Slashdot Mirror
Google Launches Lively, an Avatar Based 3D World
no.good.at.coding writes "Google has launched a Windows-only, in-browser (you need to install a client first, though) 3D avatar world — Lively — that you can embed in websites and use to interact with other people. It's not as expansive as Second Life yet, but expect things to get better."
Yes, many people are into what you call "make-believe" and what other people call fantasy or fiction. It's inherent to human nature. Novels, movies, games and comics are all 'make-believe': creating a fantasy world. The next logical step is to make such a fantasy world shared between more people. This is what a 'game' like SL or Lively does.
Seems right to me. I get that we, as computer geeks, are supposed to love the idea of having 3D virtual worlds, alternate/virtual reality, etc. But can someone please explain to me what benefits these things actually have? Whenever any of these are announced, it always seems like either (a) there's nothing to do; or (b) they allow you to do anything, but it's pretty complex to do anything interesting, and the world ends up filled with penises.
I can never figure out what you're supposed to do with these things if you're not a pervert.
If more companies built stores in SL and sold real goods through it,
holy crap why? I can buy what I want from a good old 2D website faster than some half assed second life store that is impossible to navigate or get any real info about what I am buying.
Last thing I want is to go to a "virtual" dell store and wander around, I want to find the server, click on the options and click on buy.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
That's such a delusion. People you talk to online are not anything like what you think of them. You're not interacting with a person, you're interacting with your own imagination, seeded with a few select facts or fictions from someone else.
do you think the people you talk with in offline (real) life, are the way they are, the way they talk with you ? how many people you have met in your entire life, that were just as they seemed to be, after you got to know him ?
in 'real' life you subject people to the test of time to know them better. only after some time, you can get to know someone. continuous exposure in a mutual environment eventually makes who they really are to come out.
this rule doesnt change in the real world. if there is someone that believes someone whom s/he knows from online communities for just 1-2 months is the way s/he is, you can easily say that that person is naive.
because same goes for online environments. its infallible. constant mutual online activity with a person eventually makes who they are to come out.
If you really do feel connected to people you meet online, then you're actually not connected to anyone, and you're creating imaginary friends, like someone in a sensory deprivation chamber having lucid dreams.
excuse me, but you already are in a deprivation chamber. everyone is. each conscious mind is a deprivation chamber, and the deprivation is only remedied by the extent of usage of sensory organs and interaction with the environment.
by definition, you use the same organs while seeing a bloke and sending voice signals to him on a street corner, and while video chatting with someone on the internet. there is no difference in technical terms.
each interaction produces impulses to your brain through your sensory organs, and invokes certain thoughts and emotions. and those thoughts and emotions are real. they do not differentiate between laughing to a joke told in a pub or a joke told online.
again, time is the only defining factor for personality of any person. nothing else. a person you know from 'real' life is no different than any person you know from online, until they persist through the test of time. and time passes in equal pace both online and offline. sometimes even faster online, as there is more interaction in online world due to the ease of use.
Read radical news here