Related press releases
Related research
Second Life of goes Second Earth
:: 17 August, 2007
A thundercloud sits at my knee and hurls small lightnings toward my shoes. I stand, in form of a Avatars, over a gigantic map of the United States. The south from Illinois is directly under my feet - and an obviously straight completely beautiful virtual thunderstorm gets off.
At the east coast the weather is however better. I see cushion-like Kumuluswolken, which float over Boston and New York, only few virtual meters distant. I turn and look to the west toward Nevada. Not one rain drop is in view, the eight years continuous Dürre seems due to the global heating up to probably never end.
Then something strange is noticeable to me suddenly: The red points over Phoenix and Los Angeles show that it must be there very hot - that is to be also expected at this season. But the point over the airport of North read Vegas is chill blue. That cannot be correct nevertheless. I live finally only 30 kilometers far away and let over my air conditioning system run already all day long.
“Any notion, why this point is blue? ”, I ask the Avatar, which serves the weather chart. Its name in the virtual world of Second Life, in which I find straight me, reads Zazen Manbi. It has a friendly face and a maintained, kastanienbraunes hair. The oval eyeglasses on its nose let it look like a mixture from scientist and John Lennon. The man, who controls the Avatar Manbi, is called actually Jeffrey Corbin and he is scientific coworker at Institut for physics and astronomy of the University OF Denver.
“Leaving you me somewhat to try out”, he answers me. “I can put the map back, sometimes remain her hanging.” It presses a button and blows data from the network of airport weather act ions, which national the Oceanic and Atmospheric administration (NOAA) operates, reaches the virtual world. The clouds over the east coast shift easily, Los Angeles become orange, which means that it is there somewhat cooled down. But it hangs still a Indigoblau over read Vegas. “There probably someone has the Blues”, jokes Corbin/Manbi.
The map, over which I am, belongs the NOAA. It covers a 12 times 20 meters large surface on an enormous virtual island, which is operated completely with software and servers of the company Linden lab in San Francisco, the Second Life 2003 created. (On a scale of the map my Avatar is approximately 500 kilometers large - I jump over Illinois with three steps.) Corbin, whose personal mission seems to consist of getting 3D-Werkzeuge like this into the scientific curriculum of its university paid lime trees lab for the island, so that he could platzieren its demonstration objects on it. With them it proves now to its faculty that such technologies can be begun educationally meaningfully. “Each student at the University OF Denver must have a laptop. But like many of the young people use it in instruction only to send away around in messages?” Corbin is firmly convinced of the fact that some students would learn clearly more, if they could enter such a map virtually.
The scientist has to show much. In the west a virtual Planetarium, a gigantic glass crate is appropriate for the map, in which an enormous white ball sits, which is equipped again with a mechanical model of the solar system, which can represent among other things geometry of a solar eclipse. Corbin is not the only one, which offers such attractions in Second Life. In the south, on a neighbouring island, is “internationally the Spaceflight museum”. There users beside life-large rockets can fly - from the Saturn V from Apollo times up to prototypes of the fire-new acre V, which is to send a daily Americans back on the moon.
Second Life began a square kilometer before four years with a large range, which accommodated only 500 inhabitants. In the meantime one concerned at 600 square kilometers - distributed over three mini continents with 6.9 million registered users, from whom 30,000 to 40,000 at the same time on-line is. It is a world, in which birds twitter, water plätschert and it gives shopping centres, real estate taxes and a realistic physics engine. And the life can be as various as in the external world. “I help new inhabitants. I rent houses on a part of the country, which I possess. I attach contacts, have fun”, mean a Second Life veteran, who hears on the name Alan Cyr. “I dance here much better, than I could do that in the genuine life. I look at myself sunsets and sunrises, go swimming, investigate the country and drive around with my Second Life Segway.”
But Second Life is not only suitable for the maintained virtual leisure activities. The offered navigation possibilities (flight, zoom shot) make it a exzellenten tool the visualization of information, which one could represent otherwise only with difficulty. Second Life will thus to a possibility of regarding the material world from other points of view. Did you ask yourselves for example already once, how the international space station EAT from above looks? In the Spaceflight museum one can test - and also different space objects like the Hubble telescope from unusual perspective regard oneself. A globe with a diameter of 10 meters moves like the genuine earth - with numerous satellites, whose item data come directly from the US army authorities. Who stands rather on sport, a copied Wimbledon can look at itself - on a virtual tennis court and to pursue, a nearly real time simulation of IBM it makes each Serve and Volley of a Matches possible.
Naturally such a virtual world is not yet perfect - soft and hardware today represent restrictions, which do not completely obtain the perfect simulation yet. Without a clear increase in Internet range for petrol normal users or economical 3D-Brillen we will have ourselves to employ still longer with a rather flat representation on our PC monitors. Also a Avatar is still no humans - it is a cartoonartige puppet, which can be steered clumsily with mouse and keyboard. In addition each maintenance in Second Life must take place still in text form - although offerers lab wants to introduce lime trees shortly a Sprachchat function.
That means: Despite the quite good possibilities for the representation of information and ideas professional researchers and Visualisierer are represented in Second Life only at the edge. Large quantities of spatial information are analyzed in other programs - professional solutions of companies such as Autodesk and ESRI make it possible.
But there would be still another further new category at 3D-Visualisierungswerkzeugen, which comes for the first time at present into the hand of normal users: “Virtual Globe” - applications such as Google Earth, Microsoft Virtual Earth or NASA World wind. Such virtual globes make possible it to represent the whole transportation network a city to let current environmental data flow into map material or to determine the number of miles, which the airline would credit again with a journey between New York and Delhi. In addition, simple flying around by the partly highly soluble satellite material makes mood already.
Which passes there straight, merging between data from the genuine world, virtual globes and social cross-linking is in 3D-Welten. Digital maps are a substrate for what calls Di-Ann Eisnor, boss of the US map service Platial, “Neogeographie”. It is an explosion at user-generated contents such as travel pictures or Blog Postings under way, which become “gepinnt” to specific places. With software like that of Platial maps of full information can be provided - from historical occurrences to Freizeittipps. Google built in the meantime a similar function directly into its map service Google map. “The conception that maps could be emotional Projektionsflächen, with which one can interact, are rather new”, mean Eisnor. She can introduce herself well that in the future a map is only a framework or a reference, from then the user reports, opinions, photos and the like to come out.
With the increase of these trends results completely naturally the question, which would happen, if services meet one on the other such as Second Life and Google Earth of a daily.
That to completely certainly happen - all the same whether the operator companies do it or not. Both Google and lime trees lab offer to external programmers Zugriff to their existing platforms - with interfaces and “Mashups”. And the more developer such an combination idea, becomes the more probable a “Second Earth” takes up. Whether thereby money can be earned, is completely unclear. “So long the people a deep internal satisfaction from it refer that they create such a thing, it it will nevertheless do”, means Jamais Cascio of the Zukunftsforscher Website “Worldchanging”.
The first, relatively simple step toward a “Second Earth” might be the integration of Second Life Avataren, control equipments and modelling tools in Google Earth. Groups of users could run then by the Google Earth simulation, fly or to swim and the contained 3D-Repräsentationen of famous buildings directly to visit. Google commentates such ideas however only reservedly: “It is surely interesting and I thinks, it gives humans, who want such a thing to do”, mean John Hanke, for Google Earth of responsible department managers. There would be however still nothing that would have to announce Google to the topic, apart from direct plans completely.
An alternative idea would be it to blow up” and the new territory at the genuine earth align the surface of Second Life simply to millions square kilometers “- with the same topografischen data, which are into Google Earth. (The existing parts of Second Life would not have to disappear, however e.g. into the proximity of Hawaii were then banished.) such a conversion would be technically heavy and actually rather unpractical nevertheless. More badly still: Lime trees lab is not at present in it interested.
But one must look into the further future, means Futuristen. In the next 10 to 20 years, one time interval in that the Web approximately, somewhat substantially larger popularized itself could develop: A genuine Metaversum. In Neal Stephensons Cyberpunk classical author “Snow Crash”, 1992 published, is already described it: A virtual city of the size of a planet, which contains 120 million Avatare - virtual personalities, that hold after maintenance, social contact or business look out.
Some experts believe that the Metaversum, which might come a daily will actually resemble that from Stephenson - although with some changes. It would look then like the genuine earth and even more user would support. It would be a world, which as virtual laboratory and gate elbow for each kind would serve the information determination. Humans would experience it as full-extent 3D-Welt, in addition, by small windows like the display of a mobile phone. And like the Web today, then will the Metaversum the standard way to organize its life on-line. There is already a plan for it: The Metaverse in such a way specified Roadmap was formulated this spring by an informal group from entrepreneurs, medium producers, scientists and analysts. Only to be converted the idea must now still.
Release link: http://www.secondlife.com
Tags: Second Life , future world , virtual earth , Virtual Reality ,
