Virtual World "Activism" inspires pro-Kremlin Political Action

something strange, innovative and remarkably funny happened the other day at a news conference by the former chess world champion Kasparov. While he was talking to the press about the Russian opposition movement, he was disturbed by a remote controlled mini-helicopter modified to look like a penis. Now this is strange "panorama" news which i wouldn't mention on my blog. What makes this intervention truly unique is that the young pro-kremlin activists took that idea from an earlier incident in SecondLife where a group of anti-capitalist hackers disturbed a press conference by in-world real-estate tycoon Anshe Chung.


To my knowledge this is the first time that political activism from a virtual world was copied in a real world scenario.

Me entrevistaron en Educ.ar

Cuando estaba viajando en Argentina realize una reunion con Alejandro Piscitelli, y resulta que me pregunto si no pueden hacer una entrevista sobre mi tesis y mi apreciación de Second Life para el portal Educ.ar del ministerio de educacion, y voila aqui esta

Ahora han publicado la secunda parte de la entrevista en cual hablo de mi tesis.

Kurzweil's Vision for the Furture of Education

Some days ago i wrote a post about the eminent scientist, entrepreneur, and futurologist Ray Kurzweil and his vision of Singularity. Now the book has arrived and i am fascinated, still quite curious and a bit amused about his radical optimism. Enjoy these words about what the next generation of virtual worlds after Second Life will have to offer:

"Because of current bandwidth limitations and the lack of effective three-dimensional displays, the virtual environment provided today through routine Web access does not yet fully compete with 'being there', but that will change. In the early part of the second decade of this century visual-auditory virtual-reality environments will be full immersion, very high resolution, and very convincing. Most colleges will follow MIT's lead, and students will increasingly attend classes virtually. Virtual environments will provide high-quality virtual laboritories where experiments can be conducted in chemistry, nuclear physics, or any other scientific field. Students will be able to interact with a virtual Thomas Jefferson or Thomas Edison, or even to become a virtual Thomas Jefferson. Classes will be available for all grade levels in many languages. The devises needed to enter these high-quality, high-resolution virtual classrooms will be ubiquitous and affordable even in third world countries. Students at any age, from toddlers to adults, will be able to access the best education in the world at any time and from any place" (Kurzweil, R., 2005, The singularity is near, p. 337)

SecondLife architecture interface prove of concept

Thomas a.k.a. www.stylewalker.net
just found a really cool demonstration of how to 'work around' the in-convinient and un-productive internal SL building tools.

"To make this, I used PDFs from our architects as a base to trace all the walls on 11 layers in an Adobe Illustrator file, then exported each floor as an XML-based Scalable Vector Graphics file, each of which I ran through a PHP script to extract the object info and convert it to something I could paste in a notecard. Then I made 11 objects (the little cubes in front of me in the video) that scoot themselves off to a predetermined location, spew out prims based on the notecards, and send them to their appropriate positions. The next step, is to rez this on the ground, terraform, and then texture-bake every single prim..."
Click on the image to see the really impresive video!

Second Life: critique and tolerance

Below you find some short arguments which I just wrote in a critical email to a friend who sent me his euphoric sales pitch for Second Life (SL). Subsequently i delve into a short cultural reflection about how important tolerance is for bootstrapping thus taking up the cudgels for Second Life and paying respect to their accomplishments.

1) Don't lure them into developing an island by using inflated numbers: I would be very cautious to present the user growth rate with 30% for the 2007 forecast. I don’t think it will continue at that speed. It was a nice media-virus for some month now, but as 'real SL development' with 'real benefits' is much slower I believe it will stabilize and turn to an organic growth.

SL and virtual worlds in general have some very potent value propositions but right now the biggest benefit to create a subsidiary is: marketing/branding: to communicate a) that the organization is a pioneer and b) whatever the SL offer potentially is. I say potentially because it is almost impossible to really fulfill the expectations.

Allow me to elaborate: Take the case of a car-maker who sets up an SL race-course to allow users to "try" a new model. Everybody who actually tries the car in SL will be disappointed because we are used to high-end racing games (need-for-speed, etc.) and in comparison the SL experience is really devastatingly bad. However i believe it is only a matter of time until the 3D web will be able to have people test-drive really good simulations of cars (potentially through the virtual representation of their own neighborhoods). Before that happens at least two conditions have to change: server-infrastructure (connection and resulting graphic) problems have to be taken care of and the know-how of racing-game specialists has to be incorporated. Once we are there i believe it is quite realistic that virtual-world-car-selling becomes a decisive aspect of marketing and selling cars. Will the company that has developed a long term experience in using virtual worlds have an advantage against its competitor who neglected the new medium? Without a doubt.

2) do not forget that in this moment only 40 people can be at an island simultaneously so SL internal out-reach is quite limited. (Of course the solution is to really market the SL footage in traditional media). Another important point seems to me that an entity that runs an island should plan for in-world-representative(s) (and the additional monthly cost). Given that SL is accessed by people from around the world a representative would ideally need to be there 24/7 and speak at least the organizations 'normal' languages. There is technology that communicates to Real Life (through messaging) when someone comes to your island. However this does not solve the 24/7 issue.

Having communicated what IMHO is the current infancy conditions for setting up an SL island (or other venture), while i believe I also outlined the immediate and potential benefits, I feel obliged to pay my respect to the Linden Labs team and everybody who is participating in the realization of the potential by creating this fascinating new world.

Virtual reality is a theme in science fiction for many many years and first attempts to realize this vision have been conducted with various success since the creation of the internet. Hence SL is nothing new as such. BUT SL is the best 3-dimensional cyberspace i have come across so far, AND maybe more important. they have managed to create such a media fuzz around their project that it seems there is a critical mass of users and enough interest from investors and organizations that invest in SL presences that there is enough capital to really boost development and hopefully solve many of the technological problems now present.

So in conclusion it is always difficult to do the splits (find the equilibrium) between being critical (as in enlightened or not-naïve) while tolerating some flaws, and SL surely needs a good dose of both. Whether Second Life as a virtual world developed and run by Linden Labs has a promising future i am critical; That the 3D web is there to stay and that it is very valuable to invest time and money in understanding and exploiting it I am even more convinced.

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Thomas Praus, Peter Bihr and myself (a.k.a. MaPeTo) are lately exploring and discussing about SL and virtual worlds. Peter has published his evaluation of the current opportunities and limitations of SL and Thomas will shurely do so very soon.