Real Life will Trump Second Life, Microsoft Says

http://www.pcworld.com/article/151613/real_life_will_trump_second_life_microsoft_says.html

Microsoft's Craig Mundie has dismissed the potential of "synthetic virtual worlds" like Second Life, saying that the potential for immersive environments will be likely realized through 3D tools that capture and model the real world.

Mundie and robot/Photosynth demoMundie, who oversees research and long-term strategy for Microsoft, devoted a significant portion of his "Rethinking Computing" presentation at MIT's Emerging Technology conference to what he called the "Spatial Web," a blend of 3D, video, and location-aware technologies. At the center of several of his demos was Photosynth, a Microsoft software tool that can create 3D models using 2D photographs taken with an ordinary digital camera. In one brief demo he showed how a small, camera-equipped robot could be used to model a large room. In another, he showed a 3D model of a commercial district in Seattle that had been created with Photosynth, and demonstrated how a virtual visitor could come to the district using the Internet, enter an art shop in the area, and examine and buy a virtual sculpture that had also been "photosynthed" by the shop clerks or the artist.

Mundie noted that Microsoft is counting on the creation of a 3D "parallel universe" modeled with tools like Photosynth. However, he dismissed the potential of social virtual worlds that include user-modeled objects. "Many people are familiar with Second Life, which is a synthetic virtual world that people came quite enamored with," Mundie said. "Our view was that there was a fairly limited audience who was willing to deal with the construction of avatars and operating in that virtual space."

more at link above

Given Microsoft's reputation for accuracy in predicting internet trends, is this good news for SL?

Yep. It takes a special type of person to really latch on to Second Life and understand its potential. The mundanes can get spoon fed a prefabricated world all they want.

Why can't there be both? Just as not everyone has to be a website designer to use the internet, why does one have to understand avatar meshes to use a 3D virtual world?

The main difficulty with SL is the user interface and the fact that one needs a fairly good computer for things not to lag. The concept isn't the issue, imho.

Spot on. Consider Ballmer's ridiculous predictions just this week regarding the future of Windows Mobile and his comments about iPhones, Macs, and iPods. For his predictions to come true, some trends will need to be reversed in a substantial way.

These guys also predicted the now-defunct Jerry Seinfeld/Bill Gates ad series would help resurrect Microsoft's reputation.

The crystal ball in Redmond needs a reboot.

In a virtual world would you rather be bound by all the restraints of making and building things in the real world or would you like to make anything you can possibly imagine? I want to make a house. Now I have to wait until someone can photosynth a nice house? How about a lamp? Easy to make in SL. Now you have to buy an actual real lamp to get a model of it through photosynth. Typical top down corporate created content thinking. Clueless MS idiot.

Well he's sort of right but Second Life technology will develop, he's selling a product, he's bound to talk biased shite.

Gee, weren't they the ones who said, years ago, "TCP/IP??? Who would need it???"

Microsoft's accuracy in predicting Internet Trends = Epic FAIL!!

The incredible thing about Microsoft is that they can never talk something up without talking something else down. Remember Balmer's comments about opensource and Linux a few years ago. That's a big reason why the world hates them — big, arrogant and spectacularly stupid.

I wonder when we will get light emiting nano-particle paint, which will get put on all sorts of surfaces, figure out where it is, and thus make it's self addressable, and get imagery from the ubiquitous wireless network.

I wonder when the feature finding aspect of photosynth will get applied to video, such that the model that gets built is not a mere 3D model, but a 4D model, that you can run back and forth in time and look at from any position.

I think the technological advances that make the "digital enhanced real world" possible will fuel and be part of technical progress that enables the creation of virtual worlds of power and sophistication far beyond what we have now. I don't see an either-or situation.

It's quite possible that adding digital-ness to the real world will increase the demand for Second Life sorts of virtual worlds. After you drive to work looking at your heads up display on the windshield, walk through the city seeing what's on sale inside a store through your video contact lenses, and go to work where you have meetings in the office telepresence room with your co-workers overseas, going home to play in a virtual world that's fast enough to run high speed shooter games and displays a virtual world with a more detailed and fluid look and feel than the best movie computer animations around today might just seem like "the thing to do".

I don't care who it is that comes along and takes away sl's thunder as long as they do it.

You have to believe one of the main reasons why sl's customer support as well as the way they operate is so shoddy. They don't have any real competition so they lax on anything and everything. This wouldn't happen if there was another virtual world such as this one.

Believe it.

Ricardo will not be happy with Second Life until LL incorporates a "Booty Shake" into women avatars.

Well put.

The fact that the Microsoft spokesman believes that the alleged difficulties of 'constructing an avatar' constitute the main reason that not every person on Earth has a Second Life account, speaks volumes for his cluelessness.

And as you say, participation in a virtual world in which people socialize and create objects, hardly precludes participation in 'photograph the real world and convert it into virtual 3D' environments.

I find it absolutely amazing that people can poo poo Microsoft's apparent entry into a virtual internet. Microsoft is so far ahead of any competitor in software development it's ridiculous. Opensource and Linux are extremely valuable alternatives........but they are still alternatives. Apple is the only real competitor in the computer race......they are a quite distant second place. There will be a market for SL, but the bigger maket will be with Microsoft. They have the resources LL only dreams about. They have the experience in development that LL cannot even dream of.

I've heard of this interest of Microsoft's about 6 months ago......seems they are serious. And they will be a force in the market.....like it or not.

Besides who knows if this "Real Life" won't incorporate avatars.........customizable avatars. And we may even have tools to develop our own. Just the same crap. Microsoft is evil. Linden Lab is evil. Sorry, but evil or not, we will adapt........and even have fun doing it.

Distant second, but gaining. No, Microsoft is not inherently "evil" but they haven't given themselves an exactly stellar reputation the last few years either.

Internet Explorer is slowly losing share. The Zune was a flop in the end. Their attempt to create a music format to sell online was even worse and as a bonus failure wouldn't even work with their own music player. Vista, the epic upgrade that FINALLY got done after being delayed for years sent half the users who tried it running back to XP. Their own search engine attempt has been rather lackluster, especially considering their vast resources.

Windows XP and Microsoft Office are probably the only decent successes currently. Even there, it's questionable how many of the users actually *want* to use those products and how many think they're crap but since everybody else uses them they're stuck for reasons of compatibility.

This is what we can expect from a company "so far ahead of any competitor in software development it's ridiculous"? I look forward to their entry into virtual worlds.

And just about 80% of the computers in the world are Windows (Microsoft) based.

And Vista is not bad........believe me.

To heck with the arguments about it being better/worse then SL etc. I am a geek and this technology looks cool as heck!!!!

Would I get out my camera and take 50-60 photos to duplicate my humble and maybe even slightly depressing abode? No way! But it would be ultra cool, the next time I pop down to Puerto Valarta or somewhere to be able to relive it in 3D on my computer whenever I want. Cue some Jimmy Buffet in the background, fire up the blender and take a stroll down the beach!

Me too.

RL gets more like SL every day... see this!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7463667.stm


imogen

Got to agree with you there.

But dont forget- even Windows 98SE and 2000 wasnt so bad. And the only thing I've thoroughly enjoyed from MS is Active Directory (windows Server versions). It took 1 "windows xp only" game to make me switch to XP. Otherwise- same thing as Win2k. So far nothing has come out as "Vista Only" that'd make me wanna switch.

Can't say much about Zune. Never tried it. Never owned an Ipod either. I went with Creative for their MP3 players. Kinda nice!! No limits to what I can put on it, can switch music & files around willy-nilly without a single care for DRM or "rights", works without external software. Only downside is the OLED screen- cant read it in bright daylight. But- it works and does what I want it to. And thats all that matters.

And yea, the MS Search Engine blows chunks.

DAMMIT Ricardo!! Quit agreeing with me!!!

But, give 'em time & the world some time & we shall see!

You do make a valid point tho.

*Disclaimer- I am NOT Ricardo!!!

Only way this can be true if Microsoft does what they do with their operating systems and require anyone with PC or affordable one to buy their products.
I don't really care personally either way I keep creating my hand drawn flowers and fabrics, whatever else I can figure out regardless if anyone wants to buy it or not.
Everyone texture wise when comes to building is more CGI focused then I am already,
I don't own a camera, I can't afford one so what I create is sort of irrelevant to that type of
textures,etc.

Any of you guys actually used Photosynth?

As far as I can see all it does is take a set of photos and merge then sequentially into a sort of fuzzy video.

OK Its just a beta version, and maybe it will eventually create 3D objects from the photos. Maybe it will be fun to look at them, but you are never going to be able to interact with them.

Hardly a rival to SL or to any other virtual world.

I have a hunch that (if it doesn't drop like a dead eagle) the MS project will get the attention of the business customers LL is desperately trying to get into the possibilities of SL. Because it looks more real, more "serious" than the haphazard, lovingly created chaos that most of SL is and which most business people just don't "get". My guess? LL will have to rethink again what its preferred user base is and do a tad more to hold the guys and gals who - like me - are in SL because it is so very much NOT like the same stuff I see every day.

You see? That's why I don't like telling you anything, you always spill out my secrets.