- Tuesday, 10 November 2009
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Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, and without sneering teach the rest to sneer - Pope
Virtual teleportation arrives
CREATOR OF Second Life, Linden Lab and IBM have achieved virtual world interoperability by teleporting avatars between the Second Life Preview Grid and an Opensim virtual world server.
Teleporting an avatar between platforms will undoubtedly have a significant impact on the future of virtual worlds. Indeed, an open standard for interoperability would permit users to cross seamlessly from one three-dimensional universe to another.
According to Colin Parris, VP of IBM Digital Convergence, interoperability will, “push virtual worlds into the next stage of their evolution” and and allow individuals and organisations to take advantage of virtual worlds for “commerce, collaboration, education, operations and other business applications.”
Ginsu Yoon, Vice President of Business Affairs at Linden Lab, notes that both companies support an interoperable approach as it sees the industry “moving to an interconnected model in the future.”
The companies have not yet announced when the interoperability protocol will be available on the main Second Life Grid. However, the protocol interactions used for the test teleport will be documented on the web site of the Architecture Working Group (AWG), an open forum that are designing and publishing the Open Grid Protocol.
In addition, IBM is slated to offer the extensions developed for Opensim to the Opensim community, while Linden Lab plans to make available as open source the extensions developed for Second Life. Linden Lab will also create a special test grid that would encourage testing and further development, ultimately achieving a seamless journey between virtual worlds. µ
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Interesting. The implication seems to be Linden Lab & IBM are taking web 2.0 to a new level, essentially sowing the seeds of an online virtual universe that would extend or possibly replace the web as we know it. Visions of "Snow Crash" come to mind...
The title of this article is really stupid sounding. 

It's not like this is as big a news as some form of instantaneous travel would be. 

It's more like being in facebook and being able to switch to myspace without having to type your username and password again. Nice, but not earthshaking.
My buds and I might be in a game of BF2342 some day and escape an ambush by being teleported into the Sims10, then over to Quake Wars7 grab some new weapons and teleport back to the BF2732 game just behind our ambushers and zap em?
or do you mean something else?
I can go up against World of Warcraft enemies with a GI Joe-type avatar, or something equally cool, it's just business as usual.

*YAWN*
SL and IBM efforts are going to be old news once (when, if?) the PS3 Home project kicks off.
What am I saying, they ARE already old news. Active Worlds among others were doing the same stuff more than 10 years ago.
PS Home at least will have better quality 3d graphics and a more game-like user experience
Now EVERY virtual world can experience the joys of flocks of flying penises, and erotic fox-people.
Aharon, 

It would appear that IBM and Linden Lab are way behind in the Virtual Teleportation Field. 

dDutch IntelAIgents are already XXXXPloring Deep Embedded Betas in ITs Special Applications of ProgramMIng. 

I Kid U Not ...... "With Quantum Communication exploring the Realms of Virtualised TelePortation, as IT is, and not a lot of people know that, is Reality itself being Questioned to Justify ITself…… in the Light of NeuReal Discoveries in the Total Information Awareness Environment. As you can Imagine, IT is Political Dynamite ….. in the Petabyte Age." .... http://amanfrommars.baywords.com/2008/06/30/080624/

Considering all the hype there is about supposedly ubiquitous, covert electronic phishing, it is odd that they are so far behind in the Game, for even what you can read in the cited hyperlink is early work in the Field, which you can fully expect to evolve at exponential rates....... and I only share that with y'all should you be relatively new to Virtualising Great Games and as yet, have difficulty in coming to terms with ITs SurReal Nature.

Never fear, amfM HyperRadioProActivity will Facilitate urTravel in ITs Tempestuous Fields. :-)


LOL Vinster, You made my day by reading your post. I sure hope the game industry is listening, 'cause interoperability between different games, in my opinion, would be the ultimate virtual world evolution. This wuold make playing more engaging. Please gaming industry, I hope you take this great idea seriously.