Technology Predictions: 1.7

Okay, time for my 'blog's first installment of Technology Predictions! Hooray~!

In this segment, I'll be examining new features in Second Life, and making predictions of how I believe technology in SL will develop, and cite some products that may emerge. So without further ado ...

Simulator Performance Improvements

Well, Preview testing shows sims can now handle up to 100 avatars. That's certainly exciting, since it's more than doubling the current standard of 40. I was excited when 1.6 came out, and frame rate per AV was greatly improved for high-AV situations, and it's great to see further capability of meetings. This is the biggest change to SL in 1.7, so I'll discuss it in length, first.

The 40 limit is a big time limit. Now, it's not really a limit for the average event, although my compadre Jerry Paffendorf has been consistently running 50+ avatar events for his future salons. Big time galas like Avalon's SL Film Festival easy can draw 100+ AVs. (If you're oldbie enough to recall, when Avalon first opened in 1.2 as the first private island, the event was absolutely packed to the prim ... err ... brim.)

So these big events now don't need to do the "sim corner" deal to work out now. That's a huge plus. (And I suppose now the 4-sim corner standard will be used for 400 AV events ... scary thought!)

But the real winners are ... people who don't hold events at all.

If the logic isn't apparent, consider Da Boom. Da Boom is the oldest sim in SL. Many oldbie residents owned land there. Sometime in late 2004 / early 2005, a giant Clubsinomall moved in. Being the closest Clubsinomall to the Welcome Area, it was popular, despite enormous lag of any Clubsinomall, though far from the worst. Now the Clubsinomall has a right to its land, and the oldbie owners have a right to their land, for sure. Unfortunately, numbers are king when it comes to lag, and so the overwhelming majority of residents of Da Boom moved out, and some left a shop in their wake to take advantage of the club's dwell ... err ... traffic. :)

Now, cut back to 1.7. Now the club can run comfortably at its current levels, and the concept of having a house in Da Boom and being able to say ... walk around without massive lag ... is a possibility again. No longer will small landowners be put out by the arrival of a Clubsinomall (or more fearsome, the Tringo-Clubsinomall) and its traffic. Of course, they'll still lose their privacy, but really, that was an illusion in the first place.

Eight HUD Attachment Points

The HUD is much cooler than I had originally surmised. For those out of the loop, the new HUD attachment points supplement an avatar's other attachments spots. The difference is that the HUD attachment shows up only on that AV's user's screen, as if it were part of the User Interface. The result is you can have tachometers, ammo counts, health, yadda yadda.

These will allow more tools for gaming, and will let people add new buttons that you can press to interact with your attachments or stuff around you. A list of predicted inventions:

• Dance machine where you click the HUD to choose your dance
• Easy to switch Animation Overrides
• Combat systems that come with guns (I know I plan to add this to my Ronin line of weapons, and I heard Crystalshard Foo talking about adding it to her combat module.)
• Vehicle controls
• Voice commands of attachments migrating to touch -> dialog menus. (Such as bling on / off.)

However, as cool as these are, they will require open channels of chat to interact with other objects, and we won't have the full capability of the HUD until Linden Lab releases direct Object to Object communication, which Cory Linden swears is sitting on his desktop waiting for some tweaking. (Big announcement from SLCC '05)

llSetPos, llSetRot, llTargetOmega, llSetPrimParams Support for Attachments

This will be the biggest change in 1.7, as far as "stuff for sale" goes. Basically it means you can now have moving attachments. The variety of items I foresee is simply too long to list, but a sample:

• Locket jewelry that can be opened and closed on touch
• Beanie hats with spinny propellers
• Those staff weapons from Stargate SG1 being animated to open up.
• Gun recoil (obligatory plug for my Ronin weapons goes here)
• Retractable metal claws (But absolutely not Wolverine's adamantium claws, right Marvel?)
• Velcro shoes that you can fasten and unfasten. SCRRRRIITTCH! Who wouldn't?
• Helmets that you can slide the visor up and down
• Oh, and last but definitely far from least prolific - muchos furry avatar improvements - expect spinning tails, real blinking eyelids, wavy hair, grinning prim-faces, and ...
• (holding in my laughter here) ... um ... adult attachments ... that can move

I'd better end this list while I'm ahead!

Full Bright Objects

I think it will take some time for people to convert their light objects to Full Bright, but I think the end result will be a more careful use of light objects, and people may be able to turn back on local lighting without the fear of ultra-laggy rendering or worse - crashing.

Improved World Map

It looks like LL took a snippet of their 2.0 renderer and applied it to work with their map renderer. The new maps look so gorgeous - an unexpected treat of 1.7's release.

I am encouraging LL to make the map images public - so they can be linked to online or as textures in SL - and we will see them used in gaming, searching, and tourist guides.

Negative Ratings: Gone

Finally. Ratings are dying anyway - as LL has been reducing stipends, and continues to tout that a new system is coming. I'm glad, for one, that they are taking their time and being very active in discussing ideas with the SL community at large.

In any event, I think there's room for a "Hey, watch out for this nasty AV" site, but honestly I don't see anyone doing it for money reasons, unless they are on some vendetta.

llSetPayPrice

Don't overlook this feature! I, for one, am planning on updating my vendor kit to allow a "package" to be filled by an item in a vendor, then price set for sale dynamically. Or imagine a universal delivery system where you keep a package of a particular store on your land, and contents are delivered, price set, and you Buy Contents.

llGetInventoryType
Another vendor upgrade. I can now have my vendor just scan through all items, check the type, and act on it appropriately.

...


So that's the predictions. I'm still holding my breath for:

• Object to object direct / secure communication
• HTML
• Tree-based linking

But this patch is pretty cool.

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Second Life Community Convention

Pictures

You can check Flickr here, or here and SL Herald for pictures from State of Play or SLCC. Our photographer's are being developed, and mine ... well, let's just say the lighting was bad in the main room and many of my pictures need redeye correction.

Anyhoo.

State Of Play

SoP 3 preceded the SLCC. (or should I now say, SLCC 1? It seems unlikely this will be the last!) It was a cool conference. I took a bunch of notes, and have a lot to say, so I'll split it up into topics and post about them separately.

I will say that SLCC was talked about all three days at SoP 3, and we did some stage hijacking. Take this picture. What you can't see is SLCC in SL on the screen, due to lighting. You can see in-world pictures here. But that wasn't SLCC ... that was from SoP 3. I was really flattered when this was not a singular occurrence, and there was one panelist at SoP 3 who did his entire session remotely via SL.

Attitude

I was surprised how laid back the conventions both were, SLCC especially. Lindens proved that they very much were not aloof of the community when they mingled around the residents. From the reactions I got from a few Lindens I've chatted with, I think it was just as nice for Lindens to get out and meet some of the users as it was for residents to meet "the gods".

There was joking, and drinking, and hugging, and smiling - even from the most cynical of attendees. And if you haven't seen pictures of Philip dressed up as his avatar, sequin-crotched and all, you simply must.

Smeeting

It meant a lot to me to meet so many cyberlebrities. No, wait, smeet. The word is smeet. When you meet someone in real life that you've known online, it's called smeeting. I'm going to get this word popular, dammit. :)

The question of what to call it was proposed by Beth Noveck of New York Law School. I was standing next to Philip Rosedale at the opening dinner for SoP 3. "Second meeting?" I suggested. Philip whispered back, "smeeting?"

Yes. The term shall be smeeting.

Second Life is already about adding meaning to Internet communication, but even still, there is something that draws people together in real life. It is heart-warming to see people smeeting for the first time. (Heh, now it kind of sounds dirty!)

Party

Saturday night I stayed behind, making sure the video streaming folks had everything they needed setup, then spending twenty minutes in the pouring rain yelling at all the cabs who zoomed by off-duty. Pinkfaerie, The Video Guys and I arrived fashionably late to "Holy cow look at all the SLrs in one real life spot!" and promptly spent a couple hours meeting everyone and wishing I had about a week to get to know them all. There were definitely people I knew that I wish I had more time with; at the same, time, I'm glad I spent time meeting and talking with people I'd never met before.

Some highlights:

• Fizik Baskerville: coolest English person ever
  
• Playing "Where's Maxx?" with Pendari and Misty Rhodes


• Playing "Am I glad I have a Y chromosome or what?" with Crucial Armitage


• Offering no resistance to Prok air-dicing me with an air-sword


• Unnamed Linden sneaking up behind me and declaring certain unspecified comments made at unspecified stuffy architects at SoP3 was "right on, man"


• Nyna, my mentor!


• April Firefly - so happy you introduced yourself!


• BUUUUUUUUUUUUUB!!!!!!!!!!


• Linden Lab has babes!

Sunday

I breathed a deep sigh of relief when I was finally able to look up at the main screen and see SLrs watching us watching them. After Jerry's laptop decided not to run SL, crossing the main convention hall room at least a dozen times, wheeling in a desktop on a coffee cart, bearing through some issues with two ISPs fighting, (thanks to Server Core a.k.a. The Video Guys) running to Duane Reade on Duane St. for batteries after the spare set went AWOL, and returning to SL to find the masses at Fortuna had exercised their right to free speech about the ISP issue, I was happy to hear how things "went flawlessly". I suppose the trick to public events is like magic shows - just don't show them how it's actually done. ;)

Meat World Speakers

There are many people who could not be in NY who have said they're very anxious to see the footage from the speakers. To you I say: "Me too!" I wish I could comment on each and every speaker, but as organizers, we have to make sure everything is going well, and that means missing things.

The Self-Governance panel featured Beth Noveck and David Johnson from New York Law School, and Ren Reynolds of Terra Nova. A lot of the talk was rehash of topics discussed at State of Play, and overall I think it's important to understand that there's no easy solution to how to allow and/or implement virtual world governments. All three panelists are smart and savvy to the issues, and I enjoyed all three in panels that they were involved in from SoP3.

Don't Let His Double Degree in Comp Sci and Weapons Design Intimidate You!

A lot of people have stated how terrific of a speaker Cory Ondrejka is ... well, frankly, they are right. I personally have always been intimidated by Cory (and so have others, judging by jokes at SoP3 of Cory's plans for world domination) and he totally came across as a down-to-earth guy with a good sense of humor. Then again, the visit to the karaoke bar two nights prior also had a lot to do with breaking down Cory's stoic-scary image that I had in my mind.

Cory laid down the needs and plans of Linden Lab to progress into the near to mid-term future, all with in mind the idea that SL -> Metaverse is an inevitability and final goal. Cory stressed scalability issues above all. It was a bit shocking to hear that if LL had as large as Google's, it would only support about 1.7 million users. Decentralizing and bringing in other hosts of servers is a lot closer than I had expected. Cory also answered a slew of questions very directly and candidly, and it gave me a sense of just where a lot of our highly-desired features sit in the development process.

Keynote

Philip Rosedale gave what amounted to a pep-talk, while wearing a RL version of his SL avatar, arranged by a couple of the other SLCC organizers. To call it a pep-talk is accurate, though does not go far enough to adequately describe the mood and effect of his speech. Philip has told the SL community over and over again how he's "building a new country" and such. But in the immediacy of the convention, a full room at the law school and more people watching from in-world, it took a much more real, powerful statement than any town hall or forum announcement could make.

What Philip touched upon was really the theme of the whole weekend, including SoP3. A great gathering of talented people has come together, wants to see the Metaverse happen, and are working out the challenges. I don't even think SoP speakers fully grasped just how rapidly things are progressing.

• You have architects complaining about simulacrum, while another SL resident pointed out that they were ignoring the remarkable fact that 60,000 residents are building their own homes using 3-D tools.
• There were legal panels on self-governance, while SLrs have been building micro-governments for over a year now. Though Dr. Emilsson of CCP Games described Eve Online factions developing organization tools before his company even provided the software to do so.
• One panelist spoke remotely, from SLCC Online's NYLS build. The room in SL was projected onto the main screen at SoP3. The panelist noted at the end of his talk that "maybe next year" SoP could have video streamed from the law school into SL. Indeed. Or, maybe "maybe tomorrow", since SLCC did it the very next day.

These things speak highly of Philip's leadership, and the fervent skill with which LL steers SL. It also speaks to the real passion of the community. We are the people who come, build, exchange ideas, and really provide the wind in SL's sails. And this is precisely what Philip tapped into in his speech, and we felt it.

There's something really big going on and we're making it happen faster than anyone expected!

And Definitely Not Least ...

I attended Fizik Baskerville's session on brand names. Out of all the presentations that went on that weekend, I found this one to be the most useful for me, the content creator. Fizik laid down everything from picking a name to using SL to test RL products. I took notes, and I'll 'blog about this session at length at another time. Suffice it to say, Fizik is a pioneer in virtual world marketing. His company in SL, avalon. has been groundbreaking in SL, and is a venture of Fizik's RL company, rivers run red.

In-world

In-world featured events by Spellbound, group meetings of Thinkers' and Neualtenburg, and airshows by Konigmann Lippmann. (I probably just butchered that spelling, sorry!) I want to say how impressed I was with our event planners, but with the whole gaggle of people, both residents and LL employees, involved with the building and support of SLCC Online in SL.

While I can't comment on many of the events, I did have the chance to get to the Spellbound Now and Then event, and they throw one heck of an event. I'm supremely impressed with their ability to run an event with little supervision and much creativity!

Thanks, yo.

I can't compliment the other organizers enough, or the dozens of volunteers and sponsors that made the convention, both in Manhattan and in-world in SL. Special thanks to Beth Novack of New York Law School, who wins my "miracle worker" award for slicing through red tape for SLCC!

And that's the story of SLCC, really. Writing this, I feel like Linus (no, not this Linus) at the end of the Peanuts' SLCC Special: Charlie Brown, the real meaning of SLCC is ...

/chuckle

I suppose I can't write about something I poured my heart into for two months without getting sentimental.

The real meaning of SLCC is the excitement and enthusiasm at which SLrs want to reach out across the geographical bounds of the earth. We want to come together because we want to show that we can defeat the idea that who we meet is restricted by the circumstance of physical separation.

Roots

Three months ago, I met Jerry Paffendorf / Snoopybrown Zamboni for the first time at a hole-in-the-wall Mexican take-out place on the lower east side. I mentioned that FlipperPA and I were thinking about having a small get-together in NYC - maybe a dozen people at a bar or something. Jerry said he does convention planning for Accelerating Studies Foundation and organizes SL's monthly Future Salon.

"Jerry, might you be interested in helping out?"

Jerry's eyes widen.

The rest, as they say, is history.

/grin

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MAKE in SL: Why O'Reilly Has Its Eye On Us

Perhaps you haven't heard of O'Reilly Publishing's new venture "MAKE". It's a DIY magazine with MacGuyverisms-a-plenty.

This is the second article I've seen that's featured in MAKE on building in Second Life.

The article states that they're coming to SL in-world. This is a very interesting thing to watch. This month's Wired magazine's article on O'Reilly showed that virtual worlds are one of the things on his "radar" for the future. (Specifically, Cory Doctorow's book signing as an example.)

More links

Further poking has found that Wired columnist and Bruce Sterling is writing for MAKE and has mentioned us as well. Interesting.

O'Reilly's interest in SL is growing - and you should definitely keep your eyes open. Two more examples besides MAKE:
SL Herald writer Mark Wallace has his new book coming out with O'Reilly next year about his colleague Peter Ludlow. (also a SL Herald writer)
At State of Play 3, Linden Lab announced that talks with O'Reilly were occuring to make a "SL Hacks" book (perhaps Bub was being prophetic when he made the joke image on April Fool's Day) - and that LL will be putting the call out for residents to provide the content. Which I very much hope selected residents will be not only getting credit, but perhaps some profit sharing in the title.

So these are a heck of a lot of things that O'Reilly is doing with SL to be coincidence. It's clear that O'Reilly is closely watching the evolution of SL, and so we have another big name gunning for our success.

I'm going to investigate MAKE in-world, and post a follow-up to what I find.

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