Augmented Reality
Augmented reality: Adding contextual, historical and other information to a real object or place. Unlike virtual reality which is designed to simulate a physical place, augmented reality uses technology to add information to a real place or object with goal of making it more meaningful and useful. One example are audio guides we can rent at museums; another is how MRI images can be superimposed on a patient’s body to help surgeons more accurately locate a problem . ELI’s 7 Things You Should Know About Augmented Reality does a good job at demystifying the term and highlighting its educational potential. When we start looking around we see other examples of augmented reality. For example mobile devices connect us with stores of information while we’re experiencing a particular place, GPS devices do as well.
So augmented reality is one future scenario we’re already experiencing, and like simulations there are ways to do it that don’t have to be high tech.
Does SDSU need Metaverse Roadmap?
If you’ve read (I haven’t) Neal Stephenson’s cyberpunk science fiction novel, Snow Crash, you’ll recognize the term. It describes the future shaped by virtual and 3D technologies. The Metaverse Roadmap, in effect a roadmap for the future, is an ambitious proposition nonetheless, I’ve been circling back around to it for definitions and ideas. It’s a big-picture heuristic that’s useful because it’s descriptive and predictive.
It’s a “first-of-its-kind cross-industry public foresight project” that asks challenging questions about “near-term” (2017) and “longer term” (2025) trends.
2008 – the year of virtual realities?
Scanning the Virtual Worlds News (RSS Feed to the right) and boy, are there some things happening. I like this post
So Many Stealth Virtual Worlds Companies I’ve Lost Count
Word in the Metaverse last year, was this year we’d see some action….looks like it. Hmmmm which of my SL avatars will be the first to flee and explore the great unknown.
Browser-based access to SL, open source & gender
A young British woman (yeh!) is developing AjaxLife, a web-based application for connecting to Second Life from within your web browser. She’s surveying us on what we’d like to see. Do the survey here. Great idea (the survey and the project). I’m cheering women on is this domain because it is overwhelmingly male in culture and practice. Read these gender reports from the EU and FLOSS (Free/libre open source software).
“Women are actively (if unconsciously) excluded rather than passively disinterested. The effect lies within F/LOSS cultural and social arrangements. The exclusion happens among people who often do not mean to appear, and who do not interpret their own actions, as hostile to women. The effect is an outcome of the importance given to the individual as the sole carrier of agency. ”
Democracy?
Croquet compared to Second Life — Looking back and foward
I’m subscribing now to the Virtual Worlds News and read this post about the Media Grid “plans to roll out a cross-platform, immersive world for education for academics, students, and trainers everywhere.” That brought me to Croquet’s wiki and to this 2006 discussion on why SL isn’t the wave of the future of virtual environments. Interesting stuff to keep up on.
On the immediate horizon: Metaplace – a web of worlds
Wouldn’t you know it, just as our very successful SL workshops come to end I get a Tweet from Bernie Dodge who’s looking into Metaplace
to replace Second Life in his Games and Simulation course.
Here’s an article about Metaplace, “a system that’s designed to treat virtual worlds like other content on the Web.”
The company is based in San Diego and the president, Ralph Koster says, “We think virtual worlds are just a new medium. That means that like other media–like pictures, audio, and video–virtual worlds are eventually going to start being ubiquitous on all sorts of Web pages.”
Why having a virtual life is important
I don’t think we all need a full and lively Second Life, just some virtual life, somewhere. The reason in part is because, without it, we’ll be incapable conceptually of interacting with those following us. We might not really get the Why of MySpace or Facebook, and that might be just fine. We might not feel the need to develop our digital identity, but I’m wondering what the cost of that will be in say 10 years, what informational and knowledge loops will we be excluded from? What skills will go underdeveloped? What Us&Them-ness might separate us? I get a bit nervous thinking about it. I already notice the degree to which my peers “don’t get” what’s going on and don’t feel the need to.
In this NY Times article, web playgrounds, children’s versions of Second Life are positioned to take off. “Webkinz, where children care for stuffed animals that come to life, have become some of the Web’s fastest-growing businesses. More than six million unique visitors logged on to Webkinz in November, up 342 percent from November 2006″
In this insightful blogpost the author critiques the comparison saying kids growing up with scripted play, will want and need scripted learning and adult scripted play. They won’t go to Second Life but to quest and mission games like Lord of the Rings Online, World of Warcraft and Tabula Rasa. Quests and missions, isn’t that what the military does?
Anyway…I’m not of the mindset that we have to become gamers if we’re not drawn to them. I’m not. I could easily imagine hybrid and crossover platforms where gamers and virtual worlders coexist and thrive together. But if we’re opting for a 92 inch HD TV and cable deluxe as our main source of mediated entertainment, we’re gonna be out of the loop in a big way.
