IBM: Like the Web, virtual worlds will be become business friendly
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--To IBM, today's virtual worlds like Second Life and World of Warcraft are simply a glimpse of the future Web, with the same potential to transform business and society as the first waves of the Web.
IBM hosted an event at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab on Friday, where experts offered insights into how virtual worlds can be applied to make businesses more effective and address societal problems.
MIT Media Lab Director Frank Moss spoke about how virtual worlds will change identities.
(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET Networks)The daylong event brought together IBMers, academics, media and representatives from businesses exploring virtual worlds, including those from entertainment, retail and the hotel industry.
Although some of the attendees expressed concern that virtual worlds are overhyped and insecure, IBM's Colin Parris vice president of digital convergence said the combination of today's virtual world with existing Web services, such as commerce and search, will lead to "profound transformations" to societies and enterprises.
"We are now at the threshold of newly emerging (Web) platforms focused on participation and collaboration," he said. "The power of collaboration and community are one of the major drivers of innovation as companies figure out the capabilities to accelerate collaborative innovation."
Parris described some of IBM's initial uses of virtual worlds in a business context, including enhanced training, immersive social-shopping experiences, simulations for learning and rehearsing business processes, and event hosting.
MIT Media Lab Director Frank Moss, who also spoke Friday morning, said society is in the very early days--"the first minutes, perhaps seconds, of the 3D Internet"--of virtual worlds. Several students are working on projects involving virtual worlds, such as finding easier ways to construct buildings and socialize.
Virtual worlds will be combined with advancements in understanding human behavior and pervasive computing, he said.
IBM's vice president of digital convergence, Colin Parris, said virtual worlds will lead to profound transformations in business and society.
(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET News.com)One outcome will be the transformation of people's identities and social interactions. Moss showed the video of a handicapped person with cerebral palsy conducting a musical performance he had composed at a recent MIT event.
"We will be blurring the distinction between human abilities and human disabilities," he said. "We're talking about autistic people becoming authors, and amputees becoming athletes, and normal people doing extraordinary things."
Despite the potential laid out by Parris and Moss, they both cautioned that virtual worlds need significant improvements. Attendees during a question-and-answer session also raised concerns over the poor state of security now in virtual worlds.
Parris and Moss also said security and privacy needs to be better addressed in virtual worlds. Other needed improvements include scalability of technical systems and more appropriate content.
Moss said virtual worlds still lack the application that leads to wide-scale use, as the transition to the PC and the Web did in the past.
"We haven't gotten the Lotus 123, the browser, the Google (search) yet," Moss said.
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin. 
Applications for virtual worlds presume multi-user sites. Be clear about that. Uses for real-time 3D systems don't assume MU. Is Google Earth MU? No. Can it be? Yes. Should it be? Ask the ad agencies. But the so-called killer-app for 3D on the web is mapping, not MU. We can take up what "business friendly" means another time. Real-time collaboration does not presume real-time 3D representation. It is simply a bit more helpful than video and there are lots of visual indicators one can apply (similar to avatars with badges or uniforms).
BTW while here:
The only reason Google StreetLevel uses photos is it is a cheap means to get accurate recognizable textures. They can:
1. Use a real-time 3D model such as Planet9 provides to its customers with high enough fidelity that the same applications such as navigation by familiar recognizable landmarks can be achieved. Why use stale images if you don't need them?
2. If they insist on it (find out why they insist on it), insist back that by geocode reference, the legal occupant or owner of a location referenced by geocode can log in and set an attribute declaring no-real-image for that geocode. OTW, by default, it can stay on. This is an opt-out policy vs an opt-in policy and works reasonably well.
Unless Google does something smarter sooner, they will soon rise above Microsoft on the Most Reviled list.
Been reviewing programs like this for over a decade, now, chatting with people, building, making bots to interact with users, et cetera. There is potential for them to be so much more, provided that people don't see them as just ways for businesses to make money off of others.
The Internet's a great place for people to interact, and by using an avatar/toon/character, they can do so safely without fear of violence, and make themselves look like whatever they wish.
But standards work is a little different and that is the continual sub-topic of these well-placed articles and events. So far, they have experience such as you and I do: building some worlds on existing platforms. So one might say they have content experience. Good.
But standards? I have to ask the tough questions.
When a company with the size, reach and financial clout of IBM enters a market such as 3D on the web, how should it be regarded vis a vis standards activities? It invested in content but it doesn't build 3D browsers or servers. In fact, it offers no 3D services at all. It as a company, is dabbling. Is that enough?
Initially, some are enchanted by the thought of that much money being put into the effort, but where does it go? It is good to have them as a member but what do they contribute beyond the membership fees?
Traditionally, the browser makers have had the most input to the standard itself. That made sense in terms of technical knowledge and experience. They understand the no-compromise qualification that is frame rate and the twin peaks of rendering and behavioral fidelity, how to achieve that while adding features, the trade off and so on.
Then a well-heeled company with money to spend decides it wants to invest in the 3D market. It gives that task to some of its staff. Well-placed articles are bought or given out to position them as experts representing their companies. The company purchases services from a non-standard but popular platform. Does this provide sufficient experience to be accepted as an equal in the technical contributions or as another content-provider similar to how the authors are accepted in the W3DC?
I understand the rules for participation in the W3DC because I helped write them. I don't know how well they will work in a situation where everyone desires the investors but haven't asked the hard questions about equity of contributions or the need for them to be appropriate to the goals of the existing standards.
IBM has money. It will be gratefully accepted everywhere. What else does it have to contribute in terms of real world experience where it counts in a standard? Editors we have. 3D graphics experts we have. Existing standards we have.
What are IBM's goals for itself as a contributor to the 3D standards and how does it qualify itself for meeting those goals?
- IBM again?
- by play7 June 25, 2007 3:36 AM PDT
- This is getting old! Showing photos of IBM Corp leaders does not prove anything between SECOND LIFE and IBM! If there was any meaning to this writting look up the stockholders reports on IBM about Linden Labs involment. REALLY there is NONE NONE NONE NONE NONE! Just like Second Life its VR relation between Linden Labs and IBM.....Sooner of later there wil be FCC involment to deal with these fail reports. Because anytime you start tempering with stockholders reports and shadey news leaks.
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