|
17.
Precompetitive Challenges. Opportunities
for precompetitive industry, academic, nonprofit,
or social collaborative R&D.
17A. Precompetitive Challenges - Technology
and Science
| •
Object representation. There isn't yet a suite
of universal metadata identifier protocols
for physical objects (like ISBNs
for books, etc.) that could be used to geographically
locate and inventory things in the metaverse.
As an overlay on the existing web, we need
a geocoded and semantic web. GeoRSS
is one format, allowing the encoding of location
in RSS feeds, but we will need many others.
We'll also need the geodata to be searchable,
within a 3D map program like Google Earth
[70]. At present, thre is very little metadata
associated with informational objects. The
Semantic
Web vision is far from reality. But history
has shown that if there is a data aggregator
interface that offers consumer value, like
Mosaic
for the graphical web, iTunes
for podcasts, or RSS
aggregators built into tomorrow's browsers,
people will add the appropriate metadata to
their online information. |
|
| • Facilitating trust
through 3D. How do we use emerging 3D web
technologies to help the development of trust
networks? 3D video is very helpful for
establishing initial rapport in virtual teams,
though it becomes less necessary going forward.
Relationships in virtual social environments
like Second
Life can also allow the formation of trust
with minimal time and money investment. |
|
| • We hope to see technology
breakthroughs in automatic content and environment
generation, in non-player
character AI, and tools for user-generated
content. A flood of new content will in
turn create new opportunities for narrowcasting
and content quality evaluation. |
|
| • The web emerged because
of scientific collaboration needs, which are
still pressing. It would be great to see at
least part of the next level of metaverse
infrastructure emerge out of government-funded
scientific collaboration that required better
3D visualization. Academic centers like Internet2,
working on advanced networks, might drive
this, so might high end geographic
information systems (GIS) for scientific
research. At the same time, as the metaverse
is even more a social space than it is a teaching
or experiential learning space at present,
virtual worlds that satisfy our socialization
needs, eg., MySpace2, might be the major drivers
in coming years. |
|
| |
|
| |
|
17B. Precompetitive Challenges - Business
and Economics
| • Applying
the "Turnpike Analogy" (online access
as a precompetitive public
good). When the US government purchased
the privately-operated turnpikes
between cities in the early 20th century,
they greatly increased public mobility and
spurred tremendous new economic efficiencies.
They also freed up competition to move to
other domains. Today developed countries face
a similar issue with regard to digital traffic.
Consumer access to bandwidth
(channel capacity) for rich media has
consistently been a bottleneck to robust virtual
worlds and the participatory
web. As the increasingly 3D-enabled web
continues to increase in social and economic
value, at some point high-capacity access
becomes a public good. High end technologies
like
fiber optics promise to eliminate many
bandwidth bottlenecks, but in the U.S., unlike
other countries, there is little government
leadership or subsidization of companies capable
of delivering low cost public access. U.S.
wireless and wired access lags behind both
Asian and European markets as a result of
our laissez-faire
and special-interest driven policies. Telecom
companies are among the largest contributors
to U.S. politician's perpetual reelection
campaigns. When will online access become
a critical public good? What governmental
role is waiting to emerge for public guarantee
of high-end metaversal bandwidth in the U.S.?
Can we look to smaller, more wired countries
for a useful model? |
|
| • Creativity,
lifelong learning habits, and self-directedness
(individual motivation) may be the primary
intellectual capital necessary to compete
in a rapidly-changing service-based metaverse
economy. Such skills are desperately needed
by today's businesses. Unfortunately, they
are actively discouraged in today’s
authoritarian, lowest-common-denominator,
test-driven school systems in the U.S. and
other short-term oriented, special-interest
driven democracies. This highlights
a formidable education challenge: to reform
or bypass our increasingly irrelevant educational
infrastructures to prepare a workforce for
tomorrow’s economy. There are limited
models for this in Montessori
and other self-directed learning approaches,
but the passive, consumerist, media-saturated
culture of the developed world fights against
instilling creativity and self-empowerment
from the earliest years. The rise of for-profit
and nonprofit home
schooling networks are one bright spot,
and an effective way to immunize against
a passive, selfish, and isolationist dominant
culture, but few parents have the resources
or resolve to participate in that option.
As they improve in size and sophistication,
online environments for alternative schooling
systems hold forth hope for real alternatives. |
|
| • Addressing the digital
skills divide. The gaming
industry needs help addressing the increasing
divide emerging between high end digital production,
requiring a lot of specialized education and
training, and the burgeoning number of low
level jobs at the “edge of automation”
(replacement by the system). The latter jobs
don’t last long. Better academic programs,
training youth in generalized digital learning
and competitiveness skills, would help when
they are shifted to a new job position every
few years, or laid off due to advancing global
competition. |
|
| |
|
| |
|
17C. Precompetitive Challenges - Social,
Legal and Other
| • Intellectual
property law is presently insufficient
to deal with many of the challenges of virtual
content creation systems and privacy
law with the flood of new data made available
through the geospatial web. How do we best
address this? Furthermore, out outdated patent
and copyright systems are increasingly hindering
innovation and is in need of reform. They
favor big business, are highly bureaucratic,
and lack specialist talent. Beth Noveck's
Peer
to Patent project (adding peer review
to the application process) is just one of
several promising ideas for improving the
system. |
|
| • Regulating fantasy
experiences and illegal activities in virtual
worlds. Every baser fantasy of human beings,
including many illegal in every civilized
country, is a potential market for synthetic
worlds willing and able to cater to our demand
for detailed virtual wish fulfillment. Certainly
Grand
Theft Auto and the like are already examples
of this (increasingly realistic social behavior
that would be illegal in the physical world).
The more realistic and intelligent these worlds
become, the greater their capacity to both
educate in and motivate antisocial behavior.
To minimize abuse, new levels of legal accountability,
insurance, regulation, and public transparency
of game players must emerge. Most of this
will be reactive, but some proactive. The
2002 U.S.
Supreme Court decision striking down a 6-year
old ban on virtual child pornography,
because it violated freedom of speech, shows
the deficiency of our legal framework at present.
Without laws that explicitly address the issue
of virtual environments as training grounds
for illegal activity, we will remain unready
for the future. Certainly the vast majority
of us would not want online worlds where people
can learn how to build improvised
explosive devices or radio-controlled
weaponry in their garage, how to effectively
kidnap
and hold for ransom, etc. Yet our virtual
simulations get more able to simulate and
teach such things every year. How do we better
draw the line? |
|
| •
Addressing new social problems occurring with
the rise of "inner space" exploration.
Youth of the early 20th century had to mostly
go outside, into new physical environments
to explore their world. They could explore
the inner space world of book
reading, but the discipline and education
required were high, and reading lacks the
critical social component. Then came television,
which was low energy but still not social,
and now we have interactive
virtual worlds, allowing social exploration
without the gaining of physical experience.
In their “first generation” version,
these technologies have contributed to a reduced
connectedness with the outer world, a reduced
awareness of global physical space, decreasing
physical fitness and increasing obesity
in the more developed countries. One can imagine
upgrades to these technologies that will address
these problems (mirror worlds, educational
software, exergames
(active video games), systems to monitor
overuse) but we are at present seeing a number
of increasing social problems with inner space
exploration, in addition to their increasing
benefits. The development and promotion of
more outdoors programs like Outward
Bound will be needed in our schools if
we are to counter the decreasing physical
awareness of modern youth. |
|
| • Need for
more serious games in education and work.
There’s a common belief that today’s
youth demonstrate less long-range persistent
attention
at work than their parents did at their age.
This may be true in physical space, but there
is a case that their attention has simply
shifted to digital environments. Today's youth
tend to play digital games with long, complex
missions, while adults tend to play simpler,
shorter, casual online games without the same
depth. There is also a significant contingent
of adult complex gamers who may play today
because they don’t have satisfying work
environments. An R&D challenge for our
generation is to provide enough realism, interactivity,
and education in serious
games so that experiences gained in the
virtual realm have direct crossover to the
physical. This may be less of a problem once
we start collaborating preferentially in virtual
spaces for work and education, but that may
be decades away. In the meantime, we need
more serious games of all types. This includes
games that promote scientific literacy in
the classroom, like Uncharted
Depths, games that are counterparts to
TV career dramas, like ER,
CSI and Law
& Order, and games that teach good
social and leadership skills, like Virtual
Leader. Integrating these into educational
curricula is a major challenge. |
|
| • New social conventions
and laws may be needed for augmented
reality (AR) gamers. In coming years,
kids playing AR games will be chased by virtual
monsters (“ghosts”) around the
city. Will the driver in an automobile be
allowed to play such a game? What about the
passenger, if she is instructing the driver
where to drive? What happens when it is easy
to play elaborate live versions of AR-enhanced
Assassin/Killer,
perhaps with reward money attached? Phil Torrone’s
radio-controlled “Roomba
Frogger” demo on a public street
in Austin, TX at SXSW,
was perhaps a harbinger. A significant portion
of the blog commentary centered on the potential
danger to motorists of this public stunt.
Urban AR games will be quite fun for the players
but we'll need a new social contract for their
use. |
|
| • Legally balancing the
needs of the individual and the collective
in virtual space development. Just as with
the physical world, as citizens and consumers
we need a balance between the freedom of creating
our own unique online spaces and behaviors,
and the responsibilities living in a common
virtual social environment with rules to guide
us. Technology is not neutral. It’s
built by people with agendas and assumptions,
and we need those to be not only empowering,
but as transparent and accountable as possible.
We need to ensure that individualist
values of freedom, creativity, and self-actualization
are well balanced with collectivist
values, including fair laws and interdependent
social contracts in our virtual worlds. |
|
| |
|
| |
|
18.
Competitive Challenges. 3D web research
and developments that will likely be achieved
in a proprietary, competitive manner.
18A. Competitive Challenges - Technology
and Science
| • We need to make our
3D worlds map to physical space and available
wirelessly everywhere users go. The perceived
pervasiveness and usefulness of virtual world
access will be the key factor in their mass
adoption. Unlike early adopters, the early
and late majority of users may be willing
to depend on virtual space and integrate it
into their lives only to the extent they find
them useful in physical space and can reliably
and cheaply access them whenever they imagine
it might be valuable. Garmin's Nuvi
(2006), a portable 2D GPS navigator, is a
big step closer to the device we need. Picture
a Sony
PSP-type device that has all the functionality
of the Nuvi plus a 3D map of areas of greatest
interest in the city, broadband cellular internet
access to the web, the current GPS coordinates
and avatars of all your friends who are in
"public mode", location-based advertisements
for events occuring that night, and the ability
to have 3D avatar or video teleconferences
with everyone on your buddy list. This would
be an indispensable device for 21st century
youth. |
|
| • We
need an Interactive
Voice Response (IVR) Web, and unobtrusive
wearable input, output, and processing devices
to connect us to it. That will require more
miniaturization, better batteries, and unobtrusive,
intelligent interfaces, like voice. Reliable
user-specific voice recognition will help,
as will advances in natural language processing.
It's quite possible today for earpieces
and neck jewelry to tell, by detecting vibrations
in the user's voicebox, whether a voice
command came from the user or from others
in the room. Just as we today have a web
for handheld screens, we need an IVR web
that can respond to the user's query with
1D (text), 2D (image), or 3D (moving image
with depth) visual or verbal information,
relayed unobtrusively to glasses or earpiece.
Future voice
sites could be built out, wiki style,
for a wide range of uses. Consider how empowering
it will be to be able to ask the web "who?,
what?, when?, where?, and how?" questions,
during conversation. Businesses like 1-800-FREE-411,
which are advertising driven and at least
90% NLP automated, are excellent early examples
of the promise of voice based query systems
that are already empowering mobile device
users tired of spending $1.50-$3.50 for
directory assistance. |
|
•
VR
nausea and headaches
remain a problem in immersive virtual world
environments. High-resolution augmented
reality may also lead to stress. If there
is discrepancy or lag between one's virtual
sight and physical balance in the user’s
vestibulo-ocular system, cognitive and physiological
stress and nausea occurs. OTC anti-motion
sickness drugs (meclizine, hyoscine hydrobromide,
etc.) will eliminate this effect, but at
unknown health risk if used frequently.
Even with conventional fixed screen simulators,
headaches are common with extended play
(e.g., more than a half hour in a first
person shooter). Screen
flicker is headache-inducing problem
that can be solved with high-end screens,
but rapid screen transitions can cause a
similar effect. Research has been done to
minimize and monitor these effects but more
will be needed. It is possible that both
immersive VR and high-level AR will never
gain traction until these problems are solved. |
|
| • Programming massively
parallel graphics
processing units (GPUs). Multicore PCs
and console systems such as the Sony PS3’s
Cell
graphics processor with 8 GPU cores, will
require new ways of programming to maximize
the use of massively parallel processors.
As Nick Porcino of LucasArts,
states in ACM Queue 2(2), Apr 2004,
“PC programmers today have to contend
with the parallelism of the CPU and the graphics
card, and console programmers have to contend
with the parallelism of multiple CPUs and
a graphics processor. The programmers of the
very near future are going to have to deal
with multiple homogeneous CPUs and a great
many parallel graphics [processing] units.
The current pipeline paradigms do not hold
up well against that kind of architecture.”
Hardware remains a competitive descriminator
as long as it must undergo major changes going
forward. There is evidence that Microsoft's
more incremental parallel development, with
XBox
360, combined with its stronger developmer
support for the transition, may have been
the wiser choice than the more disruptive
and less supported parallelization strategy
taken by Sony.
Time will tell. |
|
| • Significantly
more graphical object and world creation simplification
needs to occur. Dassault's Cosmic
Blobs 3D graphics software for children,
Google's SketchUp,
Will Wright's The
Sims and Spore,
and Will Harvey's There,
and are all significant examples of simplification
in 3D object creation. Flickr
is a great 2D object manipulation system,
which can be fed into 3D systems in coming
years. With blogs, everyone can finally publish
anything easily on the internet. But it took
ten years for this promise to be delivered.
How long will we have to wait for ubiquitous
user-created 3D? |
|
| • Even as competitors
continue to advance their own proprietary
platforms, we must promote greater interoperability
among 3D platforms, and better syndication
of content between worlds. Industry promotion
and trade associations can play a role in
convincing companies that there are many positive-sum
strategies for collaboration that will
both increase the size of the market and benefit
the individual company. |
|
| |
|
| |
|
18B. Competitive Challenges - Business
and Economics
| •
Improving virtual worlds adoption rates and
network
effects. The ancestors of today's instant
messaging programs existed as early as
the Unix-based
"talk" programs on early 1970’s
minicomputers (PDP-11). The program was technically
simple, but there was no decentralized infrastructure,
so there could be few network effects. Thus
it took 20 years for the programs to catch
on generally, as with ICQ
among internet users in the mid-1990's. When
will we see computer manufacturers brand their
most graphically-accelerated computers as
"metaverse ready," and ship them
with leading VW's preinstalled, to drive consumer
adoption? For all the new
features we can expect in Windows Vista,
including Flip
3D, a probably-little-used tool for stacking
and rotating open windows in 3D, Vista's bundled
games will be very modest. When will we
see "plug and game" computers that
come with all the leading online games preinstalled?
Without the knowledge that network effects
are easily obtained, virtual worlds adoption
is likely to remain minor. |
|
| • How do we get to the
“good enough” metaverse? Market
driven bottom-up initiatives, proceeding by
incremental development is usually the best
model. We can expect an evolutionary, not
revolutionary, series of new ideas, product
improvements and new behavior patterns from
academia, industry, and consumers. Learning
from these experiments and not repeating
past mistakes will be a challenge for all
of us. |
|
| • 3D web interface simplification
needs to occur. World
of Warcraft’s interface is so simple
you can learn it in a week. You can play Second
Life for a year and still not totally
understand their interface. Most of the creator-function
complexity needs to be hidden, and the user-function
simplicity brought to the front. There
does a better job with UI, but they are missing
the user-created content traction. |
|
| • How do you allow people
to easily personalize their own 3D space?
So far "3D" and "easy to use"
have been incompatible. Even SketchUp
isn't very easy to jump in to. MySpace
hasn't graduated from rearranging blocks and
tiles. |
|
| |
|
| |
|
18C. Competitive Challenges - Social,
Legal and Other
| • Global computer helper
(GCH) network development. As mentioned earlier
(Trends,
8Bi), a major unmet challenge for leading
computer solutions providers today (Dell,
Microsoft, etc.) is to train networks of low-cost
youth in developing nations (India, Latin
America, etc.) to affordably provide high
quality 24/7 computer support services (remote
backup, security, optimization, program
installation and configuration, troubleshooting,
and help with productivity application selection
and use) to all customers who wish to receive
them, using remote assistance and remote control
software over broadband networks. Turning
today's timid, angry, and bewildered computer
users in developed nations into confident
users and experimenters with digital technologies
will be a major impetus to development of
online culture. Developing low cost and highly
specialized online support networks will also
greatly help the youth of developing nations,
and help build the global virtual economy.
Issues of liability, trust, accountability,
and scale are barriers to entry, and it may
require a startup with good funding and the
willingness to take some risks for the first
consumer affordable GCH service to emerge.
With the advent of Windows
Vista, which allows extensive remote access
and virtualization, it is high time those
tens of millions of users in developed nations
who could afford to pay $30 a month for a
full service contract for remote virtual support
gained the ability to offload their digital
housekeeping chores, and to receive realtime
24/7 help from trained specialists on any
computer issue they have. |
|
| • Communication mode
should follow social and individual need,
rather than the inverse, which is too often
the case. Our choice of mode and medium of
interaction should reflect our needs of the
moment. But in today's companies employees
and cutomers too often must conform to a subset
of modes and interfaces (all must use MS
Outlook, for example, are not allowed
to use IM,
etc.), or are forced to learn new interfaces
when they finally get comfortable and efficient
with the old. The need of the hardware makers
to make money on upgrades
is often more important than need of the IT
user to maintain their productive equilibrium. |
|
| •
It is very likely that most of our virtual
environments will continue be commercially
created for the forseeable future. As a
result, most of the restraint needed to
ensure that the 3D web improves rather than
destabilizes society falls not on government,
but on corporations and the individuals
who operate them. Modern business must balance
(consciously or unconsciously) short-term
and long-term strategies, and involves triple
bottom line (social, environmental,
and financial) outcomes. The impact of corporate
action is increasingly evident in our data-rich,
measurement-centric world. It is incumbent
on corporations, as the most powerful institutional
actors today, to consider their social effect,
and it is incumbent on society to aggressively
expose examples of poor leadership and management.
Corporations have a duty to convince the
customer that their products and services
are net
social goods, relative to the available
alternatives. Individual consumers and social
institutions have a duty to fully assess
the alternatives, and to make the best,
not the most convenient choice, in the competitive
environment. |
|
| |
|
| |
|
19.
Progress Indicators. Key quantitative
and qualitative factors to monitor in service
to healthy, progressive metaverse development.
19A. Progress Indicators - Technology
and Science
| •
3D collaboration and management tools, groupware,
product lifecycle management |
|
| • 3D design and animation
tools, CAD, avatars |
|
| • 3D manufacturing, CAM,
fabrication |
|
| • 3D operating systems
and application spaces |
|
| • 3G and 4G networks,
Internet2 |
|
| • Artificial life, evolutionary
computing |
|
| • Conversational interface,
NLP, voice rec, translation, text-to-speech |
|
| • Databases, semantic
web, data mining |
|
| • Display devices, HD,
OLED |
|
| • Geospatial web, GIS,
augmented reality |
|
| • Industrial and process
automation, robotics |
|
| • IP television, VOD,
PVRs, home media centers, video game consoles |
|
| • Interoperability, standards |
|
| • Open source, P2P |
|
| • Molecular modeling,
drug design |
|
| • Security, secure digital
identity, micropayments |
|
| • Semiconductors, memory |
|
| • Sensor networks, transparency,
RFID, EPC |
|
| • Synthetic worlds, video
games, MMOGs |
|
| • Virtual reality, haptics |
|
| • VoIP telephony, video
conferencing |
|
| • Wearable, Wireless |
|
| |
|
19B. Progress Indicators - Business and
Economics
| •
Accounting (financial and cost), finance (public,
private, micro) |
|
| • Adoption curves, commoditization
thresholds |
|
| • Business automation,
supply chain mgmt, ERP, SFA,CRM, e-Commerce |
|
| • Economic forecasts
and indicators |
|
| • Game design |
|
| • Globalization, outsourcing,
insourcing, HR strategy |
|
| • Learning/experience
curves, market growth curves |
|
| • Management strategy,
business models |
|
| • Marketing (personalized
and mass), advertisinganalytics, SEO |
|
| • Organizational learning
and innovation |
|
| |
|
19C. Progress Indicators - Social, Legal
and Other
| •
Demographics, immigration |
|
| • Developmental convergences
(positive and negative) |
|
| • DRM and patent law |
|
| • Failure scenarios,
risk management |
|
| • Game culture |
|
| • Government regulation,
taxation, subsidy, policy |
|
| • IPTV and telecommunications
regulation |
|
| • Polling, group democracy |
|
| • Social networks, reputation
systems, online community |
|
| • Social preferences,
culture, fashion |
|
| • Tech support networks,
education |
|
| • Tipping, inflection,
and saturation points |
|
| • User created content,
profiles, metatagging, collaboration strategy |
|
| |
|
20.
Glossary. Some proposed definitions for
words relevant to the emerging 3D-enabled participatory
web.
| Augmented
Reality (Mixed Reality) |
•
A hybrid structure in which virtual elements
are overlaid on our visual/audio/haptic
sense of the physical world to augment information
flow. Most typically, still or moving images
are overlaid over a live background on a
see-through display and matched to our dynamic
point of view. (Def: Avi Bar-Ze'ev, Brownian
Emotion). |
| Immersion |
•
A measure of the degree to which information
surrounds and impacts our senses; the extent
to which our "external" sensory
inputs are occupied with a given task vs.
any distractions. (Def: Avi Bar-Ze'ev).
|
| Interactivity |
• The degree to which a person can
make choices within an environment. These
choices, when present, are based on the
rules and behaviors of the environment and
should ideally mesh with our desires/intentions/expectations.
(Def: Avi Bar-Ze'ev). |
| Lifelog |
•
A digitally stored and electronically accessible
record of various aspects of the experience
history (GPS, time, and audio, visual, etc.)
of physical objects (an object lifelog;
Bruce Sterling's "spimes"), or
of human users (a user lifelog). |
| Metaverse |
• The convergence
of 1) virtually enhanced physical reality
and 2) physically persistent virtual space.
It is a fusion of both, while allowing users
to experience it as either. |
| |
•
A shared virtual social space with 3D capacity,
but which in many instances does not represent
to the user as 3D. It is not "the 3D
web," but rather "the 3D enhanced
web." The former term is a common oversimplification
that communicates a mistaken assumption
that the metaverse will be all 3D, or even
"3D most of the time, to most users."
This is unlikely to be true. Human factors
research would argue that our most efficient
and valuable virtual interfaces for many
types of communication, navigation, and
cognition will remain 1D and 2D abstractions
of our 3D world. For example, using a row
of file cabinets in virtual 3D is for many
a reduction of efficiency versus a navigating
a 2D electronic space. People are drawn
to many 2D games, like Tetris or Puzzle
Pirates. Not just for nostalgia, but because
the simplicity is elegant, focusing, and
efficient. 2D online collaboration environments,
like WebEx,
may continue to be more efficient than anything
we can create in 3D, for many uses. 3D videoconferencing,
which is easily available in many work environments,
is used today only for special occasions,
such as initial meetings. It would be too
cognitively distracting and disruptive to
have a 3D remote connection on all the time,
unless constant visual collaboration were
necessary. In most cases we will probably
want to keep metaversal 3D hidden but quckly
and intelligently available. We’ll
use it only if it adds value and doesn’t
tax our mental of physical computing resources.
As a historical note, physical computing
resource load was a primary reason that
VRML,
a 1990’s 3D web protocol, was not
able to scale beyond a small number of early
adopters. |
| |
•
Our collective online shared space. Sharability
and the participatory
web are even more fundamental attributes
than dimensionality. All shared interaction-based
online social environments are elements
of the metaverse, whether a “1D”
text MUD, a 2D chat room, a 3D persistent
world, or multi-D collaboration interface.
Collaborative
filtering, social
search, and other tools to develop community
voice are early attempts at creating and
mining shared experience on the web, and
are new metaversal attributes that are as
important as its emerging visual dimensions
(virtual worlds, videoconferencing, internet
video, etc.). |
| |
• A virtually-enabled physical
world. People often think of Stephenson’s
metaverse as an “other” place,
but for many purposes the best model for
the metaverse of 2016 may be augmented
reality – an information-drenched
physical environment where the 3D web
is just one application, run in special
circumstances. In a world with advanced
3D browser capabilities we will have our
chat, our email, our 2D browsers, etc.
Voice will be used for many basic queries,
but text, even IM text, is private and
unobtrusive, so it will not disappear
in tomorrow's metaverse. (Def: Mike Liebhold,
Institute
for the Future).
|
| |
•
An electronic representation of a real world
environment, populated by real people and
constructed programs (known as bots). Within
such an environment it is possible not only
to interact with the scenery as you would
in the physical world, it is also possible
to interact with other system users in 3D
real time (Def: William G. Burns III) |
| Mirror
World |
•
A literal representation of the real world
in digital form. It attempts to map (or
mirror) real-world structures, like geography,
or the stock market, in 2D or 3D form. GIS
systems are often 2D mirror worlds. Google
Earth is an example of a 3D mirror world.
(Def: Avi Bar-Ze'ev) |
| Physical
Hyperlink |
• A machine readable identifier
(barcode, image, sound, fingerprint, transponder,
RFID tag) that can be resolved by a cellphone,
PDA or other wireless device, and which
provides a direct internet connection
for data after prompting by the physical
object. A major interface for augmented
reality.
|
| Presence |
•
A measure of the degree to which we feel
we are in or part of an environment; the
extent to which our "internal"
cognitive systems are occupied with a given
task vs. other thoughts. (Def: Avi Bar-Ze'ev).
|
| Reflectivity |
• The degree to which a person can
successfully alter a virtual environment,
through interactive means, to reflect their
desires/intentions/expectations. (Def: Avi
Bar-Ze'ev). |
| Symbiosis/
Reciprocity/ Resonance |
•
The degree to which an individual and their
virtual environment mutually affect each
other and build on each other’s responses
in a positive sum way. (Def: Avi Bar-Ze'ev).
|
| Travatar |
•
An avatar and user profile capable of traveling
between different but interoperable 3D virtual
spaces. Traveling avatar. (Def: Katrina
Glerum). |
| Virtual/
Alternate Reality |
•
An attempt to use digital media (visual,
audio, tactile) to portray a computer-mediated
virtual world in a way that best fits our
natural modes of sensing and communication.
(Def: Avi Bar-Ze'ev). |
| |
|
| |
|
21.
References. Metaverse-relevant readings
cited in the inputs. See also Useful
Feeds.
[1] Synthetic
Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games,
Edward Castronova, 2005
[2] The
Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed
Human Intelligence, Ray Kurzweil,
1999
[3] "Virtual
Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society
on the Cyberian Frontier," E. Castronova,
CESifo Paper 618, Dec 2001
[4] When
Things Start to Think, Neil
Gershenfeld, 2000
[5] The
World is Flat, Thomas Friedman,
2005
[6] "China Internet Sector,"
JP Morgan Research (Asia Pacific), May 2004.
[7] Entertainment
Software Association.
[8] Gartner's
Hype Cycle Model, Gartner.com
[9] "A
Personal History of 3D Graphics (1996-2006),"
Loyd Case, ExtremeTech.com.
[10] "Internet
Growth Statistics," InternetWorldStats.com
[11] "U.S.
Online Retail Forecast, 2005 to 2010 ,"
Patti Freeman Evans, Jupiter Research, 2006. 1996
estimate by IDC.
[12] "Location-Based
Simulation: Google Earth is the Foundation for
the Next Advance in AEC Visualization,"
AECNews.com, April 2006
[13] "The
New New Economy: Earning Real Money in the Virtual
World," Knowledge@Wharton, Wharton School
Publishing, Nov 2005.
[14] Home
Broadband Adoption 2006, John Horrigan,
Pew Internet Project, May 2006.
[15] "Ogre
to Slay? Outsource it to Chinese ," David
Barboza, New York Times, Dec 9, 2005
[16] "Time
to Turn the MMO Inside Out?," Lisa Galarneau,
Terra Nova, Jul 16, 2006
[17] "My
Virtual Life," Robert Hof, BusinessWeek,
May 2006
[18]
Reinventing Schools: The Technology is Now!
(website), National Academies, 2000
[19] Everything
Bad is Good For You, Steven Johnson,
2006
[20] "How
to make your own annotated multimedia Google map,"
Barb Dybwad, Engadget, Mar 2005.
[21] "The
reality of simulated actors," Alvy Ray
Smith, Communications of the ACM, V45 N7 (2002)
[22] "36
Human-Competitive Results Produced by Genetic
Programming," John Koza, Genetic-Programming.com,
Dec 2003
[23] "A
Broadband Utopia," Steven Cherry, IEEE
Spectrum, May 2006
[24] "Industry's
First EV-DO Revision A Mobile Calls,"
MobileTechNews, Mar 2006
[25] "Verizon
Wireless Takes Broadband Network to Next Level,"
Nortel.com, Jul 2006
[26] "Qualcomm
Chip Set Could Triple Wireless Bandwidth,"
Ben Ames, IDG, Apr 2006
[27] "What
is the perfect battery?," Isidor Buchmann,
Cadex, 2001
[28] "Driving
Toward an Electric Future," John Smart,
2006
[29] Eponymous
Laws [of Technology Development and Systems Dynamics],
Wayne Radinsky, WayneRad.com
[30] The
Transparent Society, David Brin, 1998
[31] Mirror
Worlds, Or the Day Software Puts the Universe
in a Shoebox, David Gelernter, 1993
[32] Ambient
Findabilty, Peter Morville, 2005
[33] Geospatial
Matters: Exploring the Implications of a Digital
Earth, Daniel Sui and Matt Ball (Eds.),
2006
[34] Everyware:
The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing,
Adam Greenfield, 2006
[35] The
Singularity is Near, Ray Kurzweil, 2005
[36] "Back
to the future of video compression,"
Touradj Ebrahimi, MPEG Workshop on Future Directions
in Video Compression, Apr 2005
[37] "Our
Revolution," Gordon E. Moore, Semiconductor
Industry Association, 2000
[38] Digital
Economy 2003, David Henry et. al., Economics
and Statistics Admin., 2003. See Table 1.1 for
IT's contribution to GDP, 1997-2003.
[39] "Global
Video Game Market Set to Explode," Lora
Kolodny, BusinessWeek, June 2006
[40] Alexa
Web Search - Top 500 English-Language Websites.
Retrieved Jul 2006.
[41] "2D
is Better than 3D," KDE User Interface
Guidlines, 2000
[42] "2D
vs 3D, Implications on Spatial Memory,"
Monica Tavanti and Mats Lind, IEEE Symposium on
Info Visualization 2001
[43] "How
much of all Internet traffic is pornography?,"
Cecil Adams, The Straight Dope, Oct 2005
[44] "Seven
Laws of Digital Identity," Kim Cameron,
Identity Blog, 2005
[45] The
Visual Display of Cognitive Information,
Edward Tufte, 1992
[46] Moral
Sentiments and Material Interests: The Foundations
of Cooperation in Economic Life, Herbert
Gintis, 2005. In "Towards
the Unity of the Human Behavioral Sciences,"
Philosophy Politics, and Economics, 31:37-57,
2004, Gintis argues that "game theory is
a universal language for the unification of the
behavioral sciences." Increasingly informed
by neuroeconomics,
it may well become so in coming decades.
[47] "Name
that metaverse," Daniel Terdiman, CNET,
Oct 2005
[48] Three
Billion New Capitalists: The Great Shift of Wealth
and Power to the East, Clyde Prestowitz,
2006
[49] "What
Netflix Could Teach Hollywood," David
Leonhardt, New York Times, Jun 2006
[50] The
Long Tail: Why The Future of Business is Selling
Less of More, Chris Anderson, 2006
[51] Spying
with Maps: Surveillance Technologies and the Future
of Privacy, Mark Monmonier, 2004
[52] "Medical
Healthcare Monitoring with Wearable and Implantable
Sensors," Van Laerhoven et. al., 2004
[53] "Second
Life Teaches Life Lessons," Daniel Terdiman,
WiredNews, Apr 2005
[54] "No
Pain, No Gain: In MXC, Japanese contestants prove
humiliation is the ultimate goal," Theresa
Duncan, Slate Jul 2004
[55] Play,
Dreams, and Imitation in Childhood, Jean
Piaget, 1962
[56] "Shutting
Themselves In," Maggie Jones, New York
Times, Jan 2006
[57] "Staying
In and Tuning Out," Tim Larimer, Time
Asia, Aug 2000
[58] Dropout
Rates in the United States: 2002 and 2003,
Jennifer Laird et. al., National Center for Education
Statistics, June 2006
[59] "EBay
execs say Skype growing fast," Bambi
Francisco, MarketWatch, May 2006
[60] "Dial
R for Radio on Your Cell," Olga Kharif,
BusinessWeek, Jun 2005
[61] "E-Society:
My World is Cyworld," Moon Ihlwan, BusinessWeek,
Sep 2005
[62] "New
Haptics Systems Challenge Stroke Patients to Grasp,
Squeeze, Throw and Get Pushy," Diane
Ainsworth, USC Viterbi, May 2005
[63] "Computer
Scientists Develop Wireless Application for Ubiquitous
Video," Doug Ramsey, UCSD Science &
Engineering News, Jun 2005
[64] "Japan:
A mobile network that keeps track of everything
you do," Straits Times, Jul 2006
[65] "TeleNav
GPS Navigator 4.0," Davis Janowski, PC
Magazine, Mar 2006
[66] Why
Max?: A Wireless Primer and Discussion on Wireless
Reality, Jeffrey Belk, Qualcomm, Sep
2005
[67] "China
launches new generation internet (CERNET2),"
Liu Baijia, China Daily, Dec 2004
[68] “Well beyond streaming video: IPv6
and the next generation television,” Papagiannidis
et. al., TF&SC
v73n5, Jun 2006
[69] "Exercise,
Lose Weight with 'Exergaming'," Star
Lawrence, WebMD, Jan 2005
[70] "Mike
Liebhold on building a tricorder - the geographic
web," Ethan Zuckerman, May 2006
[71] "Gamers
Flip Through Online Games," Kim Tae-jong,
The Korea Times, Jul 2006
[72] "Artificial
intelligence: past and future," Hugh McKellar,
KMWorld, Apr 2003
[73] Shaping
Things, Bruce Sterling, 2005
[74] Free
Agent Nation, Daniel Pink, 2002
[75] Community
Planning: An Introduction to the Comprehensive
Plan, Eric Kelly, 1999
[76] "Human
Performance Enhancement in 2032: A Scenario for
Military Planners," John Smart, 2005
[77] "Spot
On: Virtual Gaming's Elusive Exchange Rates,"
Aug 5, 2005, Daniel Terdiman, News.com.
[78] "Taxed
Out!," by Eli Shayotovich, 2006
[79] Smart
Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, Howard Rheingold,
2002
[80] "Broadband
lag could hurt the U.S.," Rob Kelley,
CNN, Jun 2005
[81] Shutting
out the Sun: How Japan Created its Own Lost Generation,
Michael Zielenziger, 2006
[82] "FCC
Ignores Digital Divide While US Broadband Drops
Worldwide," WebsiteOptimization.com,
Aug 2005
[83] The
Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki, 2004
[84] "New
Year's 2016: I, Robot Investor," Tim
Beyers and Paul Saffo, Fool.com
[85] Virtualization
of Society, Dmitri Ivanov, 2000. In Russian
only. English abstract of Ivanov's argument can
be found here.
[86] The
Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home
and Abroad, Fareed Zakaria, 2003
[87] The
21st Century Meeting (High-End Videoconferencing),
Roger O. Crockett, BusinessWeek, 26 Feb
2007.
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