Setpoint Originator

Cross-Posting A-Times Articles Here / Virtual-to-Real [V2R] Jeans Write-Up

I write short articles for the bi-monthly ASF newsletter, Accelerating Times (sign up here :-). I'm going to start cross-posting my pieces here.

•January 18th Tech Tidbits (name change as of next issue to Accelerating Times)
•Article link in the Accelerating Times archives

(Riffing on Scanner creates perfect-fit jeans, by Paula Hancocks, CNN.com)

Ever have trouble finding cool clothes with a perfect fit? (Maybe you do and don’t even know it there, baggy ;-) Bodymetrics in the UK has a quick and simple system for mapping your body’s shape at a high resolution in 3D. The scanning process—which involves projections of white light stripes measured by cameras capturing over 200,000 data points in under 10 seconds—builds a customized digital avatar of your exact proportions that you can use for modeling potential outfits and, in some cases, tailoring that just-right size. Fashion designer Tristan Webber is using Bodymetric’s technology to create a new line of unique-to-the-wearer digitally fitted jeans he’s branded “Digital Couture.”

Bodymetric’s process was also put to good use in the recent UK National Sizing Survey. Among other findings, the survey revealed that the average measurement around British “women’s midriffs” has increased by 16.5 cm over the last 50 years. Clothing retailers who purchase the survey’s data will be able apply this kind of intimate sizing knowledge to their next generation make of clothing. (That should make a lot of people very happy.)

This kind of scanning process could also let individuals create avatars for self-introduction into video games and digital worlds. Presumably it could also do the opposite: move fashion designs prototyped in certain game worlds out into the real world. Just take a look at the impressive Space Think Dream webpage, full of high fashion and nifty gadgets that Rivers Run Red presently build and sell directly in the digital world of Second Life. Watch out for crossovers...

Designing A Second Life Future Salon

[Edit 4/5: SL Future Salon update posted here]

In March or April (to be decided very soon) the Acceleration Studies Foundation will begin hosting free, monthly mini-conferences inside the user created digital world of Second Life. As an ASF Director, I’m in charge of getting this project up and going. I love my job!

We currently have these monthly mini-conferences—called Future Salons—happening in four real world cities: Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Diego, and Palo Alto/Bay Area (Mark Finnern runs a very nice Bay Area Future Salon blog that’s worth checking in on). The salon structure typically consists of a couple of speakers giving hour-long presentations with a lot of audience interaction. Attendees are encouraged to bring news stories and scanning hits to share, and books and DVDs to recommend or lend out to others. Afterwards, everyone who wants to continue the discussion goes out for dinner and drinks.

It’s going to be a very interesting experiment translating our salon structure into a 3D digital world. While communication in Second Life happens through text chat, I’m planning to use an internet radio station to stream voice into the salons. That way the speakers can actually speak (see Robin Linden’s Sometimes I Hate Chat! blog entry about her group chat frustrations) through the station while attendees unobtrusively ask questions and communicate internally with text. It’s very simple to show and switch images in Second Life, so it won’t be a problem for speakers to use slides or show pictures on a screen (or screens).

More news on this soon. If anyone is interested in participating in any way (speaking, organizing, being a techie, getting the word out, etc.) please let me know. I’d love to get a good conversation going ASAP about the best way to turn this into a bigtime sustainable event. There may even be a way to connect Second Life up with ASF's annual Accelerating Change Conference. If so the salons should show how.

Thanks to my friend and fellow futurist Derek Woodgate who's already signed on to discuss his creative futures firm, the Futures Lab, and new book, Future Frequencies: Disruption from the Fringe, at an upcoming Second Life Future Salon.

Jerry's Massively Multi-Player Predictions for 2005

Second Life's Cory Ondrejka and Second Life Herald's Urizenus/Peter Ludlow have both made their 2005 massively multi-player predictions (Cory's...Uri's). It looked like so much fun I thought I'd throw my own hat in. If any of these have already happened, sorry, and please let me know. I think I've set the bar pretty high for myself with this batch, but they're all certainly possible! Submitted with humbleness for your viewing pleasure:

1. Digital worlds will hit the cover of a mainstream non-gaming magazine (Time, Wired, The Economist, something)

2. A two-part document will be published that 1. informs teenagers of how they can have a great summer job selling virtual items for real $, and 2. informs their parents of why this isn’t such a crazy thing (why they should be allowed to do it)

3. Someone will implement a steady Threadless.com-style open-call design model in Second Life (design contests with the intention of physically manufacturing the best user-created content)—note: Ms. Jones clothing company already did this as a one-off. This will lead to popular use of the term “massively multi-maker”

4. A wave of First Lifers will appear in Second Life. They will use their real names, recreate their actual appearances, and keep role-play to a minimum

5. A massively multi-player game that maps to places in the real world will at least be in publicly announced pre-production

6. A virtual world will experiment with leveraging the activities of its players towards a real world work end—ala Nick Yee/Julian Dibbell’s thought experiment at State of Play 2 (like SETI@home uses volunteered PCs to crunch mountains of raw data, a virtual world will use its players to sort things that require context-aware, subjective human brains) (idea mentioned in Dibbell's talk video here, but if anyone has a link to a write-up, please let me know)

7. People with knowledge of massively multi-player environments will be in high demand as “massively multi-user” (with persistence) clearly becomes a killer app for the next generation console systems (Playstation 3, Xbox 2, Nintendo GameCube 2), even for types of games that are not traditionally conceived of as MM: massively multi-player Mortal Kombat, DDR, Tony Hawk with user-created content, for instance)

8. There will be a major, international PvP “Guild Wars” massively multi-player battle competition with cash prizes along the lines of FPS and other gaming tournaments (World Cyber Games) (illegally buying characters and items on eBay will be the steroids and drug-enhancement scandals of the event). 8b. IGE will try to sponsor it but will not be allowed!

9. “Linden Dollars” will appear in Wired magazines “Jargon Watch” section as in, “Yo, how much ‘ you pay for rent?” “Ah, about 100,000 Linden a month.” (around $400 US)

10. More of those who look at virtual worlds will get around to reading and commenting on Yale computer scientist David Gelernter’s “Mirror Worlds: The Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox : How It Will Happen and What It Will Mean”