So without further ado...the Cool Stuff!
- Philip "Linden" Rosdale gave a keynote at the Serious Games Summit on Monday (fyi, "serious games" are games or game-like applications used for real-world simulation, education, training, business and suchlike). The focus was on SL's evolution both as a virtual world and as a transition from purely an entertainment venue to more serious applications. A lot of the examples given will be familiar to seasoned residents but there were still some interesting tidbits scattered through it, including the fact that SL's landmass has by now reached roughly the size of Boston. Gamasutra did a pretty good write-up, found here.
- A somewhat inpromptu party was thrown by LL on Wedensday night (I hear they didn't plan it until the Friday before) at the San Jose Museum of Art. It was obstinately a "recruiting party", as a few of the Lindens were very obviouly going around trying to sniff out job candidates. Otherwise, was mostly conversation over a drink or two, got to meet a bunch of Lindens (Ben, Jeska, Cyn, Daniel, Bub...had allready met Philip and Cory on Monday. Torley, I saw you in SL as Ben was demoing it but didn't get to say hi, so...hi!), managed to get a business card from someone from Multiverse (the soon-to-be-free MMO engine) and managed to find qDot of SL/Nonpolynomial Lab/Slashdong fame.
On the Expo floor, I came across the booth of a company called Vivox, drawn to the booth because of the large monitor displaying a live scene inside Second Life. There I was treated to a very cool demo of their VOIP technology. The guy at the booth walked into a scripted phone booth in game, touched the buttons to dial a number...and within the minute, he had dialed his own cell phone. He hung that up and walked into the house...it was divided into two "zones" (I forget whether they were divided as plots or with code), talked to one person, walked across the room and talked to the other without the first person being able to hear us. The whole thing ran very smoothly and I was very impressed. The plot is open to the public, in Ambrosia, but you won't be able to use the voice stuff without their software which isn't avalible to consumers. They licence the software to businesses. I asked of Linden Lab had heard about them and they said yes, though "the more people that talk about us, the more likely they'll pay attention". I take that to mean that if/when LL wants to impliment voice chat into SL, Vivox would be very interested in doing business with them.
Their LSL/3rd party software, I'm guessing, has similarities to the free but rarely used SecondVoice program but a lot more professional.- Motion capture suits...no camera or studio required! Do mocap in any room with a computer and enough space to move around...for only $80,000. Not for SL animators yet, but a boon for smaller game studios.
- In the "way in the future of immagination catagory", or mocap *without* the suit, another expo booth was showing off a webcam-like device that would let you play games by tracking your head movements. I asked them about the idea of using a similar device to track body language to map onto a 3d avatar (a la SL), something I personaly think would be a fantastic addition to SL as a communication venue. It would be possible, he said, although it was best done with a two-camera device to get the depth perception. Such a device was on display though it was large and impractical for the average home user. He did say, however, that they were working on a webcam version that would probably come out in 3-4 years (to which I mentaly added the time it would take for the price to drop from a few thousand dollars to something reasonable for the average person). Maybe someday...
Have fun with that for a while.
