You may have seen my previous (and somewhat disappointed) post about Google's new web-based virtual world, Lively.
I was bemoaning the lack of an apparent strategy or any solid information about the future of Lively or the kind of service into which it may grow.
Not being one to give up on new technologies straight away, I emailed Google about becoming one of the content developers for Lively and tagged a couple of additional questions on to the end of the email.
The reply that I received from Danny on the Lively team at Google did provide a little more detail (I'm omitting Danny's surname so that he doesn't get a surge of emails from people guessing his email address).
On the subject of content development for Lively Danny replied "Content creation for Lively is in closed beta right now, but I put your name on the list of future developers. We are planning to release the artist tools soon and we'll let you know when we do."
Now this is promising. Comprehensive content development tools for Lively would make it much more interesting as a virtual worlds tool.
I also asked about plans for a Linux version of the Lively client. Danny responded with "We're trying to bring Lively to as many different operating systems and browsers as we can, but I don't have any details on when they'll be available."
That sounds even more interesting. Following a less-than-harmonious experience with my previous laptop, I'm very happy with my EeePC 900. This of course is running Linux (OpenSUSE 11 to be exact) and I'd much prefer to be using Lively on this, rather than resorting to a PC.
I hope that this information is the start of more detail being provided by Google about lively and it's place in their online strategy. I hope to continue my dialogue with Danny and will let you know any information as I get it.
Tuesday, 22 July 2008
Tuesday, 15 July 2008
How do I look in this?
One feature common to many Virtual Worlds is the ability to change your virtual self (your avatar's) appearance at will. But your options probably go further than that: you have the scope to change your face, shape, gender, even species, and to do so with relatively little fuss. I can't think of another environment where re-inveting yourself has quite such broad possibilities.
So, the questions that spring to my mind are: what's wrong with experimenting? what will everyone else think?
Firstly, there's nothing wrong with experimenting. Try everything out. It's an interesting experience.
More issues surround the second question, and the answers will differ depending on the environment and your relationship to the people with whom you are interacting.
I'm going to use Second Life as an example in this, but (to varying degrees) I have seen parallels in a number of online game environments.
One of the simplest ways that people will identify you as new to Second Life is your appearance. Looking like one of the default characters usually means that you simply haven't yet discovered the options to change your appearance or the ability to change your clothes. Looking new in SL seems to have a couple of effects - people (especially other new residents) will be more likely to talk to you, where as more established residents may be less likely to spontaneously engage you in conversation.
The converse, is also true. If you look like you are an experienced long-term resident, you will seem to be one of the elite to a newly registered user and they will be more likely to address a question to one of their peers. Ironically, appearing to be non-human (if your chosen appearance isn't scary and doesn't have negative associations) may actually make you seem more approachable. Wearing a cartoon chicken suit certainly stops anyone seeming threatening.
When choosing your appearance, whilst the freedom to express one's self is great, it is worth remembering that the medium is jut as important as the message ... and in this context - that of a dialogue taking place, your avatar IS the medium. Sounds like stating the obvious, but given the number of people I have recently seen pitching Second Life, in-world, to a group of very new users whilst dressed as something very obscure / disturbing / inappropriate I think it's well worth pointing out. And the best bit? This is Second Life. You can change your whole appearance as easily as you would change your clothes. Choose a suitable appearance for the people you need to address. You can always change back into the avatar of your choice as soon as the meeting is over.
So, the questions that spring to my mind are: what's wrong with experimenting? what will everyone else think?
Firstly, there's nothing wrong with experimenting. Try everything out. It's an interesting experience.
More issues surround the second question, and the answers will differ depending on the environment and your relationship to the people with whom you are interacting.
I'm going to use Second Life as an example in this, but (to varying degrees) I have seen parallels in a number of online game environments.
One of the simplest ways that people will identify you as new to Second Life is your appearance. Looking like one of the default characters usually means that you simply haven't yet discovered the options to change your appearance or the ability to change your clothes. Looking new in SL seems to have a couple of effects - people (especially other new residents) will be more likely to talk to you, where as more established residents may be less likely to spontaneously engage you in conversation.
The converse, is also true. If you look like you are an experienced long-term resident, you will seem to be one of the elite to a newly registered user and they will be more likely to address a question to one of their peers. Ironically, appearing to be non-human (if your chosen appearance isn't scary and doesn't have negative associations) may actually make you seem more approachable. Wearing a cartoon chicken suit certainly stops anyone seeming threatening.
When choosing your appearance, whilst the freedom to express one's self is great, it is worth remembering that the medium is jut as important as the message ... and in this context - that of a dialogue taking place, your avatar IS the medium. Sounds like stating the obvious, but given the number of people I have recently seen pitching Second Life, in-world, to a group of very new users whilst dressed as something very obscure / disturbing / inappropriate I think it's well worth pointing out. And the best bit? This is Second Life. You can change your whole appearance as easily as you would change your clothes. Choose a suitable appearance for the people you need to address. You can always change back into the avatar of your choice as soon as the meeting is over.
Friday, 11 July 2008
Google's Lively ... a missed opportunity?
A couple of days ago I started spotting the press-releases about Google's new virtual world offering called Lively.
I have to point out that this is a Beta and so we can expect some fairly major changes before the final version.
Lively, however, seems to fall somewhat short of the expectation put upon it by headlines like "Google's challenge to Second Life" which appeared on the BBC news website. Linden Labs really don't have much to fear from what is very much inline with my expectations of Virtual Worlds a few years ago and reminds me a lot of Adobe Atmosphere.
Coming from the company that brought us Google Earth, this seems miss-targeted and limited in it's conception. The concept of a 'virtual island on your webpage' is quite interesting as a nice extension to your website or blog, but the execution of it will I think type-cast it into a younger / teen market.
The other omission is the lack of any apparent developer or content creator support, or a roadmap for the plans associated with this. Given that Second Life has somewhat set the bar in this I would have expected Google to have attempted to address the developer community about what they can expect to get from Lively over the next year.
One final point is platforms. C'mon Google. Asus launch the EeePC and cannot make them fast enough to satisfy demand. Acer, HP and MSI (and possibly others) are all producing similar platforms. What do these all have in common? They all run on a Linux based OS (although a few do offer more expensive / less well spec'ed MS Windows versions). Launching a plugin like Lively and not thinking about a Linux version (the Lively site only mentions a Mac version in the future) seems to be cutting off a significant part of your target market. To make the example - I can easily run Linux Second Life on this EeePC 900. Lively? No.
So, Lively is on my things to watch list, but is something I hope will grow into something that I can use, because it falls short of my expectations at the moment.
I have to point out that this is a Beta and so we can expect some fairly major changes before the final version.
Lively, however, seems to fall somewhat short of the expectation put upon it by headlines like "Google's challenge to Second Life" which appeared on the BBC news website. Linden Labs really don't have much to fear from what is very much inline with my expectations of Virtual Worlds a few years ago and reminds me a lot of Adobe Atmosphere.
Coming from the company that brought us Google Earth, this seems miss-targeted and limited in it's conception. The concept of a 'virtual island on your webpage' is quite interesting as a nice extension to your website or blog, but the execution of it will I think type-cast it into a younger / teen market.
The other omission is the lack of any apparent developer or content creator support, or a roadmap for the plans associated with this. Given that Second Life has somewhat set the bar in this I would have expected Google to have attempted to address the developer community about what they can expect to get from Lively over the next year.
One final point is platforms. C'mon Google. Asus launch the EeePC and cannot make them fast enough to satisfy demand. Acer, HP and MSI (and possibly others) are all producing similar platforms. What do these all have in common? They all run on a Linux based OS (although a few do offer more expensive / less well spec'ed MS Windows versions). Launching a plugin like Lively and not thinking about a Linux version (the Lively site only mentions a Mac version in the future) seems to be cutting off a significant part of your target market. To make the example - I can easily run Linux Second Life on this EeePC 900. Lively? No.
So, Lively is on my things to watch list, but is something I hope will grow into something that I can use, because it falls short of my expectations at the moment.
Tuesday, 17 June 2008
Stitching things together - Second Life, Twitter and the web.
Stitching things together - Second Life, Twitter and the web. Second Life is a wonderful experience once you have acclimatised to it. Integrating it with your web presence is a little more tricky. The next release of the client will include the ability to integrate websites more closely with your parcel of land - more on exactly how that works when it's been released.
There are however other options for getting traffic flowing between SL and your website, tying your website more closely to your SL presence. SLURLs are a key component to this as they allow a web page URL to point to a specific SL location. This means that you can link to an SL location of your choice from your webpage. Thats a good start, but we can go further than that.
www. twitter.com is an increasingly popular mini blog (posts are limited to 128 characters) that has been designed to talk about what you are doing right now or give brief news updates. These is also a feature on the Twitter site that allows you to include your top 5 posts on your website simply by pasting in a little javascript or a small flash movie.
This makes for an interesting combination, when you add to the mix the fact that you can script a SL device that allows you to complete a twitter post from inside SL simply by typing a command into the local chat box. This is something I have been working on and I will be producing a small item that has some useful functionality packed into it. The effect is that you can blog to your twitter account directly, and easily include things like SLURLS (I have added some code that will create a SLURL for your current location) in your post so that people surfing your website or your blog can easily find the location about which you are posting. When I have a fully packaged device I shall post and let you know how I'm gonna make it available - I may charge a small amount and sell it, but think the price will be www.tumblr.com provides you with a perfect solution for blogging your experiences and the media that goes with them.
There are however other options for getting traffic flowing between SL and your website, tying your website more closely to your SL presence. SLURLs are a key component to this as they allow a web page URL to point to a specific SL location. This means that you can link to an SL location of your choice from your webpage. Thats a good start, but we can go further than that.
www. twitter.com is an increasingly popular mini blog (posts are limited to 128 characters) that has been designed to talk about what you are doing right now or give brief news updates. These is also a feature on the Twitter site that allows you to include your top 5 posts on your website simply by pasting in a little javascript or a small flash movie.
This makes for an interesting combination, when you add to the mix the fact that you can script a SL device that allows you to complete a twitter post from inside SL simply by typing a command into the local chat box. This is something I have been working on and I will be producing a small item that has some useful functionality packed into it. The effect is that you can blog to your twitter account directly, and easily include things like SLURLS (I have added some code that will create a SLURL for your current location) in your post so that people surfing your website or your blog can easily find the location about which you are posting. When I have a fully packaged device I shall post and let you know how I'm gonna make it available - I may charge a small amount and sell it, but think the price will be www.tumblr.com provides you with a perfect solution for blogging your experiences and the media that goes with them.
Friday, 6 June 2008
EeePC 900
I don't have a huge amount of luck with laptops. I spend easily 6 hours a day (sometime much more) using mine and I guess I expect quite a lot from it - high performance, long battery life light weight small footprint. You know. The things you pay an absolute fortune for. Only I refuse to pay and absolute fortune for a laptop. I guess £800 is about my maximum. Let's face it, if I go and buy a £2000 laptop and around about half-way through my third day of ownership, I'll drop it.
So that's why I chose my HP Pavillion DV2000. 14.1 inch, 3 hours battery, powerful enough, looked nice. Two years happy computing later and the hard drive finally dies, which was only to be expected really as I commute for between 3 and 4 hours every day, which means may laptop gets thoroughly shaken about.
New hard drive, take the plunge with Linux (Ubunbtu then OpenSuSE) and all is good. Then last Thursday I turn my trusty laptop on to the sound of random crackles from the speakers and nothing else, no bios messages, nothing. OK. Time to do two things: replace my laptop with something temporary, repair my old laptop.
A number of people I know have bought (and are universally happy with) eeePC 701s. Given my recent switch away from MS Windows and onto Linux the idea of a small Linux based laptop is very attractive. The screen was a bit of a sticking point though. A little small. But not on the 900 series. The other fact that sold me on this was the solid state disk - 20GB, no moving parts (so less prone to breaking).
One shopping trip later, and for the quite reasonable price of £329 I'm the owner of an EeePC 900, Linux, 20GB.
The initial OS runs in tabbed 'wizard' mode. I have to say this was a little uncomfortable as it makes the eeePC as easy to use and accessible as mobile phone, but makes it hard to get beyond the default set of applications. A quick search of web gives a number of pages that provide access to relatively (assuming you know a little about Linux) easy methods for switching to a standard KDE window manager referred to as 'advanced desktop'.
One thing that I did try was installing an alternative Linux distribution. Installing OpenSuSE 10.3 went rather easily, and worked exactly as you would expect it to. Drivers were easily available for just about everything, and the experience and Gnome (my preference over KDE) worked fine.
One reason has made me reinstall the default OS and use the KDE advanced desktop: speed.
A boot under OpenSuSE was taking nearly 2 minutes. I've just timed a boot and it's taking only 28 seconds to get to the point where the OS has finished loading and is offering me a dialogue asking me how I want to open the 4GB SD card I have in at the moment. That kind of speed difference seems to be consistent across all the applications starting up. I don't know anywhere near enough about Linux to be able to say why that might be, but it is enough to make the eeePC easy to use for the 1 thing I want to look up quickly, rather than waiting an age for it to boot. If I wanted to wait, I'd go back to MS Windows!
My one issue exists because I installed OpenSuSE. The 20GB solid state disk appears to be made up of a 4GB onboard unit supported by a 16GB secondary disk. I have no issue about the fact that the two are separate. My problem is that the recovery disk provided with the eeePC doesn't reconfigure this disk for you. As it stands, I have only the 4GB internal drive configured. The solution to this problem is trickier than I expected - I have created a partition, used fstab to say what it is and can now use mount /dev/sdb1 to mount it. But these doesn't seem to be any way to get it to automount. Even setting two linux gurus that I know onto the problem hasn't yielded a solution. I'll post one when / if I find one.
The eeePC offers a good enough screen and enough performance that I can do the image, layout and web based work I always have done. The screen is a little small but at 1024x600 pixels is just large enough to be usable. Gimp and Scribus work fine (if a little cramped). Even the Second Life client runs fast enough to be usable when all the settings are turned down. Thunderbird and Skype are already installed and Flock works well and is easy to install.
Oh, and battery life is over 2 and a half hours. Long enough, and longer using less taxing applications.
My next task is to find out if my HP can be repaired and how much / how long that will take. In the mean-time, I'm happy and productive with my eeePC.
Alan
So that's why I chose my HP Pavillion DV2000. 14.1 inch, 3 hours battery, powerful enough, looked nice. Two years happy computing later and the hard drive finally dies, which was only to be expected really as I commute for between 3 and 4 hours every day, which means may laptop gets thoroughly shaken about.
New hard drive, take the plunge with Linux (Ubunbtu then OpenSuSE) and all is good. Then last Thursday I turn my trusty laptop on to the sound of random crackles from the speakers and nothing else, no bios messages, nothing. OK. Time to do two things: replace my laptop with something temporary, repair my old laptop.
A number of people I know have bought (and are universally happy with) eeePC 701s. Given my recent switch away from MS Windows and onto Linux the idea of a small Linux based laptop is very attractive. The screen was a bit of a sticking point though. A little small. But not on the 900 series. The other fact that sold me on this was the solid state disk - 20GB, no moving parts (so less prone to breaking).
One shopping trip later, and for the quite reasonable price of £329 I'm the owner of an EeePC 900, Linux, 20GB.
The initial OS runs in tabbed 'wizard' mode. I have to say this was a little uncomfortable as it makes the eeePC as easy to use and accessible as mobile phone, but makes it hard to get beyond the default set of applications. A quick search of web gives a number of pages that provide access to relatively (assuming you know a little about Linux) easy methods for switching to a standard KDE window manager referred to as 'advanced desktop'.
One thing that I did try was installing an alternative Linux distribution. Installing OpenSuSE 10.3 went rather easily, and worked exactly as you would expect it to. Drivers were easily available for just about everything, and the experience and Gnome (my preference over KDE) worked fine.
One reason has made me reinstall the default OS and use the KDE advanced desktop: speed.
A boot under OpenSuSE was taking nearly 2 minutes. I've just timed a boot and it's taking only 28 seconds to get to the point where the OS has finished loading and is offering me a dialogue asking me how I want to open the 4GB SD card I have in at the moment. That kind of speed difference seems to be consistent across all the applications starting up. I don't know anywhere near enough about Linux to be able to say why that might be, but it is enough to make the eeePC easy to use for the 1 thing I want to look up quickly, rather than waiting an age for it to boot. If I wanted to wait, I'd go back to MS Windows!
My one issue exists because I installed OpenSuSE. The 20GB solid state disk appears to be made up of a 4GB onboard unit supported by a 16GB secondary disk. I have no issue about the fact that the two are separate. My problem is that the recovery disk provided with the eeePC doesn't reconfigure this disk for you. As it stands, I have only the 4GB internal drive configured. The solution to this problem is trickier than I expected - I have created a partition, used fstab to say what it is and can now use mount /dev/sdb1 to mount it. But these doesn't seem to be any way to get it to automount. Even setting two linux gurus that I know onto the problem hasn't yielded a solution. I'll post one when / if I find one.
The eeePC offers a good enough screen and enough performance that I can do the image, layout and web based work I always have done. The screen is a little small but at 1024x600 pixels is just large enough to be usable. Gimp and Scribus work fine (if a little cramped). Even the Second Life client runs fast enough to be usable when all the settings are turned down. Thunderbird and Skype are already installed and Flock works well and is easy to install.
Oh, and battery life is over 2 and a half hours. Long enough, and longer using less taxing applications.
My next task is to find out if my HP can be repaired and how much / how long that will take. In the mean-time, I'm happy and productive with my eeePC.
Alan
Thursday, 5 June 2008
Second Life and Healthcare
I've spent some time looking at Second Life and I'm left wondering: where are the Healthcare companies that should be in here, and where is the organised public health education?
There are a couple of health sites - the NHS is a very good example, but it's role is to demonstrate and gather feedback on new ways of deploying health care to the public. It doesn't provide health or disease related information. Healh Info Island has more of an informal feel to it, and while it provides a large volume of content, the the arrangement of it and its level of ineraction seems somewhat limited.
My interest in health care in Second Life is as a precursor to the next age of Second Life and Virtual worlds as a whole. I think we have now passed through our first age and the technology is now established, the user base is built and the first wave of corporate projects have entered and the majority has left. Some key corporates remain and make successful use of the environment - IBM, Cisco, Reuters and a few other are the leaders in this.
The trouble is, that for the majority of other businesses in Second Life, what happens in Second Life stays there. The in-world economy is booming. It's fashion and entertainment industries continue to expand. What is lacks is real cross-over business that has significance both in-world and in real life, and establishing these types of business will be key to Second Life (and virtual worlds as a group) moving into their new age.
I see healthcare as a key component of this. The internet is having a revolutionary effect on the public's ability to research their own health care. From access to disease area information, to details of products and the experiences of other patients the public have access to a huge amounts of information.
Second Life offers great scope for patient education, peer support and sharing personal experiences ... these conversations are already taking place in the web, but it seems that (in the UK at least) the health care industry isn't part of them.
Of course, if you think that I'm wrong and there's something I've missed please post it here!
Alan
There are a couple of health sites - the NHS is a very good example, but it's role is to demonstrate and gather feedback on new ways of deploying health care to the public. It doesn't provide health or disease related information. Healh Info Island has more of an informal feel to it, and while it provides a large volume of content, the the arrangement of it and its level of ineraction seems somewhat limited.
My interest in health care in Second Life is as a precursor to the next age of Second Life and Virtual worlds as a whole. I think we have now passed through our first age and the technology is now established, the user base is built and the first wave of corporate projects have entered and the majority has left. Some key corporates remain and make successful use of the environment - IBM, Cisco, Reuters and a few other are the leaders in this.
The trouble is, that for the majority of other businesses in Second Life, what happens in Second Life stays there. The in-world economy is booming. It's fashion and entertainment industries continue to expand. What is lacks is real cross-over business that has significance both in-world and in real life, and establishing these types of business will be key to Second Life (and virtual worlds as a group) moving into their new age.
I see healthcare as a key component of this. The internet is having a revolutionary effect on the public's ability to research their own health care. From access to disease area information, to details of products and the experiences of other patients the public have access to a huge amounts of information.
Second Life offers great scope for patient education, peer support and sharing personal experiences ... these conversations are already taking place in the web, but it seems that (in the UK at least) the health care industry isn't part of them.
Of course, if you think that I'm wrong and there's something I've missed please post it here!
Alan
Wednesday, 4 June 2008
Found inspiration
A key element in my creative process is being aware of what is possible. Some of this comes from experimentation or re-working elements of previous projects, but just as important is seeing what everyone else is doing. It's always a great inspiration to me to see other people doing great stuff. It encourages me to raise my game and new ideas get incorporated on all sorts of levels.
This is my top list of sites that I watch for inspiration (in no particular order):
1. www.styleboost.com - One of the best sites I know of that lists the best-of-the-best websites from a design and interaction perspective.
2. www.newwebpick.com - A great design portal that both indexes great websites but also sells (at a very reasonable subscription) a great Flash based magazine - and they also give away a free version that has about 20% of the content from the full version. Well worth a look!
3. www.conceptart.org - This is an all time-favourite of mine and is the home of some amazing resident artists as well as a busy forum that covers both 2D and 3D, digital and analogue artwork. It's a great place to see a lot of amazing work, get help and feedback.
4. www.juxtapoz.com - An interesting selection of works from modern artists. Always a lot going on and covers a good range styles. Covers launches and gallery shows.
5. www.plasticandplush.com - Like toys? Like character design? I love this site, it's an amazing source of fun inspiration.
6. www.eatpoo.com - One of my long standing favourites amongst the main art forums, because of the high standard of the artwork that gets posted here and the quality of the people that make up it's uses. Much more focused to 2D artwork than 3D.
There are a few more sites that should also get a mention just for being so cool or useful:
1. peaceloveandhappiness.org - A really great site 'free software for art, music and personal creativity'. You will find things like fonts and images in this site as well. Very useful!
2. www.morguefile.com - A great source of community generated hi-rez photography, most of which is free to download and use, as long as you check the licence for each image and credit where necessary.
3. www.pdf-mags.com - If you are stuck for something fresh to read, this is a great place to look - lists all the latest released PDF magazines. Very handy.
4. www.colourlovers.com - Sometimes the thing that I get stuck on is designing colour palettes and colourlovers is a site dedicated to just that - great colour palettes. Very useful, well worth a visit. An the palettes can be downloaded as a variety of formats including photoshop palette files.
5. www.tokyoplastic.com - This site has been around for a while and is just stunning. The best example of content = interface = brand that I have found.
Alan
This is my top list of sites that I watch for inspiration (in no particular order):
1. www.styleboost.com - One of the best sites I know of that lists the best-of-the-best websites from a design and interaction perspective.
2. www.newwebpick.com - A great design portal that both indexes great websites but also sells (at a very reasonable subscription) a great Flash based magazine - and they also give away a free version that has about 20% of the content from the full version. Well worth a look!
3. www.conceptart.org - This is an all time-favourite of mine and is the home of some amazing resident artists as well as a busy forum that covers both 2D and 3D, digital and analogue artwork. It's a great place to see a lot of amazing work, get help and feedback.
4. www.juxtapoz.com - An interesting selection of works from modern artists. Always a lot going on and covers a good range styles. Covers launches and gallery shows.
5. www.plasticandplush.com - Like toys? Like character design? I love this site, it's an amazing source of fun inspiration.
6. www.eatpoo.com - One of my long standing favourites amongst the main art forums, because of the high standard of the artwork that gets posted here and the quality of the people that make up it's uses. Much more focused to 2D artwork than 3D.
There are a few more sites that should also get a mention just for being so cool or useful:
1. peaceloveandhappiness.org - A really great site 'free software for art, music and personal creativity'. You will find things like fonts and images in this site as well. Very useful!
2. www.morguefile.com - A great source of community generated hi-rez photography, most of which is free to download and use, as long as you check the licence for each image and credit where necessary.
3. www.pdf-mags.com - If you are stuck for something fresh to read, this is a great place to look - lists all the latest released PDF magazines. Very handy.
4. www.colourlovers.com - Sometimes the thing that I get stuck on is designing colour palettes and colourlovers is a site dedicated to just that - great colour palettes. Very useful, well worth a visit. An the palettes can be downloaded as a variety of formats including photoshop palette files.
5. www.tokyoplastic.com - This site has been around for a while and is just stunning. The best example of content = interface = brand that I have found.
Alan
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