Sun 12 Oct 2008

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IBM plans 3D interweb

Unreality

BIG GLUE has joined up with Second Life firm Linden Lab to draw up some standards for a 3D Interweb.

The joint project has the stated aim of developing ways of boosting the stability and quality of 3D platforms. And the companies want to introduce interoperability by creating universal avatars.

SpokesIBMer Colin Parris, vice president for digital convergence at the firm reckons interoperability will be key to wooing folk into any number of virtual worlds. "As the 3D internet becomes more integrated with the current web, users will demand more from these environments and want virtual worlds that are fit for business," he said.

He foresees an Interweb in which users wander out of Second Life and have a stroll round Google Earth before plunging into some sort of WoW maelstrom.

Scary as heck. µ

Comments

Green line tripe

Whats this double green line rubbish? Remove this jank at once, It's been awful on Tom's for years and it's awful on here.
posted by : Graeme, 11 October 2007

Virtual Immersion

"Scary as heck."

Not if you know what you are doing?
posted by : amanfromMars, 11 October 2007

Common 3D interweb

Sounds like we're well on our way to developing into the Borg, or the Matrix.
posted by : Richard Wargo, 11 October 2007

still waiting

Until I can have a room in my house where I can physically wander around my games or t'interweb, either by some crazy affordable VR rig or a holodeck, stuff like this seems a bit meh
posted by : wilko, 11 October 2007

Suggested reading

Snowcrash, by Neal Stephenson, anyone?
posted by : Anonymous, 11 October 2007

How appropos

I just finished reading "Neuromancer" by William Gibson last night. Ha! Just remember that 16 years before there was The Matrix, there was a matrix.

Let's see, it only took 23 years for IBM to get going on this?

Actually, if you follow the logic of displays, I'd be surprised if we didn't have display systems akin to what was in Farhenheit 451 in at least 10 years. The walls are displays and you're the actor. The tech stills needs to progress, but the solution was pretty well thought out. I'd have no problems with that.

Just don't go jacking the internet into my brain please.
posted by : James, 11 October 2007

3D wibble

3D web sounds cool...but wait...what is the BENEFIT for the user?
Sure there is plenty of oppertunity to make things flashy and allow greedy corporations to charge extra for an MMS whcih is obviously not SMS...well you get the idea...
I see a 3D desktop being beneficial, 2D seems to get too cluttered and has a very basic but FAST solution of sub-folders.
A 3D desktop might provide a slight slow down for locating items, but easier for none techies to use. Such as remembering all their saved documens are near the wall paper with their favourite band etc..
That is in sharp contrast to locating their default save directory.

3D web sites? will that speed up our extraction of information we need?
They think of interaction, but do you really want to interact with some stupid 3D widget when checking flight arrivals?

It has potential with gambling sites, porn sites, gaming sites...
Basically sites that needed interaction anyhow.
I cannot see how 3D new will be better or easier to read than plain black text on white background 2D.

Maybe I'm just square, har har.
posted by : Someone Special, 11 October 2007

Oh, and one more thing:

You know that someone is spewing complete and utter billocks as soon as the word 'avatar' is used. Usually the word is used in order to sound all futurey while describing something done by some Quake modders in 1998, which had better graphics and network stability.

The only exception to this rule is in connection with Ultima.
posted by : David W., 12 October 2007

false alarm?

I almost thought Linden Lab was an anagram of the name of a famous terrorist, but it's not.
posted by : albert, 12 October 2007

Because we can...

This is another example of "lets make it 3d because we can and then think of a reason for it later".

A prime example of the kind of c*** that mentality give you is this:

http://www.3dmailbox.com/

Oh my god, talk about the most utterly pointless piece of software. It's not useful, but it's not even fun either (apart from watching sharks swim above the sea and on land?!).

Second life need to learn that until there is some change in HCI a 3d interface is more of a hindrance than an asset.
posted by : Unluckypixie, 12 October 2007

Word Links

I very nearly clicked on one of those word link things, luckily the offensive pop up script obscured it and allowed me to avoid giving you a click through on that despicable insult to your readers.
posted by : Ethan Soutar-Rau, 14 October 2007

Avatar?

No thanks, I just 'ad one.
posted by : Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 14 October 2007
IThound
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