERE (SLurl), June 14, 10AM PST Chris Luebkeman : Future Challenges: Global Creative Contexts.

Annie Ok writes of this extraordinary meeting of minds in a long comment on this post on 3pointD. Here is an excerpt:

the exemplary moment of Destroy’s potential educational/informative application has been the happy accident of running into Keystone Bouchard and him immediately TP-ing in Theory Shaw and the ensuing tour they gave to destroy of architecture island and the Wikitecture project.

Keystone talked to me later about the Clear Ink encounter with Destroy. There are several key-points Keystone touched on:

Sharing The Experience of Second Life with People In Real Life

At Clear Ink, we had several people watching on my screen, who could see both my avatar’s movements and Destroy’s view through my browser. So, on my end, there were several people viewing both portals simultaneously. But, what makes it really interesting is that through this virtual medium, it ended up being both absorbed and transmitted through a multitude of experiences. Because, on their end, they had the virtual scene being projected onto the wall of a real life gallery with several people in real life witnessing the phenomenon - even taking pictures of themselves standing next to avatars - as you would in a real life gathering. It blurred so many lines - it was quite extraordinary.

Interacting With An Avatar On Second Life To produce A Shared Narrative

We could see what Destroy was looking at through the browser. I could see her camera so, when she would move her camera over to a certain build, I could describe what she was looking at, so the people in the gallery could read what i was describing. In a sense, we even transcended our avatars - and became invisible cameras - flying around the island looking at, touring and describing the entire island - while our avatars stood still. Plus, at Clear Ink, it was a great way to engage my co-workers, and show them a really unique experience - using SL in a way it hadn’t ever been used before.

Sharing Avatar Viewpoint To Enhance Collaboration On Second Life

Architecturally - in a virtual environment - understanding the avatar’s gaze is absolutely critical - and one of the biggest challenges in a virtual environment. Because, I can design something using Mouselook - and it could be visually compelling based on the way I use my camera - but another user would have an entirely different experience based on the way they use their camera. So, you have to design a building to accommodate many levels of approach and viewpoint.

Being able to see what Destroy was looking at did truly provide a missing link. I was able to give her a more thorough description of the island. At one point, I was describing the Wikitecture experiment. But I could see that Destroy was looking at the Architecture 101 build - so I shifted the conversation to describe that. At which point, Destroy started going from project to project, knowing that I could continue the narrative. The collaborative potential is something we’re very interested in and actively building experiments around on Architecture Island.

The Metarati In Action

Jerry Paffendorf at Destroy’s wrap party last Saturday at Fuse NYC watches Destroy’s visit to Relay For Life - the American Cancer Society’s SL adventure that has sparked enthusiasm and creativity from Second Lifers (three years on SL now!) Destroy was welcomed by a large crowd of avatars.

Jerry Paffendorf, Metarati and Futurist in Residence for the Electric Sheep Company (this is an independent project) teamed with artist Annie Ok, curator and collaborator, and Christian Westbrook (Metaverse Architect ESC) to create Destroy TV. Ben Byer, who is from Apple BSD technology group, was visiting from California, (on right). He came up with the name for Destroy TV.

It is an extraordinary feat of vision combined with some coding genius. They pulled off the extended two way streaming, projection and logging to Flickr with only a few minor burps. This is no minor feat. See Christian’s blog for a post on what happened when their Flickr stream topped 99,000.

Turning Extreme Lifelogging Into Meaningful Virtual Experience

I talked at length with Jerry Paffendorf at the closing party at Fuse Gallery about the challenge of extreme life logging in virtual worlds both from a technical and expressive point of view. Just like there is a need for a new language of virtual architecture as Keystone points out - “a more interactive, reflexive architecture” - there is a need to find an expressive language for life logging. Jerry Paffendorf has been pushing the envelope on this and has some very interesting projects in the pipeline (which I will let him reveal).

Flickr, the poster child of Web 2.0, began as a user generated virtual world.

Jerry talked about how Flickr is a big influence on his thinking right now. Flickr as he notes is the poster child of Web 2.0 - it gets better the more people that use it and interact with each other inside it. But, Jerry also pointed out something about Flickr that may not be so well known, i.e., it started out as user generated virtual world called Game Never Ending.

It is fascinating how Destroy TV by using Flickr to document Second Life begins to reconnect with this initial conception. Jerry noted that it is possible Destroy TV was the most prolific poster to Flckr in the world, during Destroy’s ten day adventure.

Also, Jerry sees the Destroy Project as a sketch for how we are our going to record and organize our own Real Lives - remembering the places that we have been and the people we have been around. This is what Destroy TV does, and documents. Like Game never Ending turned out not simply to apply to organizing a virtual world, Destroy TV is also about inventing ways to organize our experience of the real world, and bridge the imagination gap needed to do this (also see 3pointD on Ambient Gaming: Life Logging in Disguise). Talking about the future of Destroy TV, Jerry said:

What I want to see happen is that anybody who logs into Second Life, or any virtual world, can record absolutely everything that they see and create a lifelog of their Second Life experience.

Virtual Worlds have a big advantage over the real world re life logging because they have built in wireless, RFID, meta data and geolocation, so it makes sense for this to be a place we will proto-type life logging.

The search for a an expressive language for extreme lifelogging -where the traces and tracks of real life can be expressed in virtual space in meaningful ways - is where 3D experience design and the virtualization of real life merge to create innovative hybrid realities.

A 3D Experience Architect- building a new language for virtual design.

I have been meaning to visit Architecture Island for a while now, and seeing Destroy’s Flickr stream inspired me to go yesterday. First, I talked to Keystone Bouchard.

Keystone Bouchard is a Real Life architect who has recently transitioned exclusively to a virtual mode as a “3D Experience Architect” with Clear Ink. He is standing here in an experiment he is working on. You can click on the video grab below to see a short machinima.

The blurring of lines between familiar and unfamiliar experiences of music and space create an other-worldly environment that is cinematic yet still an invitation to interaction.

Keystone observed avatar movement and behavior on a Architecture Island, then wrote a piano score that approximated that movement. Then he transposed a video of him playing that score and imported the video. His goal is to make the architecture interactive so that it understands where you are and what you’re doing - and provides an audible reaction to it.

Wikitecture On Second Life

Keystone is also interested in the crossroad between the professional practice of architecture and virtual environments, as well as the development of a new language of virtual architecture. Keystone and Theory Shaw, pictured below, have teamed up to use virtual worlds as a tool for a collaborative approach to architecture in the Real World. Theory Shaw has outlined how virtual world can be used in the the planning of future cities.

The central build on Architecture Island is the Studio Wikitecture experiment - an open source approach to architecture that everyone is free to join - co-creating projects and participating in collaborative design.

Theory is an architect living in Chicago. He is currently researching the prospect of using an open source (or wiki) type paradigm toward the improvement of architecture and city planning.

I feel our cities are so complicated that no small group of people can possibly design them from the top down….it’s a such a grand problem, that we need to set up a framework (or platform) where people can come together and tackle the problem from a local perspective.

My ultimate goal is to use Second Life, or what will be ultimately the next metaverse, (and the tool you utilize for open source architecture should be just as open), as a tool for the world’s population to come together, and solve collectively, how architecture should be defined.

The Studio Wikitecture experiment needs a complete post, so I will not go into all of the interesting aspects of this project Theory mentioned in our chat right now. But, Theory has written a program and protocol for the experiment - available here.

Tags: Extreme Life logging | life logging | 3D experience architecture | Second Life Builders | Second Life | Web 2.0 | Web 3.D | Web 3D | mirror worlds | virtualizing reality | wikitecture | open source architecture | architecture island | vitual architecture | Destroy TV | virtual experience | IBM Virtual Business Center | virtual business | machinima | virtual worlds | metaverse | sustainable development | virtual banking | pervasive and mobile computing | virtualized worlds |

On Wednesday, I met with Ginsu Linden (a.k.a. Ginsu Yoon - photo on the the left from Joi’s Flickr stream) to talk about Second Life’s global role.

Ginsu Linden is Linden Lab’s vice president, business affairs - generally overseeing international market development, business and corporate development, and developer programs.

Ginsu was in Asia when we met on the pontoon at Aleister Kronos’s quiet seaside retreat on Second Life, where sculpted prim icebergs sparkle among the palms. Aleister is a well known Second Life blogger and Senior Enterprise Architect in Real Life. He is also a Second Life artist. He spends some of his time quietly pottering around in his lovely sculpture garden, fine tuning his creations.

Once seated opposite Ginsu in this quiet corner of the metaverse, the sound of the waves lapping in the background, the continents between us seemed to vanish.

I know that those of you already familiar with immersive worlds already understand how compelling they are in ways that are very personal and hard to quantify. But, it is a very difficult to transmit this to people who haven’t experienced it.

The social/immersive qualities of virtual worlds tap into ranges of human experience and modes of expression beyond text and speech. This is one of the key contributions virtual realities make to new forms of global communication.

The only immersive virtual space (for the moment at least) that allows for the full user created expression of entire cultures or personal identities is Second Life.

“Second Life is so immersive that it can transmit more than just text. It can transmit entire cultures” (Ginsu Linden)

I asked Ginsu a number of questions on several topics including: When are Linden Lab’s open sourcing the servers and/or setting up server farms outside the US? What were his thoughts about the intersection of virtual worlds and mobile space? How would virtual worlds create new channels of global commerce? But, it was the clear to me, the most important understanding I took from the interview was not just answers to questions on issues of scaling, open sourcing, virtual commerce and the guiding principles behind Linden Lab’s global provider program. Rather, I gained a better overall sense of how virtual worlds could come of age as a truly positive global phenomena. While commerce may well be the driving force in the development of virtual worlds and Second Life, it is the non-commerce related experience of virtual worlds that is really something to write home about. Ginsu made the point clearly:

I think that there’s a good argument to be made for the value of non-commerce related experience in SL.

It’s really interesting to watch digital cultures spread in SL, and this is not something that is closely tied to a virtual economy…. it’s great to watch people in different countries interact in SL.

People always make the comparison of SL to a 3D web, but one of the things that is quite different is that on websites today, you do not see people from different countries interacting much.

People on the Internet tend to stay within their own cultures, because websites are still primarily a text-based medium.

But SL is so immersive that it can transmit more than just text, it can transmit entire cultures. So you see this very interesting effect where people from other countries are quite eager to interact with each other, similar to the way people are quite keen to travel if they have the opportunity.

Argentonia

Ginsu’s remarks resonated strongly with an experience I had doing a little tourism on Second Life just recently. I met, and spent some time with Dmian (pictured above), who showed me around the new Argentonia sim. I had come to find out about the virtual elections to be held there. They were blogged by Pablo Mancini. But, after meeting Dmian, not only did I get an insider view on the elections both in Real Life and Second Life, but I experienced a taste of the Buenos Aires music scene. Dmian Munro has started a virtual band in Second Life. Please check out his video blog and myspace.

There is much more to say about this experience and Argentonia, so I will return soon. But, please see the Argentonia blog and this video to get the flavor of a mixed reality event Argentonia style. I mentioned Argentonia to Ginsu. And, he said he had not heard about this sim yet. Second Life is expanding so fast no-one, not even a God can keep up!

Linden Lab’s Global Provider Program

I asked Ginsu what he thought it was about Second Life that makes SL more pervasive, or even Web 3D.

Ginsu replied:

This is just my opinion - in each country, the best efforts will really be made by local providers who will build locale-appropriate content on the Second Life grid. I would not say that SL has to be “more” or a “replacement” for anything. People are always obsessed with declaring something else dead. But look at the media landscape today - oral tradition, books, plays, radio, TV, movies, Internet - each of these things was supposed to be the “death” of something else - and yet we still enjoy all of them.

I asked Ginsu whether when he said local provider he meant the Kaizen model. Kaizen has recently launched Second Life Brasil:

Yes, Kaizen is the first to launch in the global provider program.

I continued: “And, what has made them successful?”

First of all, they are very committed to the effort and willing to move quickly and flexibly. They have spent a lot of time understanding their goals in SL, and have built their own tools to manage their efforts.

I have always believed that it is folly for anyone to believe that a company in SF is going to know what everyone around the world wants. The likeliest source for local product is local providers.

“How do you feel Linden Labs are giving Global Providers maximum autonomy and the benefits of being on the Second Life grid? Are there lag problems from the server farms being so far away?”

I think the point of SL as a service platform is that it should be maximally configurable to the needs of the local provider. There can be several local providers in a single market, they can compete on their services and configurations, let the market decide what works. Yes, local servers would improve some aspects of performance. That’s a frequent request and one which we’d like to satisfy. Like anything, it takes some work to accomplish.

“And you can satisfy that before LL goes open source right? The two are not mutually dependent?” I asked.

I don’t think the two are mutually dependent.

Right at the beginning of our conversation, I asked Ginsu when Second Life would go open source server side. I sort of blurted the question out the minute I saw him hoping, of course, for a major Ugotrade scoop! And, he said:

We have generally announced our ambition to open source server code. However, this is in the speculative stages and I can’t commit to any time-line yet.

Certainly we think open sourcing server code would be a very compelling way to spread SL.

There are many people who said we would never open source the client. I suppose if you look at our track record, it sometimes takes us quite a while to deliver on our ambitions. However, I think it would be unfair to say that we don’t try to achieve what we’ve promised.

Oh well, I was a little disappointed not to rock the blogosphere with some big news. But, maybe next time!

Since the interview I have spent some time thinking about the global provider program and trying to understand more about it. It is clear that even key Second Life movers and shakers find it less than self evident.

Second Life Portugal?

Gwyneth Llewelyn, important metathinker on Second Life, and Business Manager of Beta Technologies had a number of comments when I asked her about the global provider program:

Well… the issue that we ask is: why a “global provider program” at all? The client can be tweaked easily (it already supports Portuguese by default) The registration API already allows you to create whatever accounts you wish, from your own website, and you can have avatars dropping on “your” island. So… what this program gives you, is mostly a discount on islands (negligible — people like Anshe Chung get better) and being allowed to use LL’s “Second Life” logo, with some restrictions, on the site. As for how successful Kaizen is, I have no idea, but they surely have a HUGE continent!! …… That’s why we’re being careful ourselves… we don’t want to be “SL Portugal” unless we understand what that means (it’s not our core business, although we have the means to do that if we think it’s worth it )

What this will allow is providing added value ie. customer support and targeted content towards specific communities. In essence, what Anshe (and so many others) have been doing for years now.

This is only a tiny snippet of what Gwyn had to say on this issue. She made many astute observations on this and other key debates re the growth of Second Life, including the hot issue of the interpretation statistics. If Gwyn doesn’t write up the rest of these observations herself, I will in a later post! Gwyn has a fascinating post up at the moment on the growth of Second Life in Portugal and the recent conference on Second Life held locally, at the University of Aveiro, 1º Workshop on Communication, Education and Teaching. This is a must read for all interested in education, culture, and commerce on Second Life. Gwyn notes:

people [in Portugal] are getting their master’s thesis and doctorates in Second Life. Very surprising for a country which practically just had one representative (Eggy Lippmann) for a couple of years and still has only 50.000 users on SL today — many of which quite recent, as the Portuguese media just “woke up” to Second Life less than half a year ago.

Here’s Jorge Lima a.k.a. Eggy Lippmann.

I also chatted with Aleister Kronos and Veejay Burns about the Global Provider program. And, Aleister did have some thoughts. Veejay was exhausted after a long day in Real Life and retired early. I will let him break the interesting news about what he accomplished in RL! Aleister blogged Kaizen for 3pointD.

The three of us could see some special features that Kaizen offered Brasilian Second Lifers. For starters, you can’t buy L$ thru Linden Lab using Brazillian Reals, but you can through Kaizen. Although there has been some concern in the blogosphere about this. Meta Bronca wrote: “Many users felt wronged by the potential currency exchange monopoly established by the partnership IG-Kaizen.”

The blogosphere seems well overdue for a post (is there already one I don’t know about?) on the state of virtual currencies, and the global implications of their development.

Al pointed out that Kaizen actually gives IT support to a Second Life viewer also. Anshe Chung, The Electric Sheep Company and others have created portals, but do not supply a modified viewer. If there is a bug in the viewer a Brasilian reports it to Kaizen. So Kaizen is an IT service too.

The Linden Lab Global Provider program is just starting out, so I am sure we will be hearing more about it in the future.

Second Life Africa?

Ginsu Linden mentioned that Linden Lab has interest from several countries in Europe and Asia. I was disappointed not to hear Africa on the list yet. But, after reading this post Ginsu sent this encouraging message:

We actually have gotten inquiries from Africa as well. It’s been busy here.

I picked up a story on Ugotrade from Mutumwa Mawere in a previous post. Mawere writes in his column in Zim Daily about the benefits virtual worlds in general, and Second Life in particular, might bring to Africa. And, I recently read an interesting post on African Computer Game Development. In particular, Africa the MMORPG a project reportedly in limbo seems very interesting.

Some Cool Upcoming Second Life and Mixed Reality Events.

From Keystone Bouchard:

June 14, 10AM PST Chris Luebkeman : Future Challenges: Global Creative Contexts

Population shifts, increasing scarcity, and the wanton consumption of arable land and natural (renewable and nonrenewable) resources amount to what could prove to be a significant global dilemma - a dilemma of disastrous proportion. Yet trends in design and an ever-increasing focus on conservation and environmental issues suggest that we are headed for a collective change. This program considers the impact of global drivers of change on sustainable creative contexts, explores potential implications, and provides attendees with examples of design work that is already responding to the challenges.

Attend this event on Autodesk Island HERE (SLurl).

Also see the Autodesk press release.

Sergio Palleroni and Phil Bernstein on Architectural Sustainability last Thursday on Autodesk Island.

Check out Clear Night Sky for the discussion Sergio Palleroni and Phil Bernstein gave on Autodesk Island.

And in New York City!

For more see The Cruxy Blog.

I spent some time hanging out in the Cruxy Sky Box on Second Life yesterday. It was a lot of fun. And, I saw how Second Life may well be becoming THE happening place for hip bands to express themselves. I have to admit I haven’t been paying enough attention on this front. And, just a few of the things that Nat Mandelbrot mentioned in my short visit re creating experiences around the music in Second Life, e.g., fan made music video and reinventing “album art,” got my imagination firing. I will post more on this.

The Mixed Reality Metarati came out to the Fuse Gallery/GHava{SL} Center for the Arts for the launch of Destroy Television Wednesday night. This ten day mixed reality interactive virtual/real “lifelogging” is an independent, art world foray from Jerry Paffendorf and Christian Westbrook of Electric Sheep Company, with collaborator and curator Annie Ok.

The MindBlizzard Blog posed the question “Who Are the Metarati?” and has begun a list on Metarati.org (Contact VeeJay Burns for more suggestions).

In the category of Immersive Worlds so far there is:

- Philip Rosedale (Linden Labs)
- Reuben Steiger (Millions of Us)
- Jerry Paffendorf (Electric Sheep Company)
- Ron Britvich (WebWorlds, Active Worlds)

I have become particularly interested in the work of a new category of Metarati - The Mixed Reality Metarati (see 3pedia for origin of term Metarati).

Mixed Reality events have been emerging everywhere lately. The millipedes are in the refrigerator now (see earlier post) and moving freely in and out of formerly sealed virtual worlds on many limbs.

MindBlizzard explains - The Digerati emerged from “the age of computers and internet, the age of information technology as we know it.”

And, now the days of the Metarati have come in - “a new era filled with Web 2.0 and immersive worlds.” (Metarati)

The Mixed Reality Metarati, are taking the next step as they begin virtualizing real life and augmenting reality in meaningful ways,” (virtualizing real life is a phrase I picked up on from CJ Chowderhead).

And, these new mash ups of virtual and real worlds, are bringing together art, science, commerce, popular culture, politics and play in new and interesting ways, to create hybrid worlds.

The title *rati, of course, has to be earned through a combination of uber geekiness and extraordinary vision

In the last few weeks, I have attended the corporate mixed reality showcases of Xerox and IBM Impact 2007, and popular culture mash ups from (Spin Martin (Eric Rice), Johnny Ming (Swords), Second Cast live podcasts, and Virtualive.tv). And, I interviewed IBM, Hursley Park Senior Inventors, and RL/SL link creators, Epredator, and CJ Chowderhead.

But, there are a wide variety of the mixed reality projects emerging. Last night, at the Destroy Television launch, I had a chance to meet several other key innovators in the mixed reality field in person.
It was an incredible pleasure to meet Nathanial Freitas (a.k.a. nat mandelbrot). He is the creator with Will Meyer and Jon Oakes, of online media sites such as such as Cruxy, MUX, and ION. (and the Cruxy Player for Second Life). Cruxy has just been selected for:

UNDER THE RADAR CONFERENCE: Entertainment & Media, June 28, 2007, Microsoft Campus - Mountain View, CA
Meet the innovators that are not only shaping the future of digital entertainment and media but are also inspiring the most important audience to do the same: us. We edit the clips, mix the sound, airbrush the pics, animate the avatars, post the video and blog the masterpiece. This isn’t digital evolution. This is digital revolution.

But, also, Nathanial Freitas is a volunteer and Board Member to groups such as the Students for a Free Tibet, Mobile Active, and The Ruckus Society.

Nathan worked with the team that went to Everest to “turn up heat on Beijing Olympics.” He was responsible for all the video streaming over satellite technology that made it possible to get the photo below, of the protest at the Chinese Mt. Everest Base Camp, in the Wall Street Journal. The activists seem to have left a lasting impression on the Chinese Government (see here).

Baghdad Streets In Real and Second Life

I also talked to Mark Wallace of 3pointD and Rik Panganiban. Rik has blogged:

the powerful new interactive exhibit “Baghdad Streets” organized by PT Witte on Better World Island (teleport SLURL). “Baghdad Streets” is an extension of the PT’s real-life-work “bringing the truth of life in the killing zone of Baghdad” to the awareness of as many people as possible. Walking through the maze (I recommend using mouse-view) brings you face to face with the reality of the conflict and its effects on innocent lives. You encounter real stories of people caught up in the conflagration, their daily frustrations, and steps you can take to encourage peace in the region.

PT Witte is Mark Wallace’s real life father, who:

has been connecting students and teachers in Baghdad and New York City for four years via email. Excerpts of these moving communications are at Better World Island as well as the project blog at 121Contact.typepad.com

Conversations Merging Art, Technology, Politics and Play

I had a long recorded conversation with Andy Fundinger. I will come back to some of the ideas we talked about. The topics ranged from the development details of SL/RL interfaces (see his blog for more), to how different cultures on Second Life would want different things out of RL/SL interfaces. And, how at this point “it was difficult to say what the widely used apps will be” (this was the message I also received earlier in the day direct from Philip Linden’s Blackberry!) But, Andy (a.k.a. Ciemaax Flintoff) and his co-developer on some SL/RL interfaces, William Ward, said they might be ready to push a few new apps out to the world, and see how people picked them up and used them.

Their project, “Weather Wisdom - RL Weather in SL, was in the NMC Connect art show.

Here’s the finished in-world build:

And the finished real world controller:

Also, at the Destroy TV art and technology, SL/RL, mashup/meetup were Marshall Sponder artist, blogger and web analyst for IBM, and Matthew Rodriguez. I met them both at MobileCampNYC. I didn’t get a chance to talk to Derek Lerner. But, we met briefly. And, when I checked out Ghava.com later, I wished we had talked. Ghava is an artist collective and agency that explores the collaborative process and its effects on commercial and fine art projects.

And, in the picture below (on right) the award winning machinimist Pierce Portcarrero talking with artist Ryan Ford.

Check out PierceP’s cool mixed reality machinima here.

Tags: Second Life | Web 2.0 | Web 3D | Web 3.D | Machinima | Mixed Reality | Augmented Reality | Metarati | Digerati | Baghdad | Free Tibet | Beijing Olympics 2008 | Cruxy | Destroy TV | Virtual Worlds | Virtual Reality |