fabric | rblg

Une autre version /produit du web en 3d, ici avec construction automatique de mondes/chambres à partir de pages web (le fonctionnement est assez similaire à Knowscape (! même très!): une page dédiée d'où on load les pages). Les liens fonctionnent et le système additionne en plus tout le reste de l'attirail des mondes en 3d (chambres, avatars, îles désertes, import d'objets, etc...), les design étant assez horrible et prévisible.

ExitReality: http://www.exitreality.com

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Ex. sur le site de fabric | ch.

As reported at Google Maps Mania, Google has released new Street View imagery in France. Google had already released Street View imagery in July for the Tour de France. Now they have more complete coverage for the following cities: Paris, Toulouse, Lyon, Marseille, Nice, and Lille. Most people are aware you can view the Street View imagery in Google Maps, but you can also see these new spherical panoramic photos inside Google Earth with a 3D interface.

To see the images in Google Earth, turn on the Street View layer and zoom in a bit to see the camera icons over France. You can fly to a city covered with the Street View icons to find an interesting site. Then click on a camera icon near your desired location. Click "Show Full Screen" or double click the icon to enter the Photo Viewer mode. This mode lets you look in all directions using the mouse or keyboard arrows. You can also zoom in and out with the mousewheel. See a video demonstration of the Google Earth Street View imagery.

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Personal comment:

Je n'avais pour ma part pas encore vu "street view" dans Google Earth et ça reste quand même assez impressionnant tout ce travail de mapping. Assez "Sysiphien"! - En s'approchant des icones d'images, vous verrez les "boules" de type Quicktime VR apparaître (la rue Daguerre et Plan B- Paris, dans l'image du bas). Double "click" sur la boule et vous entrez dans l'image puis possibilité de naviguer d'image en image (une images tous les 10m environ...). -- La vue de GE avec les boules fait d'ailleurs un peu penser à des vues dans l'env. digital de Brillantmont où il y avait ces sortes de "carrés" d'immersion dans le campus de BM.

By Associated Press

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CHIBA, Japan (AP) _ Video game rivals Sony and Microsoft are going head-to-head in virtual worlds for their home consoles later this year.

Both companies announced their services, which use graphic images that represent players called "avatars," Thursday at the Tokyo Game Show.

Sony Corp.'s twice delayed online "Home" virtual world for the PlayStation 3 console will be available sometime later this year, while U.S. software maker Microsoft Corp., which competes with its Xbox 360, is starting "New Xbox Experience" worldwide Nov. 19.

Microsoft's service will be adapted to various nations, but people will be able to communicate with other Xbox 360 users around the world, according to the Redmond, Washington-based company.

The real-time interactive computer-graphic worlds are similar to Linden Lab's "Second Life," which can be played on personal computers and has drawn millions of people.

In the so-called "metaverse" in cyberspace, players manipulate digital images called "avatars" that represent themselves, engaging in relationships, social gatherings and businesses.

Internet search leader Google Inc. has unveiled a similar three-dimensional software service called "Lively." Japanese companies have also set up such communities for personal computers.

Ryoji Akagawa, a producer at Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., Sony's gaming unit, said 24 game designing companies will provide content for "Home."

He did not give a launch date or other details. A limited test version over the summer was handy in preparing for a full-fledged service, he said.

In both Sony's and Microsoft's virtual worlds, players can personalize their avatars, choosing hairstyles, facial features and clothing. Akagawa said avatars will be able to dress up like heroes in hit video games.

"The Home has beautiful imagery with high quality three-dimensional graphics," he told reporters.

But Hirokazu Hamamura, a game expert and head of Japanese publisher Enterbrain Inc., who was at the Sony booth, said he needs to see more to assess "Home."

"You still can't tell what it's all about," he told The Associated Press, adding that "Home" may be coming a little late compared to rivals. "There are so many more possibilities for a virtual community."

Schappert said Microsoft's service promises to be more varied as a gateway to various entertainment, such as watching movies, going to virtual parties and sharing your collection of photos.

"Our goal is to make the Xbox experience more visual, easier to use, more fun to use and more social," he said in an interview at a nearby hotel. "We focused a lot on friends and other experiences outside just playing games."

Personal comment:

C'est la même idée qui vient et revient encore depuis 10 ans (un monde partagé en 3d, "réaliste" voire banal et quotidien, on y crée ou customize son avatar et sa maison, on y "discute", etc.). Je me demande si elle finira par prendre et décoller... ou si il s'agit simplement d'une mauvaise idée, de quelquechose qui n'intéresse pas les "users".

(...)

Another of Owens' projects, Sabre & Mace - Second Death, was concerned more specifically with the online environment Second Life.

Collaborating with Tony Mullin, he created SABRE & MACE, a company that offers virtual characters the opportunity to experience death as a way to close their user account permanently. The project examines the notion of feeling sentimental toward a virtual character and examines the link between sentimentality and tangibility.

While researching the project, the designers discovered that a great deal of second life residents have multiple avatars, some stay in favour for a long time while others loose their interest. One guy who they spoke to had 14. He said that he used a many of them as platforms for different sides of his real life personality, and for others he invented entirely new fantasy personalities. However he admitted that some of his created avatars had fallen by the wayside and he no longer used them.

The service works as follows: Having discovered the Sabre&Mace site on-line (unfortunately the website had to be taken down after the show) or through one of the virtual adverts in Second Life, the prospective customer teleports to the company headquarters.

There, the client meets a manager who explains the full process and guides him or her through the signing of two contacts. Contract 1 - states that at some point (completely random) in their second life the avatar will be collected by a Sabre & Mace officer and taken back to the headquarters for termination.

Contract 2 is in fact the client's 'Last will and Testament' where he or she outlines how they wish their virtual moneys, land and assests to be distributed once they have been terminated.

The client continues to live their second life until one day, a Sabre & Mace officer appears and informs them that the final proceedings are about to begin. The client is collected and taken to the Sabre & Mace HQ.

The client meets again with the client manager, to discuss the final process. At this point the client reveals their 'account password', which is the means by which the avatar is terminated.

The client is led through the cryogenic chamber, where the virtual physical forms of past clients are stored. Upon arrival at the 'Termination Room', the client is instructed to walk through the 'white noise' door. Once he crosses the threshold of the door his Second Life game crashes, giving a Sabre & Mace member of staff time to change the clients password - effectively terminating the character.

The client's former avatar is immortalised as a golden statue. Information about the avatar can be read on the plaque which sits on the monument. Should the client visit the Sabre & Mace memorial gardens he would see his own statue as well as the monuments of previous clients.

Images courtesy of Marc Owens (except the shot of his works at the RCA show.)

Related stories: Mourning and digital culture.

Related Links:

From Google Earth Blog:

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Yesterday, Google let loose their newest beta product: Lively. Lively is a 3D virtual world social networking site similar in some ways to Second Life. This was first rumored to be in the works last September (see some of my thoughts on the rumor). With Lively you have to install a plugin and a separate 3D application (currently only on Windows - and it supports only IE and Firefox). It doesn't surprise me the application is not based on Google Earth. Lively is intended to allow you to enter fantasy worlds. Google Earth is intended to mirror the real world. Lively has a more cartoon-like feel which is intended to be fun and unreal - and Lively is intended to allow you to interact socially with other people over the Internet. Here's their introductory video:

On the surface, the biggest difference compared to Second Life is that instead of a single connected virtual world, you instead get a multitude of small "rooms" which anyone can set up themselves. You can create your own avatars, and dress them up with different outfits. You can also make your own rooms and add objects to them. You have controls for moving your avatar around and lots of animated actions (complete with sounds) letting you "clap", "bow", "sit", "dance", "kick", "hug", "kiss", etc. And, of course you can chat with other people in the room. This is a new application, so they haven't yet introduced APIs and scripts so you can create your own clothing and animations. But, you can expect that to happen as it evolves.

I do see a need to map locations for rooms to help people understand the locality of people who might be in the room. Some of the rooms have context of location, and then there's the issue of people speaking different languages in a room. In fact, Keir Clark at GoogleMapsMania has already produced a Google Maps mashup called Lively Map with placemarks of a few rooms. With Google Maps you can actually open a Lively room inside the placemark windows. Unfortunately, the Lively embed feature requires an <iframe> which means you can't open one in a Google Earth placemark. [UPDATE: Actually, it's probably a good thing as you shouldn't keep Google Earth open at the same time you're running Lively since they both require lots of memory (both OS and Graphics memory).] I've created a couple of Google Earth placemarks where you can at least see the locations of Lively rooms and enter them.

If you are into 3D virtual worlds, you should definitely give Lively a try. You have to have a Google account to set it up and use it. But, you can change your "name" in the worlds to whatever you want. I was surprised to find someone had already taken "Gearthblog" when I went to use it. Identity theft already? There's also a lot of kissing, kicking and hitting going on. But, hey, that's nothing new.

I wonder if Lively would support SketchUp files?