22c3 day 3 random notes
my personal highlight for this day was Changing Realities - a live demonstration of secondlife.com - a complete online 3d virtual world that has 100.000 inhabitants by now. the speaker emphasized that secondlife is not intended as an online game but as a working environment. he compared it to the metaverse from the book snowcrash by neal stephenson (which anyone interested in extremely well written science fiction / societey in 50 years should read, right after ‘the diamond age’ and ‘cryptonomicon’ of course).
the idea is that secondlife (2L) only provides a basic simulated world and users do whatever they want in it by creating and uploading their own objects. for example, one user has created a fully functional piano that can be used within 2L to play concerts or compose music. another has built a music club including turntables to have parties. also, there is an art club, where users meet in some room in a 2L building. the participants draw a 2L avatar that is standing in the virtual room using real pen and paper and then scan and upload what they have drawn into 2L to be able to discuss their creations online.
by the way my 2L (second life) name is Loard Nabob (you have to choose your last name from a list) - i’m standing around at the tutorial section. they have clients for mac and windows, linux is coming. basic accounts are free.
unfortunately this was my last day at 22c3 as i left for some days of snowboarding the same evening. for anyone who’s interested all talks have been video recorded and should be available soon for download at events.ccc.de
Tags:22c3 ccc second life virtual reality
August 1st, 2006 at 11:38 am
[…] there is a ruby interest group who meet in second life twice a month. (1st and 3rd thursday of each month at 6:00 PM pacific time). looks like we are getting a little closer to the metaverse of snow crash. […]