Daniel Terdiman: okay...so why don't you start off by explaining your premise of how Avatar presages the future of 3D virtual worlds?
Bruce Damer: Cameron and his team developed a 'virtual camera' which as he walked through the set, he could see the virtual terrain. This was possible in a very crude fashion with the VR of the early 1990s, but today it is called AR (Augmented Reality). What Cameron was doing on the set of Avatar is possibly and probably a glimpse into the future of Avatars (multi user virtual worlds in Cyberspace)
Daniel Terdiman: how do you see this manifesting in future consumer-oriented virtual worlds?
Bruce Damer: So for example, if you combine the
In Vernor Vinge's superb novel Rainbows End, the characters use a kind of contact lens that gives them a parallel vista into the virtual landscape mapped around them on the physical landscape. Its a breathtaking vision for the late 2020s.
Daniel Terdiman: you think that far from now?
Bruce Damer: Last night we were playing with an
So that is the beginning of ubiquitous AR/Virtual Worlds
Daniel Terdiman: right. I've played with that one, or one like it.
Bruce Damer: Its hard to say, it depends on the sensoring of the environment, how does the device know where it is in space? Cameron's team had the best of the best of performance capture and 3D spatial GPS working for them
Daniel Terdiman: So, what you're saying is if some company built a giant virtual environment, then the players, or residents, would become part of that environment through the use of some sort of AR tool, like an
Bruce Damer: In Rainbows End, Vinge projects that untold galzillions of sensors are floating in the air and on every surface, constantly communicating, giving you a truly high rez world to map on
Bruce Damer: Yes indeed
Bruce Damer: It might start as a "theme park" or an experiment at Burning Man (hey want to do that for 2012?)
Daniel Terdiman: but in order for it to be a rich experience--just so I'm clear on what you're imagining--someone would have to program the full richness of the world first. And then the residents would join in and do user-generated content, etc.
Bruce Damer: I think it would take all forms, for some it would be just looking for data, ie: is that restaurant I am looking at open and does it have pasta for under 10$? So thats pretty rudimentary. You would see that kind of thing soon in Google Street View. Think of Street View in an AR glasses setup or smartphone held up to the restaurant. But it will get more sophisticated when whole worlds are mapped onto the sim-reality complete with avatars (other people) and bots etc
Bruce Damer: For some people it would like going to a climbing gym, a virtual worlds palace, an avatar immersion gym or some such, ie: a purpose built space. There is such a space down at CALIT2 on the campus of UC San Diego, with whom we are working
Daniel Terdiman: so you're imagining, then, that content could be coming from everywhere, and from all kinds of sources, not just a single company?
Bruce Damer: Those spaces are fully sensored, GPSed in 3D and can support high res AR/VW immersion
Bruce Damer: Right, in a sense the net will be mapped onto a view of the real world, Street View and the iPhone constellation app are early examples
Daniel Terdiman: so if google wanted to plug data in from its Street View system, it could...as could any others that wanted to plug in?
Daniel Terdiman: from your perspective...what would be the advantage of such a system?
Bruce Damer: right, you would put your own stuff there
Daniel Terdiman: right..so it is much like Snow Crash, as you suggested the other day?
Bruce Damer: Well for example, when people visit us here at the Farm (just as you do) I need to be able to have them enter the Lower Gate, so as they come up our street, a little character representing me (or one of our pigs) would enter into their view (windshield, glasses etc) and do a little moonwalk and guide them into making the right tour, and then talk them thru getting up to our parking area, give them a history lesson on the Farm etc. Would be really cool (or intrusive depending on how old you were I suppose)
Bruce Damer: So that all would be served out tru Google Street View/AR
Bruce Damer: But I would have created the content
Bruce Damer: "making the right turn" correction
Daniel Terdiman: and I could access it from my hilltop house in Thailand?
Bruce Damer: Yup, and of course my little piggie avatar could dance into your view at any time, as me or my agent (bot) to deliver messages and generally irritate you ;)
Daniel Terdiman: heh
Daniel Terdiman: i like your pigs
Daniel Terdiman: :)
Daniel Terdiman: in order for this to work, then, it sounds like it would depend on a gigantic amount of user-generated content. What would you imagine it would be like when it launched?
Daniel Terdiman: before the community of individuals and partners began to add new content
Bruce Damer
Bruce Damer: sending you a picture of me at my birthday, this is what my avatar might look like (scary!)
Bruce Damer: Well i think stuff would map over, for example, the prevalence of Microsoft Word and other on screen document tools made it easy to build web pages in the beginning
Bruce Damer: So stuff in social networks, generated on and for smart phones, GPS type data (weather etc) all is primed to be added to this world, the starter seeds
Daniel Terdiman: i see
Daniel Terdiman: would you imagine that content from a world like Second Life would plug in?
Bruce Damer: So perhaps it will all just start happening simultaneously as the devices appear
Daniel Terdiman: i guess the question is: would the look and feel of different kinds of content map in a satisfying way?
Bruce Damer: I think SL would not make the jump to this, it is as we said at breakfast, and example of the old "keystone cops" virtual reality of the olden days
Daniel Terdiman: i.e. are you imagining that the experience of everything in this virtual world will have the same look and feel?
Daniel Terdiman: right
Bruce Damer: I think that over time a kind of standard language would emerge, for presenting data, for navigating, but there would be a cornucopia of styles
Daniel Terdiman: right
Bruce Damer: Providers would battle and then some future Google, if not Google itself, would kind of enforce a standard, just like every other new medium of technology in the past
Daniel Terdiman: who would build this, at least from the get-go. I'm assuming you're thinking that this would be a commercial enterprise.
Bruce Damer: I think it would be a bit of both, but the infrastructure is costly, especially for high rez 3D GPS, so investment would start in a kind of "theme park" LBE (Location Based Entertainment) way, costly, and then spread
Bruce Damer: The likes of Google can blanket the world with nifty transmitters/3D transducers to give us localized highrez 3D GPS and then we are off to the races
Bruce Damer: (or blanked the Bay Area for us AR/VW geeks to experiment or at least the Playa at Burning Man, Serge and Larry are you listening????)
Daniel Terdiman: so let's say I'm at Burning Man and I encounter some of these sensors and I've got my tenth-generation iPhone...what would you think I'd experience?
Daniel Terdiman: I'm sorry...i'm just trying to wrap my mind around this
Daniel Terdiman: not entirely sure I'm seeing what you're envisioning
Bruce Damer: Well if you hold the phone up and you are walking on the esplanade, you would not only see the normal cast of characters (burners all doodied up) but you would also see a parade of truly bizarre contraptions and people (virtual burners trying to outdo the IRL burners). Of course instead of holding up the phone you might just have it wired into your cornea or AR contacts
Bruce Damer: and the IRL burners would be in battle, dancing, or otherwise interacting with the vBurners, so it would look without AR like someone was gyrating at something in empty space in front of them
Daniel Terdiman: right. But would there also be a way to plug into this from my house in case I wasn't able to make it to the playa?
Bruce Damer: Exactly, you would be a vBurner, or worse, a SPECATATOR (yikes!)
Bruce Damer: sorry Spectator
Daniel Terdiman: btw...i assume you know Andrew Johnstone?
Bruce Damer: Oh yes
Daniel Terdiman: have you seen the Burning Man iPhone app he's been working on?
Bruce Damer: and the Second Life burning man space, and before that there was one in Active Worlds
Bruce Damer: Ahh no, i have heard of it
Bruce Damer: When on the Playa we have pretty darned good GPS, thanks to the nerds there in center camp
Daniel Terdiman: i saw an alpha version of it in action at BRC last year. It is very cool.
Bruce Damer: And our camp provides the wifi for the Playa (either from the tower at Media Mecca or from First Camp)
Bruce Damer: So those are the guys to run the experiment
Daniel Terdiman: i'm sure it will be operational this year...it will give people with iphones access to all kinds of location based information
Daniel Terdiman: right
Daniel Terdiman: okay, so back to the future virtual world...
Bruce Damer: very cool, its coming true before our eyes!
Daniel Terdiman: yes
Daniel Terdiman: would you imagine this would have broad, mainstream appeal...or a more niche type of user base?
Bruce Damer: it will go universal, become an essential tool, for example, could you imagine now not having always on net, phone, sat-nav (maps) and such? All of this will become tools of the trade not only of the office warrior and power gamer but for everyone
Bruce Damer: And not just virtual worlds with characters, the data worlds will be much more widespread
Daniel Terdiman: and always a digital overlay over our standard vision
Daniel Terdiman: how so (the data worlds being more widespread)
Daniel Terdiman: ?
Bruce Damer: could be, or on car windscreend or smartphones held up
Bruce Damer: Well just like today, there may be 60k users in SL, and perhaps several million logged into game play worlds and kids worlds, but how many people are using Google Maps (an order of magnitude more)
Bruce Damer: So graphics heavy environments will be a niche for some time, not the majority, but over time, the data worlds will get graphics heavy (Disney will want Donald Duck telling you the driving conditions on the 405)
Daniel Terdiman: well, i guess I'm asking if you're thinking the data worlds would be separate environments, or would they be part of a larger whole?
Bruce Damer: I think ultimately it would be carried on a few data/GPS 3D networks from big ugly providers, but that a variety of styles, spaces and realms would exist, like the Internet / Web today
Daniel Terdiman: or, put another way, are you imagining what one single virtual world could be like, or that there will be lots of competing world serving different purposes and trying to get us to choose them? Like the Web now, but all grown up and in 3D
Bruce Damer: Yup it will be that way, so for example I choose to load up Google or Bing and then I am in their space, but it looks and acts somewhat similarly as people have gotten used to common interfaces (from way back at Xerox PARC, the misty days of our ancestors)
Daniel Terdiman: got it
Bruce Damer: If I was in WoW-
world of warcraft
AR version 29, then boy I am in a different space crafted for me, but behind the WoW scene might still be visible data worlds (sign for pizza hut)Bruce Damer: People's vision is the common interface
Bruce Damer: Monopolizing gaze, but this time with depth, will be the space to fight over in the future
Daniel Terdiman: monopolizing gaze?
Bruce Damer: Right, in the 90s they used to talk about "stickiness" of web sites, how long people were on a page. Next it will be depth of vision, so not only what you are looking at but what is behind it, in the far field. If AR can give you a reality, it can also tell what your little eye motors are doing, where you are looking and what you are focused on. So that dancing Donald Duck in your view knows when you are focused on him
Daniel Terdiman: ah, got it. very cool
Daniel Terdiman: so stepping all the way back to James Cameron and Avatar...you're not suggesting that he would be involved in any way in the creation of this future environment, but just that what he built for Avatar presages what we all might be experiencing down the line?
Bruce Damer: So Donald goes ballistic when he gets that kind of attention, and may be able to sell you something (like cheap tix to Disney's AR world, if you will only take the next exit at Buena Vista!)
Bruce Damer: Exactly, Cameron is going to hold many patents on this and in this way he might be a kind of "Edison" of the future of Avatars and Virtual Worlds/AR
Daniel Terdiman: nice
Bruce Damer: Edison tried to control the early movie business thru his patents, having invented all the cameras and stuff, until the producers moved west to escape his grip
Daniel Terdiman: right...you were telling me about that up in Boulder Creek
Bruce Damer: Cameron, like Edison, is now too old to really be a big part of this as it emerges in the teens
Bruce Damer: Yup the parallels with film are eerie
Daniel Terdiman: i wonder if you've read/seen the Metaverse Roadmap stuff?
Daniel Terdiman: lemme dig you up a link
Bruce Damer: Saw it years ago
Bruce Damer: Reviewed an early copy
Daniel Terdiman: how does what you're imagining compare to what was predidcted in that?
Bruce Damer: Well I think the prediction of the size and ubiquity of virtual worlds (the keystone cops variety we have now) was too big, but they were right on with some of the lighter weight AR vision. But of course there were articles about this in popular magazines for the past decade.
Bruce Damer: And there were sci fi writers giving this to us in spades for decades (hey, that rhymes!)
Daniel Terdiman: true enough
Bruce Damer: So even my ramblings dont smack of something truly revolutionary
Daniel Terdiman: right
Bruce Damer: But it doesnt stop one getting excited about one's own ability to prognosticate!
Daniel Terdiman: but you think that now that people have seen what's possible using Cameron's system, there will be more interest in trying to actually take what he built and writ it large?
Bruce Damer: I think that we will have a "connect the dots" period, ie: Cameron's system is a one-off, way way expensive and built for in-house use. Commercialization of stuff comes from the bottom up (
iPhone
apps for example). I think in the future when we do have high rez data, avatar, game and AR worlds surrounding us, we might look back and say, one of the first humans to experience this in high rez and real time was James Cameron making Avatar, cool!
Daniel Terdiman: right. good point
Bruce Damer: By the way Cameron has a signed copy of my 1997 book "Avatars!" in his study at his home in Malibu (plug for Bruce's tiny or nonexistent role in all this)
Bruce Damer: I wrote in it "From one Avatar to another, good luck with the film, Jim"
Daniel Terdiman: :)
Daniel Terdiman: well, very cool....is there more to this that you wanted to ilustrate that we haven't talked about already?
Bruce Damer: Gosh its a lot, How Avatar shows us the future of Avatars (just trying to suggest cool titles)
Bruce Damer: You can come up with something better
Bruce Damer: This is a huge space, and perhaps the "story of the teens"
Daniel Terdiman: maybe...headlines are NOT my strongest suit
Daniel Terdiman: right
Bruce Damer: Its certainly what the teens will be doing in the teens ;)
Daniel Terdiman: well...let me ask you this
Daniel Terdiman: there was, as we talked about, so much excitement about these 3D virtual worlds in the late 90s and into the early and mid-2000s....Second Life being the one that most recently had all the buzz
Daniel Terdiman: but...
Daniel Terdiman: that seems to have plateaued a bit, at least in terms of the excitement and innovation it promises
Daniel Terdiman: so...
Daniel Terdiman: what's going to fill the gap between that and this Avatar vision of the future?
Bruce Damer: Yes a big clue can be seen from the 1890s and early 1900s
Daniel Terdiman: or is there going to be a bridge?
Bruce Damer: When people were bending over to look in Edison's Kinetiscope to see 2 minute films
Bruce Damer: That is what people thought of as the movies
Bruce Damer: Until the arrival of un-encumbered social cinema, and later, sound and color
Bruce Damer: And then you had the studio system and a real business (and really good directors like Cecile B deMille)
Bruce Damer: So that is a bit of a guidance of this bridge
Bruce Damer: Want my prediction?
Bruce Damer: Guess so... here it is
Bruce Damer: The 1990s virtual worlds and VR, and the 2000s (Second Life etc) and well into the teens, are kind of like the kinetiscope, you have to be locked into one place (your PC, laptop etc) interacting.
Bruce Damer: And the movement, the production values, are all pretty stiff, think of the keystone cops movie shorts
Daniel Terdiman: yup
Bruce Damer: When you get 3D spatial highrez AR, virtul worlds, data worlds, motion capture, all of that put together in your car, on your retina, on your skin and in your brain, we will all look back at people sitting for hours in front of glowing CRTs (or flat panels) and be amazed (well, it was a phase we had to pass through)
Daniel Terdiman: haha
Daniel Terdiman: yes
Bruce Damer: I think that as you look at how many people carry around a powerful little computer vs those stuck in front of bigger computers, more people are on the net today on the little portable things
Bruce Damer: So thats where the investment, and the user experiences, are going to go, increasingly
Daniel Terdiman: right
Bruce Damer: but there is less you can do on little screens, hence the need for "projecting outwards" into a bigger visual world, with depth, more information can be conveyed and more interactivity
Daniel Terdiman: btw...do you think in this future virtual world, there will be games built-in? Like, off in a corner of the world is where the WoW players go to get their game on? Or are you imagining that this will all be much more practical and life-oriented?
Daniel Terdiman: 3rd Life, so to speak?
Daniel Terdiman: :)
Bruce Damer: Hehe, 3rD life, 3D life?
Daniel Terdiman: yes
Daniel Terdiman: :)
Bruce Damer: I think most computing experience will always be toward the more mundane aspects of getting work done or selling, but there will be the corners of fun, experience, and creativity, so the same model we saw on the ARPANET with Maze War in the 70s and the Web in the 90s will apply in the teens or 20s (hey we are back to the 20s, see any Flappers!?)
Bruce Damer: Does this all make sense Daniel, it sure is fun to talk about it
Daniel Terdiman: it does...like i said, it takes me a little while to wrap my head around it all, but I got it :)
Bruce Damer: This is the big stuff, the big story in Tech in the next decade I believe, the unfolding of user experience from screens on desks to out in the world
Bruce Damer: But of course there is always the EvoGrid (that will be a big story, but for one day when virtual critters appear, and then are lost because they swim out into the AR bubble to work for Disney)
Daniel Terdiman: sigh...disney
Bruce Damer: Yup the big old entities will always be with us, like the poor
Daniel Terdiman: not a coincidence, methinks, that both will always be around
Bruce Damer: hehehe, and Geeks
Bruce Damer: you cant get rid of us!!!!!
Daniel Terdiman: true enough
Bruce Damer: The Geek will Inherit the Earth, I think God got it wrong by one letter
Bruce Damer: Its always a pleasure to interact with you Daniel
Daniel Terdiman: haha...a good book title
Bruce Damer: You should write that book!!!!
Bruce Damer: And start that crowd sourced news system we talked about
Daniel Terdiman: right
Bruce Damer: You are sitting in such a good place Daniel, enviable
Daniel Terdiman: ok...gotta go eat lunch and then head to the dentist for 3 hours of drilling
Daniel Terdiman: thanks, bruce
Avatar Showed us what "phantom menace" would have looked like without "squash and stretch" CGI animators..;) Movies as virtual entertainment products... adding a few tech bells and whistles to the media...
.
but..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSfKlCmYcLc&feature=player_embedded
shows us a more "real" virtualized future.
every conversation a market... and the only protected speech, the paid for ad.
enjoy the plug.
Posted by: c3 | Jan 29, 2010 at 21:41
What, no future augmented-reality spam blocker?
Posted by: Nicholas A. Karlovich | Feb 04, 2010 at 14:01