NextVerso.ORG

A direct consequence of the physical science approach of the nextverso is the potentially unnoticeable difference beetween avatars and intelligent scripts with the appearence of an avatar. This because a script/object is able to explore, walk, and emulate “humans” behaviour.

Conversational User Interfaces represents the outermost sophistication of communication, but in videogames like FIFA, soccer’s players controlled by computers looks intelligent just because they are moving itself in a way that make sense.

A lifeguard script/object in a virtual swimming pool doesn’t need to pass the Turing’s test!

Well,
let’s talk about “embodiment”, which is defined by Paul Dourish as “overlapping of bytes and atoms”. Inside Nextverso, “bytes” means object/script, while “atoms” means avatars, but as object/script could be very similar to an avatar, the Nextverso itself could be seen as a giant theater where humans and machines play overlapped roles.
By creating emotional virtual agents to move bytes toward atoms on one side, while moving avatars/atoms inside the Nextverso, we are working to reduce the distance between atoms and bytes. This is why the Nextverso could be called the Embodiment’s Nirvana.

One of the worst parts of the experience with virtual worlds like SecondLife is the loading time after the login. The NextVerso would be a different story, because of its social effect of time. The alignment by users and avatars would be closest than before: when you log in you join in a place and in a specific time, like if a person just crossed into a stargate.

So… I imagine a very basic, instantaneous login window, that opens a webcam preview on my computer. I see my face reflected in, slowly transformed (morphed) to my avatar. And when the morphing is completed, the universe - waving in the black background - will let me in.

This is not just a special effect. This is the most usable and pertinent way to collapse into a new world.

In my everyday life, I work on Virtual Assistants. They are software of course, but we believe that is possible to spread in them some kind of “intelligence” and -most relevant in our approach- some humanity. I’m not talking about general AI or Turing test: I mean a sort of search engine, that understand your queries and give to you something more than a basic list of potential answers.

If you remember, SnowCrash’s Librarian was not able to do deductions. He was “just” able to access the whole world knowledge, but just as a fast and semantic search engine and not as a general, “post-singularitarian” AI (or, better, AGI). So, after all, SnowCrash’s Librarian is something that we could call Wikipedia, plus a 3D enviroment.

Now, look at this video about virtual assistants.

Let me say: YES, she is a software with a 3D appearance, vocal synthesis and all the knowledge stored in Wikipedia. She is something really close to the SnowCrash’s Librarian. , especially if you put her inside a world like SecondLife. In particular if the Librarian live inside a specific “room”, designed to host you -as avatar- also.

She has a fully animated 3D body, with speech. She is hosted in a special 3D space and she can run video, images, etc. And YES, she is software. Every movement or word is a script, and YES she can ask something to Wikipedia, and show you the answer.

Well… she does not really understand the question or the answer, but it doesn’t mean that she is not able to handle it! Last but not least, this virtual assistant we have made works on FLASH! There are enough technologies to transform it in a sort of holocron room (or conversational user interface if you prefer) and put it on every blog!

How this concerns the NextVerso?

The main limit about Virtual Assistants and robots in SecondLife is related to “collisions and perception of space”. What we are proposing is to come through boundaries of 3D objects rules and explore the nextverso in form of script.

It is something similar to Neo watching the Matrix as green characters’ fall. He is a script, watching a world of scripts.

From Teleport to Stargate

Foreword:
One of the most visionary features of a NextVerso, amongst flying and teleportation - which were banned in the SnowCrash Metaverse but are permitted in Second Life - is not only the bare creation of object, but also the Kiss of Life itself, then letting everything evolve under local physical rules.

This post is aimed to draw a possible evolution of virtual worlds’ (i.e. Second Life) physics. A metaverse with these features would have a great appeal in the field of simulation and unique characteristics when searching for new ways in social interactions.

Welcome in Ne[x]tVerso! (more…)

The story we tell in this blog starts from two experiences. The first one is related to SecondLife recent hype time. In SecondLife, Leeander -as founder of IDEARIUM.ORG- created an island where -since two years- interesting events happens. We sperimented bulding & scripting, but our interest was focused on spreading ideas about Art and Science thought the virtual worlds.

Leeander is an interaction designer and this means that he historically preferred to talk about augmented reality, not immersive spaces. But, now we are living a wireless, multi-touch, eyegaze driven, gesture and voice enabled present. Boundaries have no sense. Mixing is hype.

In this sense, Leeander was deeply interested about SL and worried by constrains of this approach to the metaverse. So he imagined how it could be possible to go a step beyond, and the physical science essay that he started to write was part of the answer.

Our second experience comes from far away. Aaron Brancotti, aka Babele Dunnit, was an italian pioneer in CyberSpace conquering. He worked with all kinds of immersive devices and done all possible hacks, beginning back in 1979 to write software, playing with modems in 1988, and starting to work with that clumsy Virtuality stuff in 1992. Aaron lived an unfinished revolution, and now he is back with his green icosahedral 20 faces to think about this new virtual wave.

Neil Stephenson invented the word “metaverse” -in italian metaverso- to introduce a virtual space where people lives, works, and meet the rest of humanity. In his book, SnowCrash…

The story takes place in Los Angeles, in the area formerly known as the United States, during the early 21st century. In this hypothetical future reality, the United States Federal Government has ceded most of its power to private organizations and entrepreneurs.[1] Franchising, individual sovereignty and automobiles reign supreme (along with drug trafficking, violent crime, and traffic congestion). Mercenary armies compete for national defense contracts while private security guards preserve the peace in gated, sovereign housing developments. Highway companies compete to attract drivers to their roads rather than the competitors’, and all mail delivery is by hired courier. The remnants of government maintain authority only in isolated compounds, where they transact business that is by and large irrelevant to the booming, dynamic society around them.