Come jam with us

The IBM global innovation jam 2008 is on now for the next few days. Lots of interesting topics to come and tlak about (loads of virtual world related ones too).
You can register here and come share with the world. (*Update. In my haste I appear to have not noticed that whilst this is a large innovation jam is has been restricted to certain large organizations – sorry for misleading in anyway, my bad)
I just posted about changing the supply chain model with 3d printing from virtual world distribution. Come and tell me why I am wrong ๐Ÿ™‚

12 Seconds for the future of manufacturing and virtual worlds

I have been introduced to 12seconds.tv, micro video blogging. I just had to record the future of manufacturing in 12 seconds. Fabjectory and Shapeways leading the way. Making virtual things real.

3d printing the future of manufacturing on 12seconds.tv

VW2008 impressions post show

This years west coast event has, as usual, been very full of lots of conversation with all sorts of people. The IBM stand seemed to be a constantly busy place, and my shifts on there certainly were productive in terms of explaining what we do in general and what I do with the CIO office. having the award on the stand for innovation also brought a fair few people over.
I attended some of the sessions, but by no means as many as I would have liked. However it is always a draw between attending things to support the element you represent and know a lot about, to gauge other people positions on things versus hitting the more apparently unrelated topics.
The John Landau session keynote, with Corey from Multiverse intreviewing him was a very interesting start. It highlighted the fact we were in Hollywood. My main take away from this was that some very influential hollywood players were starting to tap into the whole virtual world direction. I was also struck by how much multiverse were now doing or had in the pipeline. Multiverse has always been there, Corey is always a leading voice but they have obvioulsy been in it for the long haul, so that now, several years on they announced the Buffy MMO would be multiverse based.
The next day keynote was started off with Rueben, formerly the Linden Lab Second Life evangelist. He admitted to being the worlds greatest virtual world keynote warmup act as he often has this slot. He talk about how we had to evangelize. A kindred spirit I fully got what he was saying and making all these people who do this now evangelists in their own right with the power to shape the industry is key.
Colin Parris (our IBM VP for all this) also had an interesting keynote with Erica Driver interviewing. This was struck a very good balance with the hollywood one the day before bringing more traditional business but mixed with innovation into the mix. Colin said many of the things I spend my time talking to people about, how the community formed, how it had a grassroots global take up in IBM. How we were investigating and pushing forward things in the enterprise and adding value. Showing the lotus sametime to opensim interoperability. I actually twittered that my work here is done. As Reuben had pointed out before in making everyone now their own evangelist, there is less need for those founding evangelists.
This leads nicely onto the technology visionary panel that I took part in.
This session will analyze the future course of virtual worlds technologies. Join us for debate between leading industry technology experts on the future of the technology, where itโ€™s headed and what needs to be done to get there. Donโ€™t miss this lively conversation.
John Swords, Director of
Business Development, The Electric Sheep Company (moderator)

Ian Hughes/epredator Metaverse
Evangelist, IBM

Ben Goertzel, CEO, Novamente
LLC

Mark Wallace, Chief Executive,
Wello Horld, Inc.

Christian Renaud, CEO,
Technology Intelligence Group

We jammed on some subjects about where to take this next. We covered all sorts of ideas. A main theme was that we know this is not all solved technically and socially and we should not just settle for assuming the continuation of this has to be the same modes we have become used to. It may be the case that we need to evolve past avatars and islands. Though they have their place, and we know they work there is more that can be expressed and other metaphors that we can use as we connect humans at a deeper level over the web.
Interoperability, different ways to look at that and the needs of that obviously came up. I extended that interoperability conversation into my pet subject of 3d printers and making the virtual real completing the loop that we have of modelling things from the real to the virtual. We know the technology will get better ( a common theme across many sessions) we have to keep pushing it past what it can do. The reason we have to do that is that it is not actually about the tech. It is about people. All the things we do and try connect people in interesting and rewarding ways.
That segues into the other panel I managed to attend at least half of.
An exploration of cross-platform narrative possibilities, bringing video content into virtual worlds and vice versa.
Tim Kring, Executive Producer/Creator, Heroes
Reuben Steiger, CEO and Founder, Millions of Us (moderator)
Elan Lee, formerly of 42
Entertainment and now founder of Fourth Wall Studios

– Douglas Gayeton, CCO, Millions of Us
Chris Jacquemin,
Endeavor Talent Agency

I found this fascinating to hear the sort of problems with adoption of new channels that pervades an industry that has such an obvious creative output stream that can benefit from the ways the web now works. It had the same pattern of stagnation and inertia that we see in every other industry. Of course the formulaic nature of the media industry is obvious, as with the games industry, so it is not that big a surprise.
I liked what Tim Kring had to say about Heroes, and how every non TV element of the franchise has to either reach out or feed back to the “mothership”. Yet each individual element has to stand on its own, and be a mini Heroes experience. This was contrasted by the panel with the way many properties were merely repackaged and pasted into other mediums. The consumers now really dont want that.
In the scope of innovation it was suggested that the industry needs another star wars moment to break the mould.
It sounds to me like a few movie studios, tv companies, agencies and hollywood types could do with their own metaverse evangelists too.
Finally I need to talk about Roo’s panel. He was running an augmented reality one. This and 3d printers are very much in my sights now. I guess I can be an ARvangelist?
Augmented Reality: Virtual Interfaces to Tangible Spaces
Augmented reality is an emerging platform with new application areas for museums, edutainment, home entertainment, research, and industry. Novel approaches have taken augmented reality beyond traditional eye-worn or hand-held displays, creating links between the real and virtual worlds. Join this panel of experts as they guide you to where the augmented world is headed next.
Marc Goodman, Director,
Alcatel-Lucent

Eric Rice, Producer,
Slackstreet Studios

Blair MacIntyre,
Associate Professor, School of Interactive Computing, Director, GVU
Center Augmented Environments Lab, Georgia Institute of Technology

David Orban, Founder & Chief
Evangelist, WideTag, Inc.

Andrew (Roo) Reynolds,
Portfolio Executive for Social Media, BBC Vision (moderator)

Roo did his usual good job of blending moderation and presentation with comment. The panel was a really good set of people to discuss this. Eric having a huge interest and push in representing stories, games and content, David with intrumentina the world with OpenSpime. Marc with the Alcatel-Lucent technolgies already used in many places including the media and sports coverage and Blair with a huge track record in AR, including some of the more recent and famous experiments using the Second Life client to blend life with the real world.
Other things of note at the conference and expo:
The growth in the capabilities of Mycosm. A show pick and favourite from the New York show, more on that later in its own post, but its looking really good and has some very nice features including being an nuderlying web service based architecture
The Rivers Run Red part of the Second Life stand with the Immersive Workspaces which I think is fair to say our very own Rob Smart had in forming the direction of during a shared IBM/RRR customer project.
Proton Media were doing very well too, a platform that has pretty much everything an enterprise would need for desktop collaboration. Which now includes a free demo ( something we discussed way back at the very first VW conference.
A very cool 3d camera sensor from Soft Kinetic was getting a lot of attention too.
Finally, as I already mentioned before Multiverse had some interesting directions with multiverse places which will be next on my list to explore.
On our own stand many people responded to seeing Rob’s Unity based world running and talking the environment. It would appear unity has captured some peoples imaginations as a platform to develop quickly too.
Thus ends a long post, with no pictures.
Final thought… I do think this industry is on the right track, I do think we have to come to terms with the different needs of different businesses and experiences. The diversity of platform is good in that it allows us to create anything, not be tied into one way. I still have the feeling there is a game changing piece sitting there ready to explode. Either way the end result of being able to merge the real and the virtual, to print, visualize, feel, and extend what happens is offering us a set of new planes to work with. That is very exciting.

Yet more 3d Printing

I am a big fan of 3d printing . I tend to use it as an example of the next stages of virtual world interoperability with the real world. So when I see a new service pop up I always like to follow it (having not purchased my own printer yet as all my personal investment money is still in Second Life)
This video just popped up on youtube for Shapeways I have signed up for the beta and will see what happens.

Paper 3d printing

You may have noticed a good few references to another pet subject of 3d printers here on eightbar. Well here is another one.
Mcor use the principle of printing out layers of paper that are then bonded together to create a 3d model. That is a really interesting approach, especially given the lower cost of paper versus the plastic based printers.
The other interesting point is the way I got introduced to this. Guy Kawasaki, one of the original evangelists posted it on twitter refering to his truemors website. I follow his twitters and saw 3d printer, so it was a natural conclusion to then post it on eightbar.

Yet more 3d printing – getting cheaper

Fellow eightbar member and Creative Director Brian Peaston pinged me today with some fantastic links.
The first is to Desktop factory which by its very name shoudl give the game away. Desktop rapid fabrication with a 3d printer. A 3d printer for $5000 thats quite a significant price point. Maybe I should sell my Second Life islands, as we now have plenty, and buy one of these now. Its getting very close ot being normal. At this price its looking veyr promising.
The other is very related and a good looking service in principle. Ponoko is a service that lets you build things and get them made, and then sell patterns to others. Now this is sort of local to this site, but it is veyr very long tail. I will be signing up and having a go. Who knows I may build all the xmas present this year ๐Ÿ™‚

Augmented Mixed Reality – Virtual, Physical and Augmented mashup

Ok, this may be tricky so you may want to sit down for this one.
After my previous post using the ARTag augmented reality, allowing my avatar to interact with an augmented reality 3d object superimposed on the view I coudl not resist taking it a stage further.
As you know I have a fabjectory model of my more human Second Life avatar. It is a physical statue made real from the virtual.So, I dug up my very old copy of the canon 3d SOM. This appears to be here now
The 3d SOM packaged makes a 3d model from a collection of photos of a real object.
Yes, I took my Second Life avatar, had it printed in real life, photographed it, turned it back into a 3d model, applied that model to the ARTag augmented reality kit and then used put the ARTag texture in Second Life, pointed the camera at the Second Life screen.
Voila, my avatar was in augmented virtual reality with my other avatar.
The possibilities, and the loops withing loops ermeging from this are very intriguing indeed.
I think this is Augmented Mixed Reality?

07082007410

07082007411

07082007414

Many hands make AR work, Rob (dressed for a visitor) helped with the camera for this one.
07082007415

New Year virtual life real life crossover

I am still technically on holiday, but as you all know this stuff is so exciting that its hard to keep away. Today I received a real life parcel with a present from Judge Hocho, one of the earliest members of eightbar in Second Life.
Judge had, a while back, created an SL t-shirt for eightbar. He has now turned that into a real one. He very kindly made one for me and one for Algernon and had them shipped over from the US.
UPDATE: Judge did the shirts on cafepress and also has some for our virtual universe community with the logo by Tood Keen. Judge is keen to point out this is a not for profit, but for fun operation. As with Darren’s from a few months ago
Now the intersting thing here is that I now have 2 pieces if clothing in real life that match my main AV look. The leather jacket I converted from my real one back to a virtual one as an early experiment, and I have now become attatched to seeing it on my avatar.
The eightbar tshirt until now only existed as a virtual one. As you can see from the picture the logo is very neat, and I will be proudly wearing this, and a huge thanks and real life rating points to Judge.
8bar
Then of course I have my 3d fabjectory print statue of myself.
This affinity we get to some of the virtual assets we have make an interesting point of discussion.
It also highlight the fact that the Second Life for many of us is a very real co-existence.
Just to add to the confusion, I got rainbow six vegas for the xbox 360 for chrimbo. It was a hoot trying to explain to my dad, who was visiting, why exactly I was plugging something that looked like a camera in, and why my 38 weeks pregnant wife was trying to get a decent profile shot of me with it. Luckily the laughing and initial comedy results did not cause a dash to maternity (though any day now).
So I have ended up with less hair, and looking slightly youger if that makes sense, but I am face mapped should any one happen upon the xbox live epredator in Rainbow Six Vegas.
rbsix

Fab Fabjectory

I have been laid up with chickenpox for the past week, which has meant no blogging, no Second Life. Today was my first day back at work, though only from home as I am still infectious. So it was a great start to the day to be in to sign for my parcel from Michael at fabjectory. A few weeks a go I stood for a capture session in SL, and am now the proud owner of this excellent epredator potato figure straight out of a 3d printer.
fabjectory print
Michael did some work to make sure my custom Reeboks came out, and they are very very good.
custom reeboks
I decided to wear Judge Hocho’s eightbar t-shirt with my real life leather jacket.
8bar t-shirt
The plinth is also printed with the avatar name, a nice touch.
plinth
It is great to have something like this, having wanted to get something going with 3d printers for a good few years, and to have this blended with Second Life is even better.
top view
It has been great to catch up on all the coverage we got for the innovation jam results and having just taken a tour of Second Life its amazing what changes in a week just in our spaces.