One of my interests is the relationship between the real world and the virtual. If the virtual can inspire or inform the real, it then transcends its technical isolation.

Curating an art exhibition is just such an opportunity. In the physical realm, curating is labor intensive, so decisions on placement carry considerable overhead. On the other hand, virtual simulation can be quite rapid and efficient, conditions that support flexible outcomes.

In real life, my profession is that of photographer. Photographers typically aren’t involved in the planning of an exhibition. We basically record what is, not what’s yet to come. But is there a practical way to use photography of the artwork to then rapidly create a virtual gallery and curate an exhibition that will exist in physical reality?

When Rafael Perea de La Cabada came to me for archival quality photography of his art in advance of an upcoming exhibition, our conversation turned to the challenges for him to curate the show. He wanted to explore various ideas but was feeling restricted by the physicality of moving artwork from his studio to the distant exhibition location, and then into various trial-and-error positions in the gallery. I proposed the creation of a virtual environment for rapid creation of a space that we could walk through, virtually, in which to curate his show quickly and creatively. The application for doing this was OpenSim.

In OpenSim, a simple box can be quickly stretched and resized to make a floor, wall, picture frame or a ‘canvas’ on which to apply the JPEG photographic image of an artwork. Photographic images of sculpture can be post-processed to have transparency around the art, preserved by saving to the PNG format (sculptural art photographed against a solid color background or black is fairly easy to separate from the background).

Lights are also available to simulate general illumination. Build times vary with the size of an exhibition, but a virtual gallery with all the essential details can be created in a handful hours, and curating the show can begin immediately as artwork images are uploaded.

Perea had previously engaged me to photograph his artwork with archival protocols. This meant high-resolution captures, flat, even lighting with suppression of ambient light contamination, and the inclusion of captures that included a color chart for setting white balance in post-production. While these are ideal images for all purposes, a virtual gallery could just as well be populated with basic clean phone photography. After all, the virtual gallery is created to facilitate curating a show, not making the final presentation.

Note: Depending on the number of artwork images and their native resolution, you may be able to handle file transfers via email, but if not, then a free account with Dropbox will have plenty of capacity to handle all the transfers.

To make virtual curating work, every artwork photo needs to be documented with real-world measurements. This is because the virtual gallery and contents will be built to scale, which is actually easier than it sounds. Artists typically already know the dimensions of their work. I put those dimensions into the filenames of the artwork images when I prepared them. This kept the dimensions intrinsically associated with each artwork. The artwork sizes were provided to me with the dimensions as inches. Since the viewer for OpenSim used metric I made conversions.

To build any gallery, it’s first necessary to acquire some reference material. For the Perea project, I knew the gallery would be the Ann Foxworthy Gallery at Allan Hancock College. Google searching produced a number of images, and the gallery director also supplied digital images and overall dimensions.

This gallery has a number of wall angles, but as with the art, I built the gallery to scale so all the components readily fit together. I also added some optional details (such as the track lighting). Note that the ceiling is best if it’s a single object (linked multiple objects if necessary) that can be moved aside, to provide easy placement access for the art.

There is, of course, a learning curve to working in a virtual 3D environment, and this deters many people, including artists, from using software like OpenSim. Yet of all the 3D tools I’ve used, including Maya, Modo, SketchUp, ZBrush and 3D Studio, OpenSim is the fastest and most user friendly.

The trade-off is the ultimate visual quality. High-end applications like Maya are used for cinema quality CGI. OpenSim is not, by itself, capable of that level of visual realism.

ut our purpose was to curate an art exhibition virtually, which only the artist and a handful of other people would see. For that kind of project, OpenSim fills the bill, as you can see below in sample images.

For the Perea exhibition, he had a preliminary set of ideas as to how the art would be arranged. Once the virtual gallery was assembled, and the photos of his artwork were uploaded and attached to “canvases” sized to the dimensions of each piece, I moved each artwork into the initially proposed locations on the walls. Then we could begin to try various ideas. This process was so fast, we could often sit on the phone while I made the changes and forwarded screenshots via email.

Alternatively, Perea could have run his own OpenSim viewer and seen the changes I made, or make his own changes. There’s a lot of flexibility here, but in this case he focused more on direction and had me running the controls.

Perea commented more than once that this process was a great relief.

To give the virtual project an added sense of completion, I exported 360-degree panoramic views, making it possible to create a virtual tour. Recent Firestorm and Second Life viewers have a 360-degree snapshot feature.

Nine key positions were effective in providing a walk-through experience. The 360-degree panoramic views were also valuable for sharing and collaborating with other stakeholders, such as the gallery director. And to move back into the realm of the physical world, a photographic 360-degree virtual tour was made on-site. This preserves the exhibition, immersively and in perpetuity.

Tours were made with 3DVista, a commercial application for virtual tour production.

Curating an art exhibition takes careful planning. Much of that process is conceptual, but the actual installation of art requires considerable physical work. Using a 3D environment like OpenSim presents the opportunity for a gallery director, curator, or the artist to previsualize an exhibition immersively, at scale and relatively quickly. This then makes possible the highly effective exploration of curating options, before labor intensive and essentially permanent installation decisions are implemented.

Link to the 360-degree OpenSim virtual tour. Click on art to open info panel.

Link to the 360-degree photographic virtual tour. Again, click on art to open info panel.

I recently read a CNN article on Tim Cook and the risk he’s taking with Apple Vision Pro. The gist of it is this: The Vision Pro will be Apple’s riskiest launch in years and could end up being the product that defines Tim Cook’s legacy.

What struck me is the point of view. The main concern is the fate of one person, Tim Cook. And fair enough, his legacy at Apple might indeed be affected by the success or failure of the Vision Pro. But I can’t help thinking about how there’s high visibility attention on a single wealthy-for-life individual — but far less talk about the societal impact of this latest Apple product, which, to my mind, conjures up the phrase, “gentrification of extended reality technologies.”

Have you seen the Apple Vision Pro movie? It’s a statement, not only about the product, but also of the affluence of the “neighborhood” that Apple associates with their target demographic. 

The thing about gentrification of physical neighborhoods is that it implicitly demotes the preceding locals and the context of their lives, despite marketing claims to the contrary. I’ve watched this happen first hand in the so-called Arts District in Los Angeles. Artists and artists’ lofts have, with few exceptions, given way to expensive upscale condominiums and trendy food and drink spots.

The first impression the Vision Pro movie makes is that Apple’s target demographic lives in immaculate upscale dwellings ostensibly in an upscale neighborhood. Of course this compliments the marketing of an AR-forward technology that includes seeing the physical environment while the projected interactions are displayed as a visual overlay.

However, a cluttered wall or messy pile of clothes is also going to be a part of the Vision Pro experience, and a major distraction I think. The minute I see highly staged and perfected environments in the marketing I suspect that gentrification – in this case, gentrification of our dwellings – is in play.  

If that was the end of it, we could excuse it as marketing pretention to flatter the product. But then there’s the retail cost of $3,500 for the privilege of Vision Pro ownership and the case for gentrification becomes unavoidable.

When VR and AR, component technologies of XR, were still emerging from niche implementations, it was interesting that Google created viewers out of cardboard, to take advantage of the ubiquitous technology of the cell phone and provide some form of XR experience to virtually anyone, anywhere. The cost of entry was exceedingly low, although we understandably bemoaned the lack of apps and motion sickness.

Subsequently, however, the push for a superior stand-alone headset has seen rising costs while still not achieving widespread adoption. Consumers have balked at the increasing retail price of the Meta Quest headset, which has doubled between the two latest versions. Still, I suppose it’s something to say that it comes in under $1,000, similar to the cost of a well-configured recent model iPhone.

Now with the Vision Pro, however, Apple has really upped the ante and set its sights on a privileged few. At $3,500, it costs five times as much as the Meta Quest 3 and ten times as much as the Meta Quest 2. It’s priced like a very well configured MacBook Pro, but without the corresponding breadth of software ecosystem to power it. 

Hopefully the cost of anything is, first and foremost, a reflection of its relative value.

Well, as shown in the Vision Pro movie, the primary functionality of the Vision Pro is watching visuals, entertainment and video chats. So, your friend can appear to be hovering over your bed as you chat and walk about the room. Amazing? Sure, but who needs this?

Perhaps truly absurd is the person packing a suitcase, while wearing the headset and then taking a video call. It’s already challenging that there’s a headset and tethered battery to wear at all, but to wear it while doing a real-world chore, just in case a call comes through? No one… literally no one with an ounce of practicality is going to do that.

Yet the implication is that if you want to stay connected, you should want to do that, at all times. Ironically it also suggests that your cell phone, which easily slips out of the way into a pocket or waits, also out of the way, patiently on a counter, has become just so… passé, so… inadequate. Gentrification of your phone calls never looked so sci-fi, yet so pointless.

Consequently, my concern is that this whole class of technology still won’t become ubiquitous like the cell phone. The potential benefits of XR’s components, VR and AR, could be enormous for everyone. 

But like gentrification of a neighborhood, people will be priced out of the Apple XR privilege in droves. There will be fewer customers, but with necessarily greater economic means. Their needs and desires will take over the paradigm and be the influence for most content.

And consider this: the Apple marketing movie shows movie watching with the Vision Pro. Are you in a family of, let’s say, four? Well, that’s $14,000 in headsets for everyone to take part together.

Yet Apple touts an inclusive paradigm of the Vision Pro by displaying an uncanny valley version of your face on the headset to people who look at you. But rather than inclusivity, the implicit message is, “I live in a world you can’t experience without affluence.”

I’m skeptical that Apple has cracked the code for selling the world on XR, but we may nonetheless be witnessing the gentrification of a technology.

Of course, it’s not so much that Apple is trying to gentrify this domain. Solving the challenges of this technology has been expensive, and the devices we’d be happy with would inevitably be expensive, at least at first. I just hope XR doesn’t remain a vanity project for Apple with usefulness based on deep pockets and superficial ideas of what we need to lead meaningful lives.

Update: I’ve been online at Apple’s Vision Pro sales page to see what kinds of options are available for the Vision Pro. To my surprise, the first step you’re compelled to complete is a scan of your head for measurements needed by Apple to include the correct fit of Light Seal and head bands. You’ll need an iPhone or iPad with Face ID to find the right size. If you’re on a desktop computer, you’ll also scan a circular Apple code on the screen that synchronizes their site with your captured head dimensions.

After looking left, right, up and down, twice, your dimensions are submitted to Apple. The next step is to select options for your vision, whether you have a prescription, contacts or readers. You won’t need precise prescription information because the inserts are generalized and accommodate most prescriptions. The optical inserts run between $99 and $149.

After all of the sizing procedure, you’re able to select a storage memory size, from 256GB to 1TB. The 1TB option is $3,899.

My final point is this: If there was any doubt this device is a vanity device, the custom fit and optical inserts tell you that each Vision Pro is tailored primarily for just for one person. Since the optical inserts attach magnetically, you could swap them out with another user, but in practice, is that practical? And what about the Light Seal and head bands, also sized to fit?

Of course, the real measurements that count are product sales and paradigm adoption rates.

Well, theyâ€ve done it. Net neutrality is dead.

I first wrote about net neutrality in June of 2014. At that time, we all had a unique opportunity to voice our concerns in a democratic forum, in which the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was seeking public comments for 120 days.

There has been an abundance of information available to help form opinions and explain the situation. Initially, I was in opposition to net neutrality, but as I learned about the caveats and supporters behind a tiered service, it became obvious that most of the arguments in favor of eliminating net neutrality were disingenuous at best.

The telling and final point of clear bias in the elimination of net neutrality was that the vote fell along party lines. The head of the FCC, Trump appointee Ajit Pai, has been quoted offering reassurances that the alarmist concerns of citizens and industry leaders will not be realized. Iâ€ve put, “Trump appointee” as part of the description because for at least one-half of the citizenry of the United States (and polls suggest more than half at this point), that alone is cause for deep concern.

There has been unprecedented citizen and consumer group objection to ending net neutrality, with major tech industry names, such as Google, similarly opposing any change. There has also been late breaking controversy about consumer comments that were ‘fakeâ€. In fact, in a follow-up article that I wrote (Net neutrality isnâ€t dead yet) my own casual review of comments, available to anyone for download, revealed many meaningless entries. Considering, however, that over a million comments were received over a five-month period, even if only half are legitimate comments, that is an exceptional public response.

Past arguments aside however, the deal is done. What counts now is what comes next.

And that part is still an uncertainty. We just do not know exactly who will take advantage of this and how, although we can guess at which entities would stand to benefit and which would stand to lose.

What we do know is that telecom corporations are not friends. No matter how they market to us, they are not friends. These corporations can be decent and treat customers and the planet fairly, but they are still not friends. In other words, they do not favor us because they know us and love us and will stand by us, even at their own expense. So, at the end of the day, every telecom corporation will decide what it needs and wants for itself and what is best for their shareholders.

Consumers will matter, but as hay for the horses, not as guests of honor.

As noted in my first article, there are some compelling cases in which we would all agree fast Internet access should be guaranteed. For example, medical monitoring services.

And other uses of the Internet, such as email, do not suffer appreciably from slower or erratic transmission speeds. Even an entertainment use of the Internet, such as Netflix, is a special case — if they cannot ensure excellent throughput the service is unusable, and I would argue that their customers would agree.

Whatâ€s more concerning, however, are the full range of services that are neither a matter of life and death, or functionally impossible, but nonetheless diminished, without unfettered access to the full transmission potential that is available.

For example, virtual worlds.

Virtual worlds is not a mainstream activity like email or television watching. Virtual worlds receive scant press and have relatively low numbers of participants. Most significantly, systems such as OpenSim and even Second Life depend on offering free visitor access.

And now with platforms such as High Fidelity using greater distribution of the processing mechanisms, excellent Internet speed is more essential than ever.

Will ISPs throttle such uses without the payment of fees that would essentially kill the growth of the technology? Thatâ€s the question not yet answered. But itâ€s easy to see how such technologies are vulnerable to such considerations.

Formally, companies such as AT&T are projecting a benign keep-the-status-quo message: “…The internet will continue to work tomorrow just as it always has.” But just consider the title of the source statement for that excerpt: “AT&T Statement on FCC Vote to Restore Internet Freedom.”

In other words, AT&T has viewed net neutrality as a constraint on freedom — freedom to manipulate as providers see fit — not as a freedom for all users to access the Internet equally, or freedom from manipulation. See how easy it is to twist a single word into two entirely different sets of consequences?

With the end of net neutrality we have few answers, but many concerns. We should all watch and monitor what happens next. Maybe our worst fears will remain fears and nothing more. After all, we live on a planet with thousands of nuclear weapons, obviously a far greater threat, and yet, so far, we are still here without a global nuclear winter actually occurring.

But I end this update with the feeling that, as happens so often, citizen concerns are basically set aside by governments that time and time again promote the myth that if major corporations are treated like benevolent princes and princesses and granted a wealth of privileges, they will bestow nothing but blessings on all their loyal subjects. That is a trumped up hope – pun intended.

If you want to share your OpenSim build online so that people can explore it with a virtual reality headset, consider Sketchfab.

The platform, which has half a million registered users and nearly a million VR models, claims to be the largest 3D content sharing site on the web.

For example, the Van Gogh Room build below can be explored in a regular browser — or with a virtual reality headset. Just click on the cardboard icon at the bottom right of the image below to view with a mobile-based headset such as Google Cardboard, or with a tethered headset like the Oculus Rift.

Sketchfab is free for individuals and academic users, with commercial plans available at $10 and $29 a month.

User Experience

The great news is, Sketchfab content displays well on almost any device. Using a smartphone with cellular data works. Using a desktop computer with a hard-wired Internet connection works. Using a laptop on a wireless connection at the local coffee house works. Of course, as with all online services, connection speed impacts responsiveness.

Although the still images that give previews to the models look impressive, the real thrill of the service arises when a selection has been made, the 3D model has fully loaded, and with a mouse, or finger, or turn of the head, depending on the device, you move the object or your position. In ‘orbit†mode, you spin around the model revealing its full dimensionality in its entire constructed splendor. In ‘first person†mode, you rotate around your current position and can teleport to various positions within the model space.

How immersive is this? That depends in part on the viewing circumstances. On a desktop computer, the full screen mode feels immersive, while the standard display that includes descriptive information has more of a ‘window†opening to the model effect. Using a headset is something like full screen on a computer, but adds stereoscopic viewing. The mode with a headset is always ‘first person†so that the experience is that of looking around and moving from spot to spot.

The other aspect of immersion is the creativity of the builder. The live site lets you move about, and various points of view are annotated for quick access.

Features

• Works with all major browsers. Works with smartphones. Works with headsets.
• Extensive controls for lighting and materials, including physically based rendering.
• Models can be set for download, visual sharing, embedding and 3D printing.
• Nearly 1 million models already on the site.
• Support for over 30 3D model formats.
• The controls are WYSIWYG, so even if you donâ€t understand high-end rendering concepts, you can move sliders and see the results immediately.
• Friendly and useful email support.
• Animation for FBX format models.

Sketchfab supports nearly all 3D model formats, including Collada, which has the .dae file extension. For those who use OpenSim, you may recognize this as the input format for mesh objects. It is also the output format for saving prims as mesh. This means that you can build in OpenSim and showcase your work in Sketchfab.

Finding content

With so many models, how can you find things of interest? Thatâ€s handled in a variety of ways.

The organization of Sketchfab includes subject specific categories, such as architecture, animal, science, as well as style of build categories like objects, scenes, 3D printable. Within a category, say architecture, there are sub-categories, and you can further refine your search by date, polygon count, whether itâ€s downloadable or has animation, and so on.

There is also a search bar for freeform searches.

Finally, there are collections. These are sets of models categorized into collections by the model makers themselves.

Limitations and quirks

For those who are familiar with and enjoy OpenSim or Second Life, Sketchfab is not a replacement for virtual worlds. The models and their backgrounds constitute the entire space for each upload. There are no avatars or inworld communication methods, although the site has communities and a blog for contributor interactions.

This isnâ€t the 3D metaverse future of the Web. Rather itâ€s a compelling showcase of 3D work that has entertainment, artistic, educational and sharing and presentation goals.

The other limitation is related to capacity. Complex models may be too large and require decimation before they can be uploaded, or your service plan may be too restrictive for your requirements. This probably wonâ€t happen if you create a chair, but a detailed helicopter could require some optimizing.

There are a few quirks. For example, for headset viewing, I must first hold the phone in portrait orientation until the left and right views appear, and then rotate the phone 90 degrees into landscape orientation. Otherwise, starting in landscape orientation results in the windows being too large and cut off.

It should also be noted that in headset mode, navigation is not the same as with a Web browser. In headset mode, the interface relies on touching the screen when a location dot is at the desired point of view, which then positions the viewer at that location. Called teleportation, this is done by hand, or using the viewer button if so equipped. Looking around is activated by moving your head as if looking around an actual room.

However, it is not possible to orbit an object as can be down outside of the headset mode in a web browser.

OpenSim users

These are the basic steps to move a model from OpenSim to Sketchfab:

1. Create a model in OpenSim using prims. Build real parts and openings rather than using transparency. For example, create actual window slats, rather than using an image of a window with open slats created by using alpha transparency. Sketchfab supports transparency, but it works a bit differently than in OpenSim. Besides, real geometry looks, well, more real!
2. Link the prims you want to export into a single linkset.
3. Export the model in Collada format using one of the following methods:
   1. Select the model for editing, and then from the viewer menu select Build>Object>Save as>Collada
   2. Right-click the prim linkset and from the pie-menu choose More> two times, then choose Save as> and finally, choose Collada.
4. The Save as Collada dialog will show you how many textures are exportable. Ideally, this should be all of them. For example, 2/2 or 32/32. If any of your textures has transparency added as an effect from the texture settings, it will not be exportable. Default textures provided with OpenSim are not exportable, including the blank texture. Only textures you have created yourself will export. Itâ€s okay, however, that your texture includes an image from another source that you have uploaded for texture creation purposes.
5. You have the option to save your Collada model, with the .dae extention, with one of three texture formats: PNG, JPEG2000 or TARGA. Use PNG. As of this writing, Sketchfab does not import JPEG200 and .TGA is automatically converted to .PNG. Sketchfab does import other texture formats, such as .jpg, .tif and .bmp, but any format other than .jpg or .png is converted to .png automatically.
6. Compress your models and textures into a single .ZIP file.
7. In Sketchfab, use the UPLOAD button to upload your compressed model and textures .ZIP file. While the model and textures are uploading, you will have the opportunity to enter descriptive information. After upload, there is a CONTINUE button that starts the final conversion process. After this, your model is displayed.
8. Use the 3D settings option available by clicking the orange ‘gear†icon to set the background, lighting, initial view and other properties. When finished, click the SAVE SETTINGS button.
9. Share your model! There is a share function via the SHARE button that provides a unique URL for finding your model.

In the embed below, you can see an object that I exported from OpenSim to Sketchfab:

Please post links to your creations in the comments following this article.

As we’ve noted previously, the FCC opened a comment period, which ended on July 18, 2014.

More than a million comments were received over a five-month period. In fact, comments that were sent by postal mail are still being added.

Please note, however, that a second comment period is now open until September 10. In addition to the FCC ECFS form, comments can also be sent via email to FCC email. It doesnâ€t get easier than that!

The FCC has also announced a series of staff-led Open Internet roundtable discussions to take place in Washington D.C., which will be free and open to the public and streamed live at FCC live streaming. Here is the official public notice: FCC public notice. See page 2 of the notice for dates and times – they will take place in September and October.

The good news is that ordinary users are not alone on this issue. Companies as large and notable as Microsoft, Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo have all come out in favor of neutrality. President Obama and Google have also put out positions favoring neutrality, albeit with support that has been called into question.

You can download the comments yourself here. Please note that these are very large files in .xml format, ranging in size from 103 MB to 427 MB. According to the FCC, the total amount of data is approximately two and one-half times the amount of plain-text data in the Encyclopedia Britannica!

I am able to open them with TextEdit on the Mac. The formatting makes them difficult to read, but as you scroll down, you will see that comments are the last entry of each grouping, and tend to stand out when they are two or more sentences long. The comments are listed in the date order received, so the 14-28-RAW-Solr-1.xml file has the earliest comments, while the 14-28-RAW-Solr-5.xml file has the latest comments.

When I first opened the file with the earliest comments, I immediately noted that comment after comment was simply this: “Reclassify The Internet As A Common Carrier’” However, working my way through each file I found that in general, people wrote at greater length. Here is an example chosen at random:

Public Comment in Support of Reclassification to Ensure Net Neutrality

By switching to competition based, case by case regulation, the FCC renders net neutrality more vulnerable to a political process that has grown increasingly corrupt following the Citizens United ruling. Recognizing that internet service is even more essential to vital communication, commerce, and democracy than telephone service, it is imperative that we ensure an open internet. The thick clear line that has long existed, but was recently overturned by the courts represents the best way to guard against the inevitable efforts to unfairly leverage access to this exceptionally powerful and vital common, broadband. The FCC should reclassify internet service providers so that they can be regulated the same way as telecommunications companies restoring strict and broad net neutrality rules.

— Joseph Williams in 14-28-RAW-Solr-1.xml

There are, to be sure, a number of disappointing and meaningless entries. One person posted what appears to be the entire text of Les Misérables, while another seems to have added the entirety of War and Peace.

There were also a few extended entries that appeared to be legal briefs and documents. And while it may have satisfied someoneâ€s need to vent, the page upon page of the words ‘COMMON CARRIER†and ‘MONEY†probably do not advance the cause whatsoever. According to the FCC, all comments will be reviewed – I do not envy their task wading through all the irrelevant material.

By doing specific searches, I found the following word counts of more relevance to our specific interests (accumulated from all six .xml files):

• “virtual world” – 91 references  (but most are referring to the Internet, not the metaverse)
• “virtual reality” – 37 references

Keep in mind, that is 91 and 37 references out of over a million comments…

What is interesting is that in the total of 91 “virtual world” references, all but five of the comments used the expression “virtual world”  in reference to the Internet, not virtual worlds as we think of them as a metaverse or a technology layered onto the Net.

However, 21 of the 37 comments with “virtual reality” referenced issues like bandwidth for virtual reality applications, such as Second Life or using the Oculus Rift. Clearly the expression “virtual reality” is closer to how people understand “virtual worlds” in the way we mean as related to a metaverse.

The question is, will all these comments make a difference?

The comments submitted to the FCC are not votes. And the companies that want to create “fast and slow” lanes, such as Comcast, still carry great weight by virtue of their impact on the economy overall, and the sophistication of their arguments favoring their position.

I am also personally disappointed there were not more comments directly related to “virtual worlds” or “virtual reality.” Granted these technologies are not in the mainstream, but 128 out of 1,067,779 is a paltry .01 percent.

You still have time to add your voice until September 10. The FCC is seeking insights and perspectives about the first round of comments and they emphasize that they will be reviewing every comment.

Here again are the relevant links:

FCC ECFS form: FCC ECFS form

Email: FCC email

Official FCC Blog: FCC blog

On May 15, the Federal Communications Commission began seeking public comments on how best to protect an open Internet. The public comment period is 120 days. The deadline for the first round of comments is July 15.

Writing anything at all is good — numbers always count for something. Writing something you believe in is even better…

Have you already become informed and have your thoughts ready to go? Do you favor net neutrality? Here is a site with a pre-formatted form and comment suggestions to speed you on your way to making an actual FCC comment: DearFCC.org

Whatâ€s going on?

To find out what net neutrality is all about, I highly recommend starting with the Wikipedia article on net neutrality as an overview, the ACLU’s take on the issue, the FCC’s own Open Internet site, and Bill Moyers’ Net Neutrality report on PBS.

‘Net neutrality†has become something of a slogan. Within any discussion of net neutrality there are numerous component issues that need to be understood on their own merits. That is why I think of net neutrality as code for a range of issues that are going to be with us for quite some time.

In my own evolution on this issue, I started out in opposition to net neutrality. And here is why: I heard a discussion on National Public Radio with the former head of the FCC, and he made some compelling arguments for a tiered service model. First of all, the medical services argument. There are some medical monitoring services that use the Internet and their reliability can be a matter of life and death. So, one area that compels serious consideration is whether medical services like this should be able to pay for and receive preferential bandwidth. On the face of it, I would easily agree that yes, medical services merit priority over everything else.

A second point made was that many services, like email, do not suffer if relegated to slow or erratic transmission speeds. This seems logical enough. More specifically, if the transmission of an email is completely stopped mid-stream, due to bandwidth competition, and is then resumed moments later, the interruption is inconsequential. Itâ€s hard to be bothered by something that has no discernible effect.

The particular issue of transmission interruption led to a third consideration, though, that of streaming services like Netflix. Unlike the email example, it is very much a problem if streaming videos stop and start. On the one hand, this may seem like itâ€s all about the corporate entity complaining about the impact to their bottom line, but there is no doubt that the consumer is equally perturbed by such service interruptions. In this case, the benefit of ensuring high-speed protected service for such service providers benefits the “citizen” as much as the “corporation”.

These are examples of what I mean by “component issues”. As is often the case with major concepts and systems, the way forward is rarely black and white. However, Iâ€ve become much more in favor of net neutrality, for a number of other important reasons…

I now feel that exceptional needs, such as medical services bandwidth prioritization, can be non-disruptively integrated into our overall implementation of net neutrality, while preserving the guiding principle of a level playing field, whereas if we abandon net neutrality as a guiding principle, the technology will fall into such profound direct manipulation by financially and politically powerful entities as to make any use of the term, “level-playing field,” a quaint footnote in the history of the Net.

Here are some of the reasons behind my concerns:

One of the main arguments against net neutrality has been the proposition that net neutrality regulation would hamper innovation. Wikipedia notes that John Thorne  — senior vice president and deputy general counsel of Verizon – has argued that Verizon would have no incentive to make large investments in superior infrastructure if they were prohibited from charging higher preferred access fees.

In my opinion, this is utterly disingenuous. We have reached the point today of myriad services, underpinned by huge investments in infrastructure, and lead by providers such as Verizon, already all under the concept of net neutrality. To say that future innovation will not occur is fear mongering. The real issues are much more about business than innovation. If Verizon can charge more money, they can invest faster, and with less competition. Thatâ€s good for Verizon. Also, building out infrastructure is related to, but not identical with, innovation. Fiber-optic networks, the technology referenced by Thorne, is a well-established technology that will already see advancements without the kind of alarmism they promote as a way to scare the FCC into making possible the extraordinary fee-impositions through market manipulation they suggest they must have.

Another reason I am concerned is that dependence on the Internet is no longer a choice, but rather an implicit necessity of modern life. Cable companies have already demonstrated their willingness to deprive customers of programming for their own selfish business reasons. This is bad enough when it causes a sports channel or even a major national television network to go dark. When it comes to taking care of our other needs, whether it is online learning, medical services, access to political information or employment databases and jobs info, manipulation by the provider becomes a much more threatening issue.

And as others have noted, innovation is actually better than ever today because of net neutrality and the access people enjoy, whether they are a well funded and established industry leader, or a start-up working out of their home. Sure, some innovation requires deep pockets. But as weâ€ve seen over the last decade, humanity is very creative and we are increasingly supplying each other with solutions to our problems and the means to enrich our lives. Net neutrality maintains opportunities at both ends of the innovation spectrum.

Unfortunately, like all issues that become highly politicized, it becomes difficult to hear about the nuanced details of the options that are available amongst the din of competing voices. Alternatives to a simple ‘yes†or ‘no†on the issue of net neutrality abound, which makes the way forward more promising than it might otherwise appear.

Interested in reading other people’s comments to the FCC? More than 126,000 comments are posted on the FCC’s official site. Or file your own comment here.

You will be required to enter your name and address along with your comments. Keep in mind that whatever you submit is available for reading by the general public. Comments submitted during the first round of comments can be commented on during a second round of reply comments until September 10.

Kitely is an on-demand service that hosts regions in a unit of organization they call worlds. So, letâ€s see what makes them “real”…

Reason #1: When you enter a Kitely world, you are using OpenSim

Kitely runs OpenSimulator to create regions within each Kitely world. Thus, by definition, Kitely worlds are “real” OpenSim regions. Okay, that was easy…

The key distinction with Kitely is that those regions are not kept loaded in RAM when no one is using them. Functionally, Kitely regions appear and behave just like any other OpenSim region on any other grid. The only user experience difference is the time delay for initial access to a world. Well, the Web was just as real using a 56k modem as using 40Mbps broadband service, so it really isnâ€t relevant to say that the speed of establishing a connection determines the realness of a service. And like improvements in accessing the Web, Kitely has been improving world startup times, in many cases reducing that time to mere seconds.

Reason #2: You can enter any Kitely world 24/7, conditional of course on any permissions that have been set

Kitely does have a rating system that restricts who can access specific worlds based on owner settings. And like other grids, Kitely supports access control via groups. Nonetheless, all Kitely worlds are accessible to someone, at any time, 24/7. How is that different than accessing any other “real” region on a 24/7 grid with similar owner controls?

Reason #3: The light in your refrigerator is a real light, even though it turns off when you close the door

Okay, so the argument is that if a world isnâ€t loaded into RAM 24/7 it doesnâ€t count as a “real” region.

That does mean that if I turn off the room light when Iâ€m not in it, itâ€s not a “real” light?

Thatâ€s meaningless in any practical sense. As long as my service is there when I or someone else decides to use it, itâ€s just as “real” as a service burning watts when no one is around.

But I hear another argument as well, that people open an account and create a free Kitely world, which may lay idle, indefinitely; therefore it should not be counted as a “real” region.

But the point about whether a region is “real” is not about how often it is used, or the value of its content, but rather, is it accessible whenever a visitor or owner decides to visit? Regions in “always on” grids can sit idle for hours, days, even weeks at a time. Does that idle time running on a computer mean they shouldnâ€t be counted either, if no one is there and the regions go unused?

In fact, grids count those regions along with the more active ones.

Reason #4: Kitely doesn’t reserve map spaces for regions that don’t exist

One idea that has been bantered about is that after a certain amount of time of non-use, a world should be counted as “dead” and removed from region counts.

This argument usually comes up around the time that OSgrid does some housekeeping, so the comparison is made that like OSgrid, Kitely should do a similar cleanup.

However, the OSgrid system is a system of reservations. When those reservations go unused for a period of time, the addresses are reclaimed and the region count, which is actually a reservation count, goes down. When the count is adjusted, regions are not deleted, but rather unused reservations are reclaimed.

This does not happen at Kitely. Any world counted is a world that can be accessed. Kitely doesnâ€t need a cleanup process because worlds that are deleted are expunged from their system with no lingering region-less reservations to clean up later.

Reason #5: Reality is in the mind of the beholder.

Certainly one can argue philosophically and arrive at various definitions of reality. So, are regions examples of realism, nominalism or idealism? Is Kitely consistent with the paradigm of your choice? Defend. Iâ€ll expect your essays by noon on Friday.

My hope would be that Kitely regions are readily accepted as inherently “real” enough for any reasonable standards virtual worlds users would typically apply. After all, when you get down to it, any implementation of “virtual reality” is already a challenge to what “real” means.

Bottom line

Can we agree that Kitely regions are “real”? I havenâ€t found any reason to think of them as anything but real. Certainly for the people who use Kitely, their worlds are real.

Because of the on-demand service structure, Kitely also offers huge cost savings and a green approach to region hosting that has truly set them apart and attracted a lot of “real” virtual world projects; not only for hobbyists, but for schools and businesses as well.

There is a discussion worth having about the impact of regions in any grid that persist and are accessible, yet serve no visitors or even the world creator. It is, however, a complex topic with many considerations that go beyond the scope of this article.

The issue of “real” regions as described here does not make a value judgment about content, use or raison d’être. Rather, “real”, in relation to Kitely regions, simply means existing as accessible virtual places, which are in every way equivalent to the “real” regions offered by other services.

General notes

Comments that are withheld for moderation will be reviewed, but it will not be instantaneous. I regularly check for these, but not continuously. Please allow 24 hours before you conclude that your comment is permanently declined, although in most cases I will have evaluated them much sooner than that.

Likewise, it may take up to 24 hours to come upon and remove inappropriate posts. Therefore, just because a comment is posted does not mean it is permanently approved. Comments may be removed at any time subsequent to posting, upon moderation review.

As most of you know, readers can flag comments for moderation. This puts you in the position of being a moderator yourself, so the intention is that you would use the same discussion guidelines we have established for Hypergrid Business. Flagging comments simply out of spite or disagreement is contrary to the guidelines, and comments so flagged will be maintained or restored.

Remember also that any discussion started in Hypergrid Business is yours to continue on any other blog or forum. If you feel there are constraints to your self-expression here, we understand the desire to express your perspectives in alternative formats elsewhere.  You are welcome to post such links in your comments on Hypergrid Business.

What we hope to achieve

The Hypergrid Business website provides opportunities for readers who wish to discuss the content we publish, or debate issues more generally. Our goal is to ensure this platform is inviting and informative.

We have developed guidelines which we expect all participants in the community areas of the Hypergrid Business website to abide by. These guidelines are applied with consideration for the context in which comments are made. We will strive to be fair in this process.

The guidelines

Above all else, personal attacks or verbal abuse on authors, other users or any individual are subject to moderation and will be removed. This includes the right to close conversations that become flame-wars. By ‘personal attacksâ€, we include name-calling, false accusations, vulgar innuendos and any other form of malicious derision. Since posting comments is a community activity, we expect all users to find ways of sharing their views that do not feel threatening or toxic to others. For the benefit of the community, we will remove any content that others might find extremely offensive. Please respect the right of expression of other people’s views and beliefs and consider your impact on others when expressing your own perspectives. Please note that there will be no toleration of any form of hate-speech, or contributions that appear as such. In the normal course of discussions, we anticipate and recognize that there will be deliberate and considered criticism of a particular business, organization, technology or methodology. On the other hand, we do not accept attacks on people based on the their race, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or age.

While we anticipate criticism of the articles we publish, we will not allow outright misrepresentations of Hypergrid Business or our journalists. We will remove content that could put us in legal jeopardy. This includes postings that appear libelous or defamatory, or material that appears to violate copyright laws and protections.

We will block or remove any posts that amount to spam. This may also apply to people or organizations who frequently post self-serving material or external links without adding relevant material to the quality of the discussion on the Hypergrid Business website. Context will be a strong factor in evaluating such posts. We encourage links that reference additional relevant outside material, but note that external links will be verified before they are approved. Along the same lines, if you post something that is abruptly and arbitrarily unrelated to the original topic then it may be removed, in order to keep the discussion on track. Questions or comments about moderation should also not be posted as comments.

Naturally, you should try to be clear about what you are saying. Remember though that people may misunderstand your intended message and react differently than you expected. Please consider this before you write your rebuttal to a disagreement. Written text has some shortcomings for conversation and we recommend you try to express your point in various ways before you decide on the merit of unanticipated reactions. You can help to keep the Hypergrid Business community areas open to all viewpoints by staying reasonable and accurate. However, if you identify an instance of clearly inappropriate comments that seem to persist, please report it. When we all participate fairly in maintaining a welcoming and constructive environment, the website is improved and everyone benefits.

Our moderation activities

If a contribution to the Hypergrid Business website is perceived as breaching the community guidelines set out above, then it will be removed by the moderator.

Participants who persistently or willfully ignore these participation guidelines will have their posting privileges for the Hypergrid Business community areas withdrawn.

We do not edit user posts. Therefore, even if only part of a comment is perceived as breaching the community guidelines, the whole comment will be removed. In some cases, this requires the removal of subsequent comments that refer to, and therefore perpetuate, the problem(s) found in the original comment, especially if they reiterate the wording or intent found to be unacceptable.

Because Hypergrid Business is responsible for everything that appears on this site, all actions and decisions by our moderators are final.

About the guidelines

These discussion guidelines were inspired by the Community Standards and Participation Guidelines used by The Guardian, which we consider an exemplar of best practices in online comments moderation. We reserve the right to modify our guidelines as deemed necessary or beneficial.

We hope this set of guidelines serves our community well. General concerns and suggestions may be sent for review by emailing the moderator at lawrence.pierce@hypergridbusiness.com.

As a reader of Hypergrid Business, as well as a writer of some articles, Iâ€ve taken an interest in the reactions to various stories.  Unlike many online news publications, Hypergrid Business has no moderation. As a consequence, the comments section sometimes breaks down into derisive personal attacks.

While this is nothing new in the world of online expression, most professional organizations have taken steps to establish guidelines and walk the fine line between interfering with discussions and preventing vitriol.

Upon writing to Maria about this issue, she invited me to be a volunteer moderator. As Hypergrid Business has consistently encouraged an open discussion about all issues relevant to virtual worlds, including Hypergrid Business itself, it made sense to write an article proposing the kind of moderator activities we have in mind, as well as foster subsequent commentary and discussion.

As guidance, we both find the community standards and participation guidelines used by The Guardian to be a good example of best practices. Their guidelines have been developed over several years, with input from representatives of the Guardian News Media editorial staff, as well as readers and content creators.

There are many levels of moderation practiced across organizations. For Hypergrid Business, the moderation functionality would be managed using the Disqus moderation tools.

The initial plan is to maintain the current discussion style of interaction by allowing most comments to pass through unchecked, since filtering all comments before they are posted would require considerable time and resources, which is not practical. However, a simple pre-approval process of comments would be in place for guests with unverified emails.

The final details of implementation will be worked out based on system performance and effectiveness. And although a comment may initially be posted, it will still be subject to subsequent removal if it does not adhere to the established guidelines. The final form of the guidelines will be made accessible as part of the About section of Hypergrid Business.

Many readers and contributors of comments have grown facile at ignoring vitriol as childish banter. Yet, when the comments grow off-topic and amount to a smear campaign, they no longer add value to the original discussion and become an unwarranted distraction. Besides the personal toll this can take on contributors and readers, outright defamation of character carries with it legal ramifications. For these reasons, moving forward with moderation will be a best practice activity in response to the challenges of providing open forums of discussion.

In writing this article, the intention is to generate feedback and discussion on this issue. What is your view?

To appreciate those features that are most beneficial requires just a bit of imagination and I have drawn on my perspective of having been involved in virtual worlds as both an educator and student.

My first experience with virtual worlds was in Second Life, as part of a graduate program in new media at California State University Los Angeles (CSULA). The professor, Dr. Penelope Semrau, had written annual grants, which provided for a parcel in Second Life. The process of grant writing is never easy and awards are never guaranteed.

In explaining why she decided to discontinue teaching in Second Life, she told me, “I would have to continually write grant proposals to support the costs of the lease, which was extra work for me year after year.”

I not only took Dr. Semrau’s class, but became her teaching assistant a year later. I became keenly aware of the challenges the students faced as we worked together to find solutions. The students had an allotment of 35 prims each to build their projects, so it took some tremendous creativity to realize their design goals.

But cost and prim limitations weren’t the only problems Dr. Semrau had with teaching in Second Life.

“I didn’t particularly care for the concept of ‘real estate’,” she said, “Because it promotes a capitalist form of thinking on its users of buying and selling and bigger is better, which didn’t reinforce the nature and philosophy of my course about teaching and learning in a virtual world.”

Kitely advantages at a glance

This is where I think the hosting model of Kitely has real potential.

Kitely promotes a concept of “worlds” and identifies the acquisition of virtual space as a function of time rather than ownership. This contrasts with the terminology of “buying land” which is tied to parcel size and prim count.

Besides the idea of paying only for the services used, the hourly rate at Kitely is quite modest and offers low-cost opportunities under relevant circumstances. Kitely even has a “Free Plan” that permits a user to have access to the platform for two hours a month at no charge. This could be especially economical for users that build regions on their local computer and upload them when ready for sharing.

As for the costs of sharing, those costs can also be distributed to the visitors using the Kitely pricing mechanism. As an illustration: instead of the professor acquiring and paying $150 dollars per class for hosting and sim access, 30 students pay $5 each via Kitely credits. [Ed: Kitely $5 a month plan comes with two free regions, and up to 25 hours of monthly access.] There are also savings over breaks, summer vacations and so on, when use drops off — remember that Kitely charges primarily based on time, not space.

You also get OAR uploads and exports. Easy, self-service. Fantastic. And a detailed activity history with time, date, user and duration. This gives the educator and the student verification of activity time.

Kitely also has a directory of worlds, rather than a common entry region. One issue for educators is the new user experience, which can be troublesome in Second Life.

“When logging in as a newbie, students would be confronted by outrageous strangers on the welcome island which I found disgusting,” said Dr. Semrau.

Kitely provides a mechanism whereby worlds have descriptions and are entered directly as discrete regions. To see how this works, visit our Serenity Island region on Kitely.

Although Kitely regions don’t have dedicated servers but instead run in the Amazon cloud, they run very well. Checking for sim FPS and ping sim values as I write this, I get exactly the same values in my Kitely World as in Second Life: Sim FPS: 45; Ping sim: 39-58msec.

More land for the same price

Additional to those points listed above, Kitely allows for two further opportunities that can especially add value for the students.

In the first place, since Kitely Worlds are billed by time, each student can afford to have his or her own entire region for no more than the cost of using a single shared region. This allows for greatly expanded project opportunities and boundaries.

In many cases, students want to manipulate region settings, or spread a project out to give the proper scale, and so on. Using the appropriate Kitely billing method, the students can easily visit each otherâ€s sims without imposing additional costs on the sim creator.

Secondly, projects can be saved, not only as downloaded OAR files, but also as files at Kitely, ready to be launched at a momentâ€s notice. The professor can archive the work of several classes on Kitely for future demonstrations, yet pay only ten cents per region per month, or $1.20 per year per region. Students can do this as well for their own purposes.

Finding the best fit and value

Naturally, there is no service that works best for every purpose and every user. Only time will reveal and confirm the best markets for the Kitely approach.

Still, for education, the unique features of Kitely Virtual Worlds on Demand warrant consideration by educators with little or no funding as well as those those looking for a service that offers some unique facilitation features and a highly affordable on-demand opportunity for students to maximize the value of their short-term involvements in sim-based classes.

The viewer family tree

The technology aspect is convoluted, but fairly well known. Third party stand-alone viewers are adapted from Linden Lab viewers. However, Linden Lab viewers are not designed to work with OpenSim. That they and their third party progeny work at all with OpenSim is because OpenSim supports the core of Second Lifeâ€s messaging protocol.

However, the developers of OpenSim do not aim to make OpenSim a clone of Second Life, and Linden Lab has no reason to make OpenSim compatibility a feature of their viewers. This results in a complex interrelationship between the various products and often leaves the user with a dilemma.

Viewer hopscotch

I originally used Imprudence with OpenSim. Soon after that, I also came upon Phoenix viewer and switched; since I was on a Mac, the strength of Phoenix development for Mac was the deciding factor. As time went on, however, I tried to migrate from Phoenix viewer 1.5.1.373, which worked very well with OpenSim, to their newer viewers, and building became impossible.

Finally, with Firestorm, even visiting my sim resulted in prompt and predictable crashes. I was confused until Lette Ponnier of Phoenix Viewer commented on my support request, “Ah, I overlooked that you said the crashes in Firestorm occurred on OpenSim. I spoke with others on the team, and they confirm that using Firestorm on grids outside of Second Life is buggy at this time.”

I decided to return to Imprudence, only to discover that there were still issues with the version for Mac, while Kokua is still ensconced in guarded language that states it has “Better, but not perfect OpenSim support.” I tried many other viewers, including the Linden Lab viewers, and noticed something else as well; the choice of grid was also influencing viewer performance.

The important role of community

This leads to the community aspect of viewers. Third party viewers, although derived from Linden Lab viewers, are community viewers. Arrehn, a Phoenix Viewer developer, explains, “Much of their [Phoenix, Firestorm] functionality comes directly from improvements contributed by various independent and cooperating developers.  The amount of compatibility with other grids is proportional to the patches we receive from community developers interested in specific other grids.”

The fact that the community contributes to viewer development does not mean the most popular grids have the most influence. If that were true, OSGrid, the largest grid, would compel third party viewers to be 100% compliant with OpenSim as it comes straight from the OpenSimulator downloads page. Instead, the grids supported by the most developer activity have the greatest influence on viewer development because they are the beneficiaries of the greater number of improvements and enhancements.

This is a bit like Linden Labs tailoring their viewers for Second Life. As individual OpenSim grids continue to grow, developer support for preferred grids will add to the code for third party viewers, which may, or may not, benefit other OpenSim grids.

What can we hope for?

It would be rude not to emphasize that since third party viewer development is largely a volunteer effort and users pay nothing for the viewers they enjoy, the utility we derive from these viewers is already a gift. The disappointment comes from the fact that while OpenSim is made available directly from OpenSimulator, there is no viewer tailored specifically for that out-of-the-box version of it.

Unless a user chooses those grids that have contributed to a viewer that ensures compatibility, if such a viewer even exists, their OpenSim virtual world experience may be difficult to impossible. As a testament to this, it seems many blogs are regularly filled with threads about which viewer works best, or at all.

This makes me wonder what to hope for moving forward. Viewer improvements will probably be driven more by favored grids than from hopes for a universally compatible OpenSim viewer.

In the meantime, we are fortunate to have not only multiple viewers, but also multiple viewer versions. Itâ€s confusing, but necessary in order to get the full range of experiences out of our virtual worlds. Beyond that, many hope for a full-featured Web-based viewer written from scratch with sockets purposely designed for plugging in custom compatibility and integration modules. Oh, and of course, no 4096 bug!

It is rare, however, that we ever have ideal software. My personal hope for the near future is a sophisticated, education use appropriate, growing, always on OpenSim grid, with a matching compatible version 2 or 3 viewer that is fully functional with Mac Lion, as well as Windows.

What do you hope for?

“Communities are amazing in Second Life,” said Chris Collins, CEO of Tipodean Technologies. “You donâ€t just go out and replicate that in another platform.” Collins was previously general manager of the enterprise division at Linden Lab, but his company now focuses on OpenSim and Unity 3D development.

Enterprise-focused virtual world platforms like ProtoSphere, VastPark, VenueGen, Avaya’s Web.alive, Altadyn’s 3DXplorer, Assemblive, Teleplace, SAIC’s Olive, ReactionGrid’s Jibe and SecondPlaces’ Unifier don’t offer common meeting areas where users from various companies can come together to share experiences, buy or share content, or attend public events. Instead, each company’s deployment of such a platform is a private, standalone world, and all content either has to be created from scratch by professional designers or imported and adapted from third-party mesh marketplaces.

Second Life’s in-world creation tools also allow people to build together, which isn’t an option in any of these other enterprise-focused virtual world platforms.

“The primary question I would ask… is whether you want to rapidly show [prototypes] to people and collaborate with people?” said Ron Blechner, virtual world consultant and panel moderator. “If you do, I think Second Life is actually a pretty good place to start from.”

Choosing Second Life is not only about community, it is also about cost and stability — even when compared to free, open-source platforms like OpenSim.

“Many people think that Open Simulator costs less, and thatâ€s not necessarily so,” said Kimberly Rufer-Bach, owner of The Magicians, a  software development company that focuses on Second Life. “You can rent a region for less perhaps, but that doesnâ€t mean your contentâ€s going to cost less, or that youâ€re going to be able to get the content you want.”

In-world scripts also work better in Second Life, she added.

“In Second Life, the script engine is less flaky,” she said. “If youâ€re going to do something with a lot of interactivity and a lot of moving parts running around, heavily scripted systems, Second Life is still the place to be, closely followed by OpenSimulator. I would normally pick Second Life out of the box.”

Jeroen Frans, CEO of the virtual design firm The Vesuvius Group, agreed that Second Life is more stable than OpenSim, and has a large user base.

“The weakness is the scalability,” Frans said. Second Life regions are limited in the number of avatars they can hold, and creating multiple copies of the same region for events can quickly get very expensive.

Web-based worlds

But Second Life shouldn’t be the first choice for companies looking to create an easy to use virtual world environment — especially one that needs to be accessed via a Web browser.

“To get a little controversial at a Second Life community convention, I would probably recommend going with Unity 3D if youâ€re starting from scratch,” said Tipodean’s Collins. “Whatâ€s interesting about the Unity 3D platform is that you can run it multi-player, and that can be a multi-player client-server model, and it can be multi-player peer-to-peer model.”

It is a particularly fast and easy way to get a standalone virtual environment up on the Web, he added.

“You do that in half an hour,” he said. “And 70 million people have the [Unity] browser plug-in installed. It has its own marketplace with a ton of assets. They’ve got 500,000 developers. Ten of the top 25 iPad games are built with Unity. It runs on pretty much everything.”

Tipodean has a service where they convert existing OpenSim regions to Unity 3D, and there are free tools available for companies looking to create scenes from scratch. For companies looking for a richer in-world experience, Jibe and Unifier are full virtual world platforms built on top of Unity 3D.

There are non-Unity 3D Web-based virtual world platforms as well. These include Web.alive, VenueGen, and 3DXplorer.

“Web.alive is really simple to use,” said Blechner. “You donâ€t get a whole lot of interactivity out of it but it busts through firewalls pretty easily, and they have desktop sharing built in and the avatar customization is fairly straightforward and easy, and it works in a plug-in in your browser.”

Unity 3D is an easier environment in which to create new content, however.

“Web.alive is geared more toward out of the box,” he said. “If you want to do heavier simulations and you want to program in more things, then I would lean more toward Unity 3D.”

ProtoSphere and SAIC’s Olive are downloadable platforms, so possibly less convenient for users.

But the companies behind them have experience developing rich content for enterprises, Blechner said.

Teleplace and VastPark are the other major commercial enterprise platform that require a separate viewer to access them.

Ask the right questions

According to the panelists, the choice of the right platform starts with asking the right questions.

““Does the client need high concurrency for events?” asked Rufer-Bach of The Magicians. “Do you need foot traffic or do you need some kind of security behind a firewall? Do you need a permissions system, groups, physics? Do you need to advertise within the platform or use a web-based integrated service? Is this project about functionality, looks, or both? Do you need or want to repurpose your existing assets like 3D models, or will you want to export them afterwards? What kind of budget do you have? Is this for a consumer audience, or is co-creation part of the draw?”

A knowledgeable consultant can help a customer find answers to these questions, and then choose a platform that fits. Unfortunately, there’s no easy-to-use tool for doing this.

“Itâ€s too complicated,” said Rufer-Bach. “Itâ€s always changing.”

Companies can also test out different platforms, and research their features.

“Iâ€d love there to be a nice easy flowchart for choosing a platform, but it doesnâ€t always work like that,” added Blechner. “It takes a whole lot of work really comparing everything about a virtual world, considering all the different uses. Learning it yourself is probably the best way because you get more of a direct feel.”

One additional question was contributed to an audience member: “Whatâ€s the best virtual world I should use for my project? I want to make a million dollars in virtual reality in twelve months.”

Blechner rephrased the question in terms anyone could understand: “So the question is, ‘How can I scam people very quickly?â€â€

Frans, of  The Vesuvius Group, took a more serious approach.

“Honestly, I think Facebook would be first place,” he said. “Make a Facebook game and earn a million dollars.”

The information was presented by SpotON3D CEO Stevan Lieberman, who was speaking at a discussion in Second Life hosted by SpotON3D and titled, “SpotON3Dâ€s patent pending plugin: Is it a threat or a benefit?”

However, the event did not produce any new information about what the OpenSim community should expect moving into the future, nor bring the two sides any closer together.

According to Lieberman:

• SpotON3D is not going to provide more patent specifics than the information they have already provided.
• Patent approvals are not anticipated for at least three to four years, and perhaps even longer.
• No decisions have been made regarding the details or fees for future licensing.
• Stevan believes very strongly in patents. He believes they drive the world forward and give people a reason to invest in technology.

SpotON3D has filed for patents on:

• Double Dutch multi-grid content delivery system (one patent)
• Augmented reality for use in a 3D environment (two patents)
• Browser-based viewer wrapper plugin (one patent)
• Key account multi-grid registration system (one patent)

As a result of ongoing technical problems with Lieberman’s voice — he was unable to hear spoken questions, and occasionally his audio got cut off, as well — a couple of questions were never answered.

For example, one meeting attendee said he was working on a Facebook interface and a viewer in a browser app. He asked whether SpotON3D would try and charge a licensing fee at some future date for people using this other technology, even if the other developers had never seen the SpotON3D code.

Another unanswered question was whether SpotON3D will be making any policy changes, such as not charging some groups to use the viewer, or pledging not to sue other OpenSim startups offering similar technology.

Both Lieberman and his co-founder, SpotON3D COO Tessa Kinney-Johnson, said that their company was dedicated to helping the greater OpenSim community, and that SpotON3D’s patents will have an overall positive effect.

“If it isn’t us protecting it… then that leaves it wide open for someone else who isn’t a part of the community and doesn’t care about the people involved on a community level,” Kinney-Johnson said.

During the final third of the hour allocated to the event, the discussion became increasingly acrimonious, and Lieberman finally refused to take any more patent-related questions.

Back in December of 2010, Hypergrid Business ran an article that indicated IBM had filed a patent on sim design methodologies (read here). To date, only three comments have been posted, ranging in tone from “Well done to IBM” to “…these are good things for us to explore.” Where was the sense of alarm and outrage that has characterized the controversy regarding SpotON3D? Are we worrying about a splinter while standing in the shadows of trees that are poised to fall?

As virtual world technologies and markets mature, they will attract the attention of major players, like IBM, and those forces have very deep pockets. According to IBM itself, they hold over 40,000 worldwide patents and more U.S. patents than any other company. They invest $5 billion per year in research, development and engineering. IBM makes very clear that these investments are for inventions, but also for licensing (source: IBM patents webpage).

Here is a partial list of patents from IBM using the search terms: abst/“virtual world” and abst/“virtual world” AND IBM: Patent No. 7,970,837 for a method to invite users to a virtual world using instant messaging; Patent No. 7,970,840 for a method to continue instant messaging exchange when exiting a virtual world; Patent No. 7,886,045 for a media playlist construction for virtual environments. Patent No. 7,882,222 for a virtual environment module bundle; Patent No. 7,843,471 for a persistent authenticating mechanism to map real world object presence into virtual world object awareness; Patent No. 7,765,478 for scheduling and reserving virtual meeting location in a calendaring application. (source: United States Patent and Trademark Office) .

IBM is not alone. Other major players with virtual world related patents include Sun Microsystems, Sony Computer Entertainment, Microsoft and Alcatel-Lucent USA Inc.

Searching patent applications with the search term abst/“virtual world” AND browser AND plugin yields 515 results. Again we see IBM, with filings such as “Managing connections between real world and virtual world communities”, “Linking virtual worlds and collaboration platforms bi-directionally using a central identity management system” and “Managing multiple virtual world accounts from a single virtual lobby interface.”

Given the comprehensive activities of IBM especially, but others as well, the recent news from SpotON3D seems not to be an exaggerated source of challenges and concerns for the virtual world community, but rather a normal development, and an important part of a broad and deepening landscape. Nonetheless, the news about patents from SpotON3D has created a firestorm of protest, while the aforementioned patent filing by IBM regarding sim design methodologies passed by barely noticed. This reveals a lopsided perspective in how we focus and react.

In part this may be explained by considering which threats are felt to be the most immediate. The specific patent regarding sim design methodologies from IBM is applicable to content creators, while the moves by SpotON3D affect browser viewer companies, which are already investing in programming. There has been much anticipation that with browser-based viewers the appeal of virtual worlds will skyrocket, so the patent filings by SpotON3D probably seem more threatening. However, both developments have the potential to stifle innovation and shut out small startups, and should be regarded with similar concern.

Perhaps we take for granted the transparency of small companies that share in a community oriented approach to their projects. The fact that we expect direct access to the principals at SpotON3D is because they make themselves available to the community of virtual world development participants. While some took issue with a meeting scheduled with short notice, the reason given, which was to have a meeting sooner, rather than much later, was clearly an attempt to be responsive. Does anyone think IBM would schedule a community meeting on 24 hours notice to address the concerns of a handful of concerned and competitive startups?

Since there are already many patents, copyrights and trademarks in the world, all startups face the hurdle of creating products and services that are not already protected. Focusing exclusively on SpotON3D misses the broader perspective of just how competitive and controlling the world is, and just how vulnerable we are as a community that gives away so much to a technology we value. There are patent farms and abuses of the system, however, taking umbrage exclusively with SpotON3D does not set the world right. Instead, I believe the issues raised by SpotON3D are a prelude of what to expect more of in the future.

Now that we know patents are coming we have new considerations. Yet we must pay attention to the whole environment we are in, not just our nearest neighbor. Maintaining a comprehensive perspective is not just good form; it also leads to reactions that are most likely to be productive and meaningful.