——–

——–
Direct link to above video:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talk/kevin_kelly_on_the_next_5_000_days_of_the_web.html

and more advance reading material…..
Survey: Keyboards, DRM to become scarce in 2012
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-255769.html

Three Scenarios for the TV Market 2020
http://www.international-television.org/tv_market_data/scenarios-tv-market-2020.html

How will the Internet look in 2020? – PEW research report
http://pep-net.eu/blog/2009/01/20/how-will-the-internet-look-in-2020-%E2%80%93-pew-research-report/

The Future of the Internet III
http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2008/The-Future-of-the-Internet-III/4-Scenario-1-The-Evolution-of-Mobile-Internet-Communications/8-Some-Say-2020-Will-Offer-a-New-Paradigm.aspx?r=1

Internet’s future in 2020 debated
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5370688.stm

Imagining the Internet
http://www.elon.edu/e-web/predictions/expertsurveys/2008survey/default.xhtml

Tolerance and the Internet: Scenarios by 2020
http://ict4peace.wordpress.com/2008/12/29/tolerance-and-the-internet-scenarios-by-2020/

The Future of the Internet II
http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2006/The-Future-of-the-Internet-II.aspx

BT opens international telepresence centres
http://www.btplc.com/Innovation/News/telepresence.html

———–

[- See you there! -MRO]

The stated reason for the microsite is that it was done purely “out of the goodness of our hearts” (read quote).

The pages (http://s3.amazonaws.com/products.shop.secondlife.com/agni/fashion/index.html) have ingited a firestorm (https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2009/09/23/hi-res-high-fashion)  amongst Second Life ™ based content creators because  while the makers of the virtual world state impartiality in regards to their users, experience varies.   The company has long been accused of  nepotism by granting special favors, advance information, and superior features to certain users  (http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2009/07/here-they-are-the-fic-26.html)  groups, and blogs.   Read more  statemements about this latest venture at (https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/).  Even Prokofy, who usually steers clear of fashion drama, has referred to the offerings as “unimaginative slutwear” (http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2009/10/the-lindens-do-a-fic-thing-again.html) LOL.

Meanwhile, the company is also being sued by some of its content creators (http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2009/09/virtual-goods-designers-sue-second-life-over-copycat-sales.html) and (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/09/linden)full .pdf  document at (http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2009/09/linden.pdf) for allegedly profiting from copied virtual goods.

An equivalent situation could be considered if Apple computer, which protects its iTunes music files with a digital rights management system, allowed its users to download songs from major record labels, then upload them again using the user’s  name as the song’s original creator, and then sell those copies profiting both the company and the infringing user.  Users who complain about content infringement have been banned (http://www.your2ndplace.com/node/1601),  increasing the suspicion and furor.

The company recently obscured reference and  links to  the “economic statistics” page (http://secondlife.com/statistics/economy-data.php) and users  “still cant figure out whether the SL economy is doing well or not”  (https://blogs.secondlife.com/message/17131#17131).”  But many argue that it is tanking (http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2009/09/hows-the-sl-economy-stupids.html) .

Needless to say, users are as livid (http://www.your2ndplace.com/node/1603) and (https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2009/09/23/hi-res-high-fashion) as this avatar looks from the front page of  Linden Lab’s site  (http://lindenlab.com).

The fiasco continues to mushroom, with the company referring users to a Twitter feed (https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2009/09/23/hi-res-high-fashion#comment-768155) for information on “applying to the next Lookbook“.   I guess the “goodness of our hearts” was a limited time offer.

Employees of the company have also issued threats against it’s own creators over the past months (http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2009/07/i-will-delete-you-immediately.html)  and  (https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/workinginworld) in an increasingly uncivil and unprofessional exchange (http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2009/07/).

Is this what Philip Rosedale (Philip Linden) meant at the Second Life Community Convention (SLCC09) (http://slconvention.ning.com/) when he effectively said and later blogged (https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2009/09/09/thoughts-from-burning-man)   “You might not like what’s coming” ?

“Augmented Reality is the new Second Life”

From the looks of things, in SL years (blue circles) we are at about a mid-2007 comparative level of hype for augmented reality (green squares)!

Here are the Google Trends charts for both, overlaid. Check it out for yourself at:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=second+life&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
and
http://www.google.com/trends?q=augmented+reality&sa=N

What can I say, we are just fanatics for anything resembling a hockeysticks, hype-cycles, and mountainous landscapes!

[-MRO]

Our very own Virtual World SIG Co-Chair Maribeth Back will be co-presenting!
Join us in Palo Alto (and I’m going to try to get this on Ustream (http://virtualworldsig.com/live/) too) next week!

Title:
“Augmenting Both Reality and Revenue: Connecting Mobile, Sensors, Location and Layers”

Abstract:
Augmented reality (AR), nurtured in academia for years, has finally become commercially viable, enabled by the power / bandwidth curve of mobile computing platforms. Meanwhile, input and display hardware has reached sufficient maturity to enable devices reasonable to use and carry.

Our lead-off speaker Clark Dodsworth, whose work on personalized, networked, mobile, location-aware systems began in 1990, predicts the result will alter the social, business, and personal fabric of our daily lives, and generate revenue streams for new and existing products, as well as whole industries that are not yet obvious.

Augmented reality, which could be said to have started with heads-up displays for aircraft pilots, has been illustrated in first-person shooter games and movies like Predator and Iron Man. But humans have been devising such augmentation for a very long time. Like the tell-tales on a sailboat that make visible the direction of the wind, the innovations of augmented reality will meld seamlessly into the devices we use every day. The first widespread users of AR won’t be wearing headgear, they’ll be using smartphones.

On September 9th augmented reality designer Clark Dodsworth, who recently worked on a mobile-ubiquitous-augmented reality project for theme parks in Dubai, will deliver a survey of the state of the art and lead a tour through the current work, vendors, and future directions in augmented reality, plus its overlap with ubiquitous computing, location-based services, machine vision, situational analysis, personalization, context awareness, privacy, and entertainment.

Clark will then introduce researcher Maribeth Back of FX-Palo-Alto Lab, who will present her current work on realtime sensor-driven integration of information into simulation environments and mobile systems, which reflects traditional, complex-system augmented reality, then talk about its future path and the future of smartphone AR.

The FX Palo Alto Laboratory is investigating virtual, augmented, and mixed-reality systems for collaboration, particularly in industrial settings. In collaboration with TCHO (http://www.tcho.com/), a chocolate maker start-up in San Francisco, they are building virtual mirror world representations of a real-world chocolate factory and its processes, and importing real-time sensor data into the resulting virtual factory, a 3D environment designed for simulation, visualization, and collaborative tasks such as factory observation, virtual inspections, customer visits, employee education and training, process monitoring, and inventory tracking. FXPAL sees this mashup of real and virtual factories as a way to enhance collaboration and communication between physical-plant operators and engineers and remote managers; for example, factories in China with managers in Japan.

Presenters
————–
Clark Dodsworth
http://www.dodsworth.com

Clark Dodsworth, who develops digital strategies for companies facing the 24/7 global broadband culture, recently worked on a large-scale, ubiquitous mobile personalization system for Dubai theme parks. Clark’s consulting work spans product strategy, development and management for corporations and startups in high tech as well as museums, conferences and location-based entertainment. His scope in software and interfaces includes desktop, online and mobile/locational applications for devices ranging from handheld to theme park systems. Among Clark’s clients are Apple, Evans & Sutherland, Philips, SimEx-Iwerks, the city of Vienna, and startups.

Clark has worked on simulators for out-of-home entertainment and done IP assessment for consumer electronic applications. His book, Digital Illusion: Entertaining the Future with High Technology was chartered by ACM Press and published by Addison-Wesley. In 2005 Clark was program co-chair of the User eXperience conference in San Francisco.

Clark mounted his first networked, location-aware system project in 1990. In 1998, Clark co-authored the original Ambient Intelligence strategy for Philips in response to ubiquitous computing trends and the impending centrality of smartphones and location-based services in modern life. His work for Philips also included the Live Wall, a very-large-scale rear projection videophone. All his work is founded on human-centered design principles and has a visual or interface component. The product is the experience.

Clark is currently volunteering for the ISMAR 2009 International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality and is on the editorial board of the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) Press at Carnegie Mellon and the advisory board of Simiosys.com. He has been a papers reviewer for IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications and the International Conference on Audio Display, and has guest-edited the quarterly, Computer Graphics, and the SIGGRAPH Video Review.

Maribeth Back, FX-Palo-Alto Lab

Maribeth Back is a senior research scientist at the FX Palo Alto Laboratory (a subsidiary of Fuji Xerox). Her current research focuses on the intersection of virtual environments and real-world systems for collaboration, with a bit of ubiquitous computing mixed in. She directs the Mixed and Immersive Realities team at FXPAL, investigating how the interplay of virtual environments with mobile systems and sensor-fusion networks can be useful in enterprise settings.

Previously, Maribeth’s research focus included smart environments (real and virtual), multi-modal interface design, ubiquitous computing, new forms of reading and writing, and interactive audio systems design and engineering. Maribeth holds a doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

———————————————–
More about this event at: (http://sdforum.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Calendar.eventDetail&eventID=13518)

$15 for non-members
(you can join SDForum, the parent organization, for only $125 for 12 months — and then attend all those great SIGs free and get discounts to the big meetings).
No registration required
As with all SDForum SIGs, we open with a half hour of free networking and pizza.

Agenda:
6:30 – 7:00 p.m. Registration / Networking / Refreshments / Pizza
7:00 – 9:00 p.m. Presentation and Q&A

Sponsors:
IBM, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, Hewlett-Packard

Location:
Pillsbury Winthrop
2475 Hanover St., Palo Alto
Map and Directions: http://pillsburylaw.com/index.cfm?pageid=4&itemid=397&view=25&spID=75
From 280:
Take the Page Mill exit NE into Palo Alto.
Left on Hanover, the last left before El Camino.
Pillsbury Winthrop is at 2475, with a marker in the driveway.

“Humans have already split into two camps – those that cling to the dim vestiges of a default “reality” and those that are forging new, augmented realities.”

Now comes word that the old guard is at last realizing the import of these words…..
Today we find Via: (http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/news/2245980/intel-outlines-generation) and Via: (http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2009/07/intel-foresees-a-leap-forward-for-virtual-worlds.html) that the technologists are realizing Second Life to be a forerunner to a deeper, augmented reality.

After Second Life was “derided by both the corporate reality mongers and even the technologists themselves.” exactly as predicted in the Metaverse Manifesto - now we find that some are seeing the force of the revolution in play.

Title: Mirage
Director: Youngwoong Jang
Country: Korea
Year: 2009
Running Time: 8:24

Via:(http://io9.com/5305828/gorgeous-short-film-about-a-bio+robot-with-endless-desire-+-for-water)

[MRO]

“Advertising Age” - as in, advertising’s previous age gets it wrong here: “Twitter Is What Second Life Wasn’t: Light, Cheap and Open”.  Writer obviously is completely at sea about the functionality of either Second Life OR Twitter…. get ready to LOL here:    (http://adage.com/digitalnext/post?article_id=137604)
And don’t miss the line: “the ascent and crash of Second Life”.  What would compel a man to be so permeated by contemptuous boldness?

More reactions at:
(http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/06/twitter-versus-sl.html)

And at:
(http://adage.com/digitalnext/post?article_id=137604#comments-40309)

and don’t miss the last hilarous bit “a college textbook I’ve recently had published, “Principles of Internet Marketing” here: (http://adage.com/digitalnext/post?article_id=137604#comments-40316) Tee hee!

Next  up,
“ITBusinessEdge” admits “Catty Thoughts on Job Recruitment via Second Life” finds the need to state: “I’ve yet to see any use cases that seem better suited to virtual worlds like Second Life vs. the real world or more traditional Web sites.”  You know, those ancient traditional  websites. Nevermind that virtual worlds and avatars are almost as old as the web itself – even part of it’s original vision.  Get ready for another one here: (http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/blogs/all/catty-thoughts-on-job-recruitment-via-second-life/?cs=33684)

It just makes you wonder how “journalism” (aka. the pay to say industry for corporations) got into a situation where people write about  things with so emabarrassingly little experience of the topic.  Actually, we know why, as stated in the Metaverse Manifesto:

“These and other groups will be threatened by the coming Metaverse, and the inevitability of it will produce a strong dismissal and reactionist movements towards simplicity and the like. We know these critics to be merely cheerleaders for a game that is already over and lost.   Their own world is decaying, and this is frightening to them.”

These and other groups: old media and their henchmen
Simplicity: Twitter

At least:
“Troy Media Corporation” allots 3 pages for “Enter Second Life, virtual reality’s twilight zone” with a nice ending quote by Philip Rosedale saying “(Second Life) represents a greater intellectual challenge than the actual real world around them. And in a few years, we’ll argue that if you are not spending a lot of time in virtual reality, you’re probably impoverishing yourself in some way.”  This is probably the only one worth reading at: (http://www.troymedia.com/NewsBeats/Technology_News_Beat/2009/06/TMC061609.htm)

Where are we now?

Where are we going?

Tell me at http://www.twitter.com/mro

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010:_Odyssey_Two

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(film)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Constellation

Ready to jump on board??