Mixed-Reality Party In DC and Second Life

Jerry23 writes "This Saturday The Happening will bring Second Life to first life. The Electric Sheep Company, a new metaverse developer, has virtually recreated R&B Coffee in Washington DC for use in a mixed-reality party and benefit for the DC art scene and several local nonprofits. Real people will mingle with avatars via realtime video projections in the real and virtual R&B spaces, and MAKE Magazine's Phillip Torrone will be on-hand showing off his homemade Virtual Reality headsets and gloves. The whole world is invited to attend in DC or Second Life, whichever's closer for you." This is just conceptually a weird idea to me.

Comments

Fantastic!

[ScentCone]

Since I live near DC, I can actively ignore, with extreme prejudice, both the online and the real-world pieces of this simultaneously! We live in amazing times.

Snowcrash

[suso]

Things transpiring now remind me a lot of the first couple chapters of snowcrash. Soon we'll be living in U-stor-its.

OMG, so it begins!

[Arwing]

This reminds me of an article i read somewhere and it talked about the next generation of MMORPG where people would go online to watch a movie (stream) shopping (Amazon/eBay) using their avatars, and meet and social like they would in real life instead of yelling "LFG Emperor run1!!11". Walking down the virtual isle of amazon, hitting on another hot avatar and going to watch a movie at iTune theatre, is it really that hard to imagine?
Okay, it is, but who knows, when we turn 60, that maybe the social norm.

Re:OMG, so it begins!

[Shag]

No, no, the people are still ugly... just their avatars aren't. ;)

Re:OMG, so it begins!

[Merle Darling]

Let's not forget the real reason most people seem to play SL.. PORN! God, it's everywhere. You can't swing a virtual cat by its tail without hitting a shop selling porn movies/pictures, fetish gear, whores, stupid bling-encrusted avatars with OMG REAL 3D NIPPLEZORZ AND POOBIC HARE!!11

It's been said before, but there's a lot of potential in SL. There are also a lot of creative, talented people there.. but unfortunately it seems the majority of them are too busy jacking off to do anything really interesting. Welcome to the future, hand towels are in the line on the left, lube on the right.

Re:Uhhh, What??

[AKAImBatman]

1) What's "The Happening"?

Click on the link.

2) What's "Second Life"?

Click on the link.

3) What's "The Electric Sheep Company"?

Click on the link. (I suppose they should get brownie points for the Blade Runner/"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" reference.)

4) How are they developing Stephenson's "Metaverse"?

See the link to Second Life for more info.

5) What's "R&B Coffee"?

Damn good question.

6) What's a "Mixed Reality Party"

RTFSummary.

Wait a minute

[turbopunk]

If they're projecting avatars for SL into a real life place, does that mean we can finally arrest the avatars for indecent exposure?

I want to kill my boss...

[rehtonAesoohC]

As long as they don't attempt to turn this into the scene from Minority Report, when the tech/hologram guy is showing off the "good clean fun," it's harmless.

wow just wow

[SydBarrett]

Thank you internet for making it possible for me to go to a coffee shop and talk to a projected image. I might as well stay home, get drunk and yell at the tv during a Cheers re-run.

Re:Snowcrash

[Red Flayer]

"Soon we'll be living in U-stor-its."

I live in California on $80,000 a year[1], where do you think I live, you insensitive clod?

Seriously, though, people do live in storage facilities. It's not legal, but it's the only option other than homelessness for some people.

[1] Not really. No one can afford to live in CA on $80k a year, even in a U-Stor-It.

Oblig. Futurama Quote

[Kadin2048]

Fry: "Do refrigerators still come in boxes in the future?"
Bender: "Yeah, but the rent is atrocious."

Re:maybe so

[e2d2]

Maybe so, but your kids will love it.

And I will beat them for it.