Microsoft Patent: “Avatar Individualized by Physical Characteristics”

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220090309891%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20090309891&RS=DN/20090309891

Check out this interesting Microsoft patent



One of the beauties of SL is that it can provide an immersive environment to perhaps allow one to escape or explore avenues that real life limitations would make impossible. This type of technology from Microsoft would be something really controversial with respect to Second Life, but I can think of a few useful applications in the context of rehabilitative and sports medicine. We already have rudimentary applications somewhat similar to what MS proposes in things like Wii Fit. Linden Lab has even jumped on the SL and weight loss bandwagon https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/workinginworld/blog/2009/12/04/three-questions-for-celeste-devaneaux-at-club-one-about-weight-loss-in-second-life

So whatcha think about this type of technology? Can you see virtual worlds go increasingly in this direction with opportunities for added "realism" to your avatar if you so choose?

/me runs off the gym ...

With the way the forums formatted that it is hard to tell what I think as it decided it needed to take up more than a screen width. You might fix it if you use img tags around the link instead as it will not try to render it as a long string of text.

I do not see MS's idea taking off (big suprise) as virtual worlds are taken as an escape from reality. Name one attempt at injecting anything from RL (voice, age-verification, and before that identity-verification) into SL that was not resisted because it would inject RL.

Would this mean fewer people who are disabled in RL being in SL? In RL many of them would not be walking around. What about people who are transgendered? Furries? For any of those categories their SL avatar may or may not reflect their RL appearance, but it probably reflects how they want to be seen.

The patent includes this choice phrase:


That reminds me a lot of some of the things at , like this choice quote:



BTW, as to how MS's idea will fare: google Second Life and identity verification. Read the comments on pretty much any blog about it. There was huge united opposition against it when any affected group pointed out how it would impact them. In a rare instance, LL actually decided not to push the issue and backed down.

Oh I'm well aware of the debate between immersionists and augmentationists. I really enjoy the immersive qualities of SL but I also don't think the two necessarily need to be mutually exclusive. It's your choice really and some prefer to remain firmly in one camp while others may float between ends of the spectrum.

Personally I wouldn't want to see something like this implemented in SL but as the popularity of virtual worlds increase, I can most definitely see a subset of VWs that would cater exclusively to augmentationists. As I alluded to in my OP, I don't think this would be something folks, or myself, would want in SL but I also don't necessarily see it as something awful either when used in an appropriate context.

It would make an interesting thought experiment to picture what those worlds would look like though ....

no unasisted flying or sky platforms .... RL has gravity
humans only of course (and no part-humans or AVs like *shudder* elves)
all buildings need complete walls and a roof (ever heard of wheather?)
you can only have as much stuff as you can afford in RL (do you really own a RL yacht?)
chairs all over the place .... most people are sitting when at the computer
building codes (and they must match where you live in RL)
no teleporting

Oh I remember hearing something about this a few days ago. They want to make our AV's look fat if we're sedentary.

Just more abuse of the patent system.

Pretty much any old back-of-the-napkin idea can be patented nowadays.

I wish the SCOTUS would hurry up and rule on Bilski et al and sink these stupid patents permanently.

As for the idea itself, it is mind-numbingly stupid.

I don't see the idea in itself as stupid. The one area I see its use is in the context of medical type simulations. For example, say you are a 40yo chain smoking, obese, insulin dependent diabetic with asthma. Your avatar would have these limitations in place such that it could only walk half a block before having to stop and rest and you'd be prompted to every so often check your blood glucose levels and inject yourself with insulin and take your inhaled corticosteroids and bronchodilators. You could provide some motivation for some real life behavioural changes in the simulation by showing what your avatar could do if you lost 10kg and cut your smoking down by half. Your avatar could walk a little further and do more fun things with less interruptions from medical interventions.

The problem is that if you are focusing on your real self enough to lose 10Kg and cut your smoking, you probably don't care that much about your avatar anymore. It's basically a patent on making sure that games aren't fun.

I will be interested to know if this affects the existing teen- or child-safe avatar games which typically forbid cross-gender avatars, though.

I guess I'm looking at the patent from outside the context of "games". There will always be a place for fantasy type game oriented virtual worlds, which is basically all that exists right now. However, as VWs become more mainstream I can see how they will be used more to augment real life or stuff that is somewhere in between.

Yes. Let's cut off the ears of the deaf, and stuff the paraplegics back in their wheelchairs. Let's get those cross-gender players out of their dresses and back in business suits like decent folk.

Bravo, Microsoft.

Gosh, if this ever catches on, I may have to switch to Linux after all.

EWWWW.

...and you'd have to eat to stay alive (a la The Sims), and you'd have to spend time at a job to earn money for food, and you couldn't be logged in continuously for more than a local "day" before needing to "sleep".

Thinking about such a virtual world reminds me of my brother-in-law's comment about celery..."Goes down just like dental floss".

I think it would make for an interesting experiment and give people an opportunity to see the world through the eyes of how others may live differently due to their physical characteristics. For example using such technology for the functional design of a home for an elderly person requiring the use of a walker, simulations for the emergency evacuation of public spaces and how to alert those with visual or auditory limitations, or the creation of a safe virtual space for a transgendered person to explore the pro and cons of sex reassignment surgery when they are mid way through transitioning.

For some folks, there is no need to "hide" or "fix" their physical characteristics or limitations. It is something that they embrace, but just need to do things a bit differently than how able bodied persons do it. Others may want to use VWs to see how the other half lives but I think the tent is big enough for all of them.