Is there really virtual world

promise in peer-to-peer

… at this stage?

As if,  worrying whether the soon-to-be-released Second Life Viewer 2009 will  require educators to completely revamp their techniques and training of students, was not enough, we still have to wonder whether we might not have backed the wrong  horse and that the possible peer-to-peer virtual world competition for Second Life -  both public and behind the firewall – waiting in the wings, might not provide better applications.

We already have Entropia, Forterra(Olive),  Twinity, Wonderland,  Croquet, Prototerra, Kaneva, Hipihi,  and others  in the virtual world arena but just when one might have thought that Second Life and the Second Life-based OpenSim worlds – OpenSim, OpenLife, OsGrid, and smaller players like ONGENS, etc – were holding their own for education purposes,  at least one and perhaps two of  the Open Source alternatives to Second Life appear to be  breaking through, although they don’t have numbers yet.

The latest food for thought on this issue came from Feldspar  Epstein, of  The Metaverse Journal, who  explains the difference between the OpenSim concept, and that of Open Source such as  “Open Cobalt” and “Solipsis”,  as being that essentially while  OpenSim grids are designed to be served from a common point,  Open Cobalt and Solipsis implementations are designed to be served from many points – they are both peer-to-peer technologies.

“Open Cobalt (based on Croquet technology) consists of two parts: a browser and a toolkit,” Epstein says. ” The browser is used to view the 3D virtual workspaces created with the toolkit. Each workspace can live on a separate personal computer. Workspaces are real time and computationally dynamic, and each can host multiple participants. Additionally, individual workspaces can be interlinked into a private and secure network of work spaces.”

Attractive features

Epstein lists a number of  attractive Open Cobalt features, particularly for researchers and  educators, as: Open source licensing (MIT);  deeply malleable, collaborative space; runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux; internet access is not required; it can run over LANs and Intranets;  private and public environments can be created; in-world text, voice and video chat, web browsing (VNC allows access to browsers like Firefox) and annotations; Access to remote applications via VNC; Navigation between virtual workspaces is possible using 3D hyperlinks; Mesh, texture, media, and whole avatar imports.

An alpha phase Open  Cobalt download is available here and further information is available here. The beta release is due this year, and a full implementation is expected to be released in 2010.

Meanwhile the efficacy or on-going  viability of the French Telecom-developed Solipsis is more murky, although according to Epstein it is about to go into beta testing but I would question this.

A search of the net would suggest otherwise.

On Solipsis netofpeers.net  it  is revealed,  in a link from Professor  Shun-Yun Hu, of  the University of  Taiwan, that although Solipsis is a pure peer-to-peer system for a massively shared virtual world with no central servers,  only relying on end-users’ machines, the initial Solipsis project  ended some time ago when the core team left the project. The original Solipsis web site is available here. Although the dowloads are available there appears to have been little real activity since 2005, and the developers’ page is here but a number of the links appear dead.

More recently, however,  Joaquin Keller, has started TwinVerse – a virtual world based on geography, pictured right- and which seems little more than a glorified video and text chat room overlaid on Google satellite pictures/maps of various world spots, and nothing like the 3D virtual worlds, as presented by Second Life or Twinity or Entropia et al, and less than half as interesting.

Speaking of peer-to-peer virtual worlds Epstein doesn’t go into the much-touted Australian startup, Project Outback (from Yoik) which  folded sometime ago after considerable promotion by one of the former Kazaa peer-to-peer network promoters, nor the most viable other offering VastPark. currently in closed beta (downloads here) and based on the OPeN (Univ. of Melbourne) software funded by NICTA, Australia’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Research
Centre of Excellence,  which signed a commercial license agreement with VastPark, in 2008.

Other peer-to-peer possibilities, in various states of array and disarray, include :  Colyseus (CMU); HYDRA (National Univ. of Singapore);  and peers@play (Univ. of Mannheim, Duisburg-Essen, and Hannover).

However, after looking at all the offerings I could find for peer-to-peer worlds ( I may have missed some) I believe that aside from Open Cobalt, which is actually Croquet in another form,  and VastPark, there appears nothing in the peer-to-peer virtual world public domain that is any real threat at this stage to Second Life and open-source Second Life-based products, for credibility, ease-of-use, attractiveness, population, and what I believe is the fundamental key to virtual world success,  immersibility (suspension of disbelief).

So forget peer-to-peer virtual worlds for the moment and concentrate on worrying about  the Second Life 2009 viewer, or perhaps the new adult continent of Zindra.  Just kidding.

La majorité des personnes actuellement sont relativement sceptiques sur l’utilité apparemment “artificielle” des mondes virtuels. Ces mondes en cours ou en création devraient pourtant prendre leur place dans le futur au niveau de différents usages tout comme l’Internet ou d’autres modes de virtualité. Ce concept de virtualité n’est pas nouveau mais par contre très mal employé et parfois fustigé (second life, get a first life) finalement tout ceci est histoire de compréhension et de recadrage historique. C’est à travers une explication « historique » et chronologique que les appréhensions du virtuel sont balayées par une brillante démonstration de Alain Le Diberder. Le conférencier n’est autre que l’un des concepteurs du deuxième monde (monde virtuel français apparu avant Second Life, autonome et rentable mais dont le développement fut stoppé par Vivendi Universal). Il y a deux ans tout le monde se demandait ce que pensaient Alain Le Diberder et son frère Frédéric de leur successeur américain, or on apprend aujourd’hui que SL est pour eux une suite évidente et que notamment Frédéric est vendeur de chaussure à ses heures .

Voici donc une explication exhaustive sur les nécessités de se pencher sur ces univers virtuels en devenir et qu’en somme tout cela vient de très loin.

La deuxième partie est orchestré par Yann Minh qui donne quelques explications sur l’utulisation de second Life pour son travail d’artiste.

Source : Blog des Managers Intranet

The OpenSim project has gotten a new capability to its code base: the Parallel Selves Message Bridge. Users of an OpenSim world can now send instant messages to other OpenSim-based worlds or even Second Life, which OpenSim is based on. Linden Lab and IBM have previously worked on creating interoperability between Second Life and OpenSim, beginning with allowing users to transfer their identity between the two. The current project comes independently from OpenSim core developer Justin Clark-Casey, which, as he describes, has its limitations. But it’s still a first step.

“I would say that interoperability is really too grand a word for it,” Clark-Casey told Ostatic. “In many ways it’s like using an entire OpenSim standalone server as an IM client for another grid (such as Second Life).”

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Plutôt qu’une fiche et 3 photos, demain ce sera peut être l’avatar sublimé ou personnalisé qui présentera dans son monde idéalisé ou miroir, ses activités, ses hobbies, sa panoplie multimédia réel en disposant ses flux twitter, ses vidéos youtube, son wall à la facebook, sa vidéo perso en réel et sa machinima, sa playlist ou en music live jouant en streaming à la second life, son agenda, ses lieux de vie / voyages thématisés ,speed dating et autres applications… selon les styles.

Croire que les univers virtuels n’interessent pas les sites de rencontre est faux sinon je n’aurais pas vu le leader mondial et le leader européen en rendez vous… il manque un effet de masse et une simplification des outils pour qu’ils fassent le premier pas. Il y a donc une place à prendre pour un projet ou une start up qui prendrait le risque de s’aventurer sur le futur de la rencontre.

Lire l’article : Les sites de rencontres sous le charme des mondes virtuels (les echos)

article en relation: les sites de rencontres francais se faisaient trop rares bizarre

Le festival eARTS de Shanghai se situe aux confluents de l’art, de la technologie, de la tradition et de la modernité. Il ouvre ses portes demain, 18 octobre 2008, et le thème de cette année est le “paysage urbanisé“. Dans sa présentation, Lisa Zhou indique :

“… Les technologies numériques peuvent-elles contribuer à renouveler le paysage urbain et notre relation avec celui-ci ? Et quelle est exactement la relation qui existe entre un paysage urbain réel et un paysage numérique ? Les artistes sont au centre de ces questions car ils sont ceux qui sont capables de nous aider à ré-imaginer notre propre espace de vie. Peut-être les artistes numériques vont-ils nous apprendre à ré-inventer le paysage urbain et à le remplir d’un esprit intérieur…”

Dans le cadre de ce festival sera présenté “First Contact“, une installation interactive créée par des résidents de HiPiHi et ZHANG Anding (Zafka) en relation avec les impacts sociaux et culturels du réchauffement climatique. A cette occasion, une machinima tournée dans le monde virtuel de HiPiHi a été réalisée.

A noter que Zafka a collaboré avec Cao Fei (China Tracy) dans la réalisation du désormais très célèbre i.Mirror. Zafka est connu dans Second Life sous le nom de Zafka Zimminy et on peut le suivre sur Twitter. Il publie également un blog en chinois sur les mondes virtuels (metaversetoday) et un blog en anglais sur la jeunesse chinoise (Chinayouthology). 

• Downloads: 564 • Tamanho: 55,46mb • Atualizado: 29/12/2007

• Licença: Gratuito (Freeware) • Avaliação:

• Sistema(s) operacional(is): Windows 98, NT, 2000, Millenium, XP

• Desenvolvedor: HiPiHi
• Requerimentos: Básico.

• Descrição:

HiPiHi é um mundo virtual, muito parecido com o Second Life, mas que segue as tradições de seu país de origem, a China. Construído com cenários cheios da mística oriental, o novo mundo virtual traz para dentro do computador templos budistas, dragões, feng shui e motivos relacionados com os Jogos Olímpicos de Pequim 2008.

Com a promessa de ser um concorrente a altura para o Second Life, os desenvolvedores de HiPiHi afirmam que esse mundo será mais harmonioso e menos capitalista que seu antecessor e que, por exemplo, o mercado imobiliário será auto regulado democraticamente pelos seus próprios habitantes.

Outro fator importante e que diferencia o mundo de HiPiHi é que ele foi desenvolvido dentro das tradições chinesas e, sendo assim, os “habitantes” do universo “HiPiHi” deverão respeitar as leis chinesas, estando já ativas algumas restrições, como a utilização de expressões que prejudiquem os interesses da China.

O novo universo já conta com mais de 30 mil usuários e agora tem o objetivo de conquistar um mercado de mais de 170 milhões de internautas. Uma novidade do HiPiHi é que lá o usuário poderá utilizar a telefonia via internet para se comunicar com os outros habitantes, vale a pena experimentar.

Download: HiPiHi

Se rendre ici. Pour l’instant, je conserve les deux blogs.

Earlier I posted that 345million has been invested in Virtual Worlds this year – this movie Initially posted at marketfactnl – has been translated (close to) below for this part of the world… When i first starting hearing about Second Life in 2006 – much has happened in the space – this video is a tour of some of the virtual properties around today – Google Lively & Twinity appear so the video is coolly current–

Virtual Worlds in the near future are going to play an increasing role in our lives. The fact that Google with Google Lively its first footsteps in the digital universe continues, suggests that more has happened than just a new gimmick. The number of virtual worlds is also growing. Most of the virtual worlds in the Netherlands we hear nothing or very little about. Yet another far-from-us-bed-show? Gary Hayes is currently engaged in an investigation into virtual worlds and he has recorded his journey on YouTube. This provides a seven-minute film in which 50 virtual worlds pass the revue.

Second Life, HiPiHi, Kaneva, Twinity, ActiveWorlds, LagunaBeach vMTV. There.com, Habbo, Google Lively, FootballSuperstars, Weblin, AmazingWorlds, CyWorld, Whyville, Gaia Online, RocketOn, Club Penguin, YoVille, Webkinz, BarbieGirls, Prototerra, IMVU, Spore, vSide, Tale in the Desert, SpineWorld, Stardoll The Manor, There.com, ExitReality, Vastpark, Qwaq, PS3Home, GoSupermodel, Grockit, Croquet, Metaplace, Coke Studios, Dreamville, Dubit, Mokitown, Move, Muse, The Palace, Playdo, Sora City, Voodoo Chat, TowerChat, Traveler , Virtual Ibiza… Are you on your journey?

On his site Gary also refers to a beautiful visual of the Examination Kzero where several virtual worlds in a useful overview (jpg) are plotted against each other.

EVERYONE should be doing videos

- I have seen this video 3 times before reading the content above – andrew peters aka aplink

PS: theRedlightcentre missed a debute in the video – i wonder why ?

Had a look into other metaverse: twinity, HipiHi and TribalNet.

I have a apartment at www.twinity.com, verry focused on the human world, associated on cities and countries in Real Life. It is in a beta stage, so there are not many avatars inside and the strange thing was that the few you meet there dont talk or is it becouse of me ;-P

My visite to www.hipihi.com metaverse, ok it was “nice”, i will come back in some years

A little moonsick and struggling around with chinesä letters.

And www.tribalnet.se could be an option to play around if there is time. Me there as Ruth.

I can’t start new threads in the forums at forums.hipihi.com.

I’ve tested this in Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 3, Opera 9.5, Flock, and several other browsers.

I believe there’s a problem with FckEdit.

Could some please try to post in the Overseas Zone forum at forums.hipihi.com and let me know what the result is? Thanks.

Vorig weekend kwamen IT-professionals samen in Beijing voor de derde CHINICT-conferentie.  Dit evenement gaf onder andere een forum voor jonge groeibedrijven op de internetmarkt zoals Youku (videoplatform zoals Youtube) of HiPiHi (virtuele wereld in de stijl van SecondLife).  Deze jonge bedrijven met de klemtoon op nieuwe media zetten de toon voor de Chinese internetmarkt van morgen. 

Daarnaast waren uiteraard ook gevestigde internationale namen zoals Microsoft en Google van de partij, op zoek naar partnerships met nieuw jong Chinees talent.

Both Novoking and Hipihi don’t have resizable windows that you can maximize and have them fill the screen minus the taskbar area. (Like the browser you are reading this in does.)

In both Hipiihi and Novoking you can make it full screen or not, when not, it doesn’t fill the screen, and doesn’t fill the screen minus the taskbar.

So with both programs, you can accidentally hit the area outside of the virtual world’s window, like some annoying add on the browser, or accidentally hit the close window X on the program behind the virtual world window.

These two programs are the only programs I use that have this flaw.

In my decades of computer use I have never once wanted a program to work like these programs do regarding the size of the program window.

It’s annoying.

Tags: Novoking, Hipihi, virtual worlds, annoyances, Suezanne, SuezanneCB

Installing East Asian language support under Windows – MozillaZine Knowledge Base

Windows XP

1. On the Windows Start menu, point to Control Panel, and then click Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options.
2. Click the Regional and Language Options icon, and then click the Languages tab.
3. In the Supplemental languages support box, check the box for Install East Asian Languages.
4. Click Apply and OK.

Tags: hipihi, east asian language pack, chinese fonts, suezannecb

The indented section following is copied from the HIpihi forums English language forum, the Overseas Zone:

We are very excited announce the debuting of HiPiHi’s open public beta test, beginning from April 18^th,
2008. From now on, our HiPiHi world will welcome new residents from all
corners around the world and join our existing residents on this
magical land created by yourselves.

1. Resident
   “Happygirl” did not complete the name-change process during April 2nd
   -17th. From April 18th, new residents may take this name as their
   nickname.
2. If Resident “happygirl” trys to log in after
   April 18th, she will be auto-directed to the name-change page, where
   she may still use “Happygirl” as her username if it has not been taken
   by new users, or to change her name (e.g. “happgirl_me”) if her old
   name was occupied by a new resident.

The start page for Hipihi is hipihi.com .

The English information page is at http://www.hipihi.com/index_en.html .

The English registration page is at http://service.hipihi.com/member/register/en/register.jhtml .

For help in English with Hipihi you can use the Hipihi OverSeas Zone forum, once you’ve registered with Hipihi. Note that the forum software itself is in Chinese.

Another place to go for help in English with Hipihi is http://www.ideashape.cn . Note that the forum software at www.ideashape.cn is in English.

There’s also a Hipihi group in facebook.

The downloads from Hipihi have always been slow for me, and they might for you. So – be patient. It’s not like you have to just watch the download screen it’s downloading.

I’m still waiting for the download to complete, so I don’t know exactly what to expect yet.

This is a beta; it’s not the finished product. One can expect to have some rocky riding during a beta.

I’m not sure about the language requirements for this version, or the degree to which the interface is available in English.

So – why not give Hipihi a try?

Tags: Hipihi, Virtual Worlds, SuezanneCB

Now that I have a QQ account created by someone else, I have come across what appears to be an English language QQ registration page.

http://signup.qq.com/ is the url.

Tags: QQ, China, Chinese, QQ registration

This fine looking building in the Hipihi virtual world must have taken a lot of prims to make.