The TOS Is Falling! Or Not.

[Stephen Zepp]

You are only focusing on the meeting/conference portion of the concept, and verbal communication within that context--and that's not at all where the technology can/should go.

Here's just one very basic example I can come up with off the top of my head where a 3D world can help to alleviate communications difficulties:

The CEO of a company is sitting in his hotel after flying from Seattle to Japan, getting ready for the meeting the next day with the parent company. Some subtle but very important changes have been made by the process team to the assembly line in the new manufacturing plant that increases quality by 10% while also decreasing total on stock inventory by 18%, and when the team manager updates the numbers in his spreadsheet, the dynamic model of the entire assembly line is automatically updated to demonstrate (visually) the productivity/efficiency increase zones within the plant.

Knowing the parent company is concerned about the new carbon budget law going into effect just prior to the new plant opening, the the CEO opens up the Emissions/Waste product GUI on the simulation and runs a 365x24 speed quickrun of the assembly plant simulation, which dumps out the updated total product, waste product, and emissions reports with the new changes from the process team and the data import from the new law text, and quickly requests multi-day, month, and year 3D graphs to demonstrate impact.

Since line safety, personnel requirement and efficiency checks are automatically part of the simulation, he immediately gets visual 3D focus zones of additional personnel requirements to supervise the line modifications, and by clicking on each zone he can get a comparison between FTE availability for line supervisors, the current overtime saturation reports from existing plants, and next year's projected budget for personnel to confirm that the additional employee requirements are within budget.

He exports these to Crystal Reports and dumps them directly to the local (Japanese) quick print shop, and has the end product delivered to the meeting hall, since the parent company hasn't yet adopted the "new fangled" tech to display the simulation in real time.

That's just one totally made up and extremely simplistic benefit of having multiple information stores integrated into a virtual 3D world.

Is it feasible? Not this month. But I could do it, with Torque, at a prototype level, in probably 3-6 months by myself (if it was my primary job of course).

Moral of the story: Instead of a single human (the CEO in this case) having to have the brain power to build integrated pictures in their head of an incredibly diverse combination of data sets from completely different sources, let the computer do the work, and present the information in a format that is intuitively accepted.

EDIT: While I (literally) made this scenario up in response to the thread, some of the technology already exists in unusual ways.

For example, just from the work a company named Valador did for NASA a year and a half ago, they can already stream telemetry data from their billion dollar simulators directly into Torque, and then network this data set across any "normal" media (internet, wireless, satellite) to any laptop that can receive the data, and has the client. At that point, they can have "multi-player" interaction via the standard Torque networking to control cameras, manipulate the simulation backward and forward in time, and use it as a collaborative medium for discussing problems/issue scenarios in real time.

Something like: a shuttle mission when something has gone wrong and the shuttle pilots aren't able to get a firm grasp of the issue until they can explore the simulation from any angle and see what's going on with that pesky attitude control jet. This technology already exists--they'ed just need a place on the shuttle to store a laptop safely during launch.

[WindupAtheist]

I can see the merit of the systems you describe, but then that's not really the sort of thing I think of when I hear terms like "Second Life" and "metaverse" bandied about.  It's also substantially different than the sort of "avatars at the noticeboard" communicative uses a few people were talking about.

So yeah, if you think a communication medium "isn't where this technology should go" then we basically agree.

[DraconianOne]

I can see the merit of the systems you describe, but then that's not really the sort of thing I think of when I hear terms like "Second Life" and "metaverse" bandied about.  It's also substantially different than the sort of "avatars at the noticeboard" communicative uses a few people were talking about.

So yeah, if you think a communication medium "isn't where this technology should go" then we basically agree.

I came up with the "avatar at the noticeboard" because it's a first step into trying to get to grips with the why a company might want to invest in the technology. I'm a sceptic but I can't be close minded about it all because it could potentially become a new marketspace for me.  While the examples Stephen offers are good, I'm still working on why less technology based companies (e.g. an investment management company) would want to use it.  In discussion with people in the office, the idea of doing virtual tours of sites in different countries came up.  As a communication technology, the noticeboard was a simplistic example but if the right tools were developed (along the sandbox creation tools in Second Life) then 3D models (be they process models, prototype models, organisational models) become more viable. 

But I don't know how many companies would be willing to spend money on an infrastructure to do this when, as you point out, there is no significant benefit over video conferencing and other collaborative communication methods.  It just seems gimmicky at best.  I have the same problem with the idea of corporate blogs - something else that IBM have embraced into their culture.  I can see the benefits for knowledge sharing and collaboration but I can't see most companies endorsing this behaviour as a useful and efficient use of company time. 

[Murgos]

Yeah, you're there reading a small text chat window while a large portion of the screen is pointlessly occupied by a display of avatars sitting in virtual chairs.  Useful.

Yeah, you obviously haven't been to any meetings in a real company.  That's what they do now with people physically in the room.  I'm thinking there is a fundamental flaw with your argument because you can apply the same logic to current meetings and yet even though the tech has been around to 'virtually' attend meetings for a dozen years even the most tech savvy company flies people across the country for 'face time' at great expense.

[Numtini]

I can't see it being of use to most companies. People will either want the face time or they will be comfortable enough with technology to do IM based virtual meetings.

Even if you wanted to use avatars, something like IMVU would be far more useful than a "virtual world."

On the original TOS stuff. From reading stuff about conscionability it seems like there might be some case for saying that the one sidedness of the TOS of a company providing a $15/month entertainment service may be perfectly acceptable, but the same might not be acceptable to something involving thousands of dollars?

[HaemishM]

Log in, hit the menu drop down for 'conference room 4' and you're there.

Yeah, you're there reading a small text chat window while a large portion of the screen is pointlessly occupied by a display of avatars sitting in virtual chairs.  Useful.

You keep assuming the chat box is going to stay around. It isn't. Most groups of people who play Second Life or any other MMO do not use the text chat for much of anything. MMO's are coming standard with voice chat included.

I'm not saying you don't have a point, because you do. But the MMO shit we are dealing with now is rocks and pointy sticks primitive. We are at fetus stage in the use of MMO's or really any online service as a communication tool.

[Yegolev]

Not looking forward to the avatar-based meetings.  I like to keep my yap shut in teleconferences, too.

I always thought people liked "facetime" because they liked flying around on the company dime.  I need to know how this can help me avoid driving in to the office.  As it stands, I really don't need to be here for any technical reason, it's just that my boss' boss is one of those old-fashioned types.  If having a 3D avatar will convince him I don't really need to make that commute, then I say bring it on.

[WindupAtheist]

Yeah, you obviously haven't been to any meetings in a real company.  That's what they do now with people physically in the room.

There will always be people physically traveling to meetings.  At least until you can slip on some kind of ubertech neural-interface VR headset and literally think you're in the same room with everyone, and probably still even then.  People attach value to physical personal interaction well above it's strict efficiency as a means of exchanging information.

I'm thinking there is a fundamental flaw with your argument because you can apply the same logic to current meetings and yet even though the tech has been around to 'virtually' attend meetings for a dozen years even the most tech savvy company flies people across the country for 'face time' at great expense.

But text chat and/or voice chat would completely supplant 'face time' if only someone would give everyone little avatars to walk around with while they do it, right?

You keep assuming the chat box is going to stay around. It isn't. Most groups of people who play Second Life or any other MMO do not use the text chat for much of anything. MMO's are coming standard with voice chat included.

I'm not saying you don't have a point, because you do. But the MMO shit we are dealing with now is rocks and pointy sticks primitive. We are at fetus stage in the use of MMO's or really any online service as a communication tool.

No, you're right.  My only real point was that adding avatars doesn't change whatever the communications medium may be, it just gives the user something else to look at while they use it.

Personally I'd much rather have everyone attending the virtual meeting just point a webcam at themselves.  At least then one can read facial expressions, and be sure nobody is blabbing on their cellphone instead of paying attention.  In a metaverse-style system you wouldn't know whether the guy behind that attentive-looking avatar was hanging on your every word, or fucking his girlfriend on the desk while you prattled in the background.

I came up with the "avatar at the noticeboard" because it's a first step into trying to get to grips with the why a company might want to invest in the technology.

The "avatar at the noticeboard" was useful as a point of discussion.  I wasn't trying to single you out with that quote.

[HaemishM]

Maybe it'll make business people realize that half the meetings they call are fucking useless and half the people at even the good meetings are useless as well?

[DraconianOne]

Maybe it'll make business people realize that half the meetings they call are fucking useless and half the people at even the good meetings are useless as well?

LOL!  Dream on.  More to the point that they'll have more meetings to discuss how best to use this new meeting tool and ways that it can effectively increase productive throughput in a blue-sky scenario while parking any real issues about the actualities of leveraging a mutual face to face contact methodology.  There'll be steering groups and pilot schemes made up of all the useless people in a vain attempt to make them seem like they have a purposeful existence.

The main reason this 3D "virtual world" technology will get adopted by the average more-money-than-sense corporation will be as mundane as there never being enough meeting rooms and never one available when they want one.

[Murgos]

The main reason this 3D "virtual world" technology will get adopted by the average more-money-than-sense corporation will be as mundane as there never being enough meeting rooms and never one available when they want one.

That is entirely believable.

[Stephen Zepp]

Log in, hit the menu drop down for 'conference room 4' and you're there.

Yeah, you're there reading a small text chat window while a large portion of the screen is pointlessly occupied by a display of avatars sitting in virtual chairs.  Useful.

You keep assuming the chat box is going to stay around. It isn't. Most groups of people who play Second Life or any other MMO do not use the text chat for much of anything. MMO's are coming standard with voice chat included.

I'm not saying you don't have a point, because you do. But the MMO shit we are dealing with now is rocks and pointy sticks primitive. We are at fetus stage in the use of MMO's or really any online service as a communication tool.

Haemish is spot on here--it's so new no one really knows what really can, and more importantly, should be done with it.

Unfortunately I can't talk about too much, but they've got some pretty damned impressive stuff done already, and some very interesting ideas coming down the pike. I can say that while sure, virtual meetings have been done "playing around", but that's not where they are going with this at all.

Some of it is just plain guesswork though--for example while it's easy to say "see a spreadsheet in 3D"--what does that actually mean? I've been trying to figure that out the last 3 days myself, and I'm not smart enough of a human dynamics person to figure out what would be a "better" way to view a spreadsheet myself.

Personally, I think it's going to take more than just tech geeks like me to figure out better information analysis/visualization/assimilation techniques, including quite a bit of research into how the eye/brain/thought process actually works.

To compare this concept against something I do know however--I can tell you right now that if I had a virtual world simulation in my heads up display when I was a pilot, and still be able to see outside, I would have been able to achieve literally orders of magnitude more while flying. It would have to be amazingly carefully engineered, but being able to use color, shape, and time based predictive visual indicators while flying would have been a hell of a lot easier than a cross check of 40 different instruments that all provided information with different displays and mechanisms. One of a combat (or non-combat) pilot's most difficult challenges is not getting task saturated, and a large part of the task load is analyzing information---anything that can help this out at all makes things easier, and I honestly see this principle applying to controlling companies as well.

[Yegolev]

You are still essentially turning a quarterly report into PieChartQuest.  I'm not at all trying to say that it won't be adopted, but the value is -- from my perspective -- similar to the value of a corporate IM client over email.  We still use email in spite of the fact that I can go so far as to paste funny pictures into my Sametime client and even have it read me the IMs in a robot voice.

Now, virtual meeting rooms, that's probably it.  Right now all we have is WebEx.  If we can convert some of these conference rooms into offices for management, we will have a license for PieChartQuest version 0.9, I predict.

[Merusk]

Personally, I think it's going to take more than just tech geeks like me to figure out better information analysis/visualization/assimilation techniques, including quite a bit of research into how the eye/brain/thought process actually works.

Absolutly. This is part of what I was getting at in the 'beyond keyboard and mouse' segment in the Gen. Disc. thread about the MS touchscreen. 

To compare this concept against something I do know however--I can tell you right now that if I had a virtual world simulation in my heads up display when I was a pilot, and still be able to see outside, I would have been able to achieve literally orders of magnitude more while flying. It would have to be amazingly carefully engineered, but being able to use color, shape, and time based predictive visual indicators while flying would have been a hell of a lot easier than a cross check of 40 different instruments that all provided information with different displays and mechanisms. One of a combat (or non-combat) pilot's most difficult challenges is not getting task saturated, and a large part of the task load is analyzing information---anything that can help this out at all makes things easier, and I honestly see this principle applying to controlling companies as well.

Hm.. what'd you fly, and what kind of 'virtual world simulation' are you talking about here?  HUDs (so far as I know) display airspeed, alt, angle vs ground, n/s direction, etc.  I'm trying to envision what you'd overlay instead of that.


This whole discussion also has me wondering when all the bluetooth-bug people are going to start asking for monitors attached to the headpieces.  Then we can all walk around looking like that guy from DS-9 while talking to the air and tapping out on our wireless keypad.  The death of the cubicle at last.. but it means we all sit in a 10x20 room in our lone company-supplied chair with 15-20 other people.

[bhodi]

I can think of a lot of things that would be geat.. all you have to do is look to video games.

How about a virtual glide path for landings? A radar-created green wireframe overlay with height figures to make the ground maneuvering safer and more accurate? Targeting with prioritization and friend-foe based false colors for ground targeting? Maybe even relayed from a base station? visually overlayed attack or maneuver vectors and aiming prediction? I can think of a ton of information that would be helpful, all provided by overlay.

[Yegolev]

Aviation-specific, these things are possible now but are not implemented due to cost.

[Stephen Zepp]

Bhodi hit on a lot of them.

I was an HC-130 (Special Ops) driver for several years, flying extreme low level on NVG's. Even with the limited capability of the NVG hud (it was literally a big chunk of cable that transmitted light via individual optic fibers to reflect onto the interior of the ocular), it would have been incredibly useful to have additional information of all sorts--from threat warning to mission planning to simple flightpath (we had a "fly this direction" dot, but that was it).

Yes and no on the cost by the way--sadly, quite a big issue with aircraft technology integration is simple "good old boy" syndrome. The guys that are running the projects, and ultimately paying the R&D bills were at best active pilots on aircraft that are 30+ years old, and don't want to let "some damn computer do their flying for them".

Besides "lawn dart" (it had one engine, and if it flamed out you became one), the most common nickname for the F-16 by those that don't fly it is 'electic jet'--which is meant in an insulting manner.

I got to go to a military version of E3 a couple of years ago, and the various aircraft developers really do want to make some damned cool stuff, but it's hard to get the older generation generals to understand the benefits in many ways--much like it will be to get the old school exec management types to adopt VW/3D tech ideas like these.

[Yegolev]

I guess I was thinking about commercial aviation.  Not that I have been following it much.  The "I did it without computers, uphill both ways" thing makes plenty of sense.

[Chimpy]

I guess I was thinking about commercial aviation.  Not that I have been following it much.  The "I did it without computers, uphill both ways" thing makes plenty of sense.

Even commercial a lot of pilots, especially the ones who are captains on the big birds who have decades of experience, get a little antsy about flying planes with too many bells and whistles. Airbus has historically huge problems selling larger planes to the U.S. market because of their joystick vs. the standard yoke flight controls making experienced older pilots uncomfortable.

[Valor]

What I have found from my military carreer in the SOF community is that typically when more technology is implemented into an environment where the operators are used to using older technology that more problems occur than are solved.  The siple solution is to just train new operators.  That will take years.  After a new group of operators is trained and the old ones phased out, the technology you are attempting to implement is already out of date.

Solution.

Slow integration of new technology.  Whether the concept comes from games or not, implementing components of it slowly is the only real key to success.

As mentioned before, the more features that are added, the more that can go wrong.  If you want to create a navigation system similar to the ones used in games like BF2142 or other games, then you will have to try to "replace" systems, not just add to them.

Anyways, interesting topic.

[Merusk]

What I have found from my military carreer in the SOF community is that typically when more technology is implemented into an environment where the operators are used to using older technology that more problems occur than are solved.  The siple solution is to just train new operators.  That will take years.  After a new group of operators is trained and the old ones phased out, the technology you are attempting to implement is already out of date.

This was my thought as well.  It's one of the reasons NASA uses Processors, etc that are - in some cases - decades behind the bleeding edge.  It's better to be reliable, durable and proven accurate than to blow-up because of a processing bug.   

Not to mention, the more tech you introduce, the more likely something vital is blown-off in combat.  Similar logic is put into weapon design. The fewer moving parts, the better. 

[lamaros]

I got to go to a military version of E3 a couple of years ago, and the various aircraft developers really do want to make some damned cool stuff, but it's hard to get the older generation generals to understand the benefits in many ways--much like it will be to get the old school exec management types to adopt VW/3D tech ideas like these.

Easier in the private sector.

Or if we have a notable war.

Competition, Japan and gunpowder, and the like.