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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."
What's next, a program to install animated smileys to your Outlook e-mails?
Random rants about technology: http://technorants.blogspot.com
Can people interact as themselves rather than cartoon characters? Are there that many people into dolls and make-believe or are there too many people who are too depressed just being themselves? Then they don't need avatars, they need help.
You can't handle the truth.
A competitor to second life, finally. Maybe this will expand awareness of SL and drive demand in virtual world development. I hope Google pushes this hard.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
The number one mistake of any new MMO service is the failure to be MMO. Does it scale? Will it work when even 1% of the US broadband users are trying it out? Will it work when every visitor has added a hundred ginormous phallic temples to every acre of land? Will it work when ten thousand of your closest "friends" attend your online bar-mitzvah?
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It even makes use of Facebook accounts.
And Vista/XP only, while still being browser based.
Also, it's not really a Second Life competitor since you can't create stuff, part of what makes SL unique. It's more like just chat rooms.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I'll save you the trouble of asking and go ahead and get off your lawn.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Ars Technica has posted a hands on: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080708-hands-on-googles-lively-social-3d-world-is-20-percent-done.html
expect things to get better.
Like running on multiple platforms? Having a userbase that isn't all newbs checking it out for a couple minutes? Having suggestions on what to _do_ with it that can benefit meatspace unlike other 3d worlds?
"Requires Windows Vista/XP with Internet Explorer or Firefox
By using Lively you agree to these Terms"
Didn't click on the link, didja?
Bearded Dragon
I distinctly remember applications like this back in the 1998/1999 timeframe where you could install a client-side app and interact through avatars with others visiting the same web site. It was only 2D and I don't think it was ever widely used. It was supposed to be an extension of the chat rooms that were so popular back then...
ÕÕ
A bare island. Whoda thunk it?
Ah, WinBlows... a clever strike at their evil greedy hearts! Surely it will take months for them to recover from that blow. You might be interested to know the title of my woefully unpublished "Star Trek" novella, "Gates of Borg". From my parents' home in Reykjavík, I stab at thee!!! http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/7/22/
we can easily say "apparently there are enough people who are sensitive enough to be able to empathize even through a virtual avatar in an online world".
the way i see it, many of the people who label the online world as 'virtual' are rather emotionally challenged people. there is nothing 'virtual' in the online world. there is a person behind that avatar, just like you. s/he can make you laugh, make you angry, sad, engage in heated up philosophical conversation, or do stuff together. stuff done with other people in an online environment is no less valuable than stuff done in an offline environment. you can go get drunk in a local pub while talking or you can get drunk in front of the computer talking with same people the same stuff. there is no difference other than physical proximity.
if you NEED physical proximity to be able to feel connected with people, then i'd say that thats a sign of 'emotionally challengedness' in the form of weak empathy capability.
Read radical news here
I don't give a shit anymore. I'm glad that somebody was interested enough to do this, and that other people find it interesting, but I will be staying away. My workplace, which fancies itself as hip and smart, will probably make this mandatory, like they have with Facebook, which will simply be another pointless drain on my otherwise interesting day. Bah humbug!
I just took a look at the demo (And since I"m a Gentoo user, can't install the plugin) and why the hell does every female avatar in there look like a damn elf? I mean I don't know of any girl alive who has eyes like that. Do the guys at google masturbate to Bratz dolls or something? That's ridiculous.
Pax Vobiscum
What does this have that SL or any other project from 1992 didn't? It has a company with billions in cash and an army of nerds with 10% of their free time to do whatever they want.
Even as a side project, this probably has more resources than the company doing SL.
Oops, I forgot I'm still using Windows 2000 at work.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Well log on to second life and make one.
Can people interact as themselves rather than cartoon characters? Are there that many people into dolls and make-believe or are there too many people who are too depressed just being themselves? Then they don't need avatars, they need help.
And that XBox of yours isn't a real musical instrument, either. Stop having fun!
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
It has a company with billions in cash and an army of nerds with 10% of their free time to do whatever they want.
1, it's 80/20, as in 20% of their time is supposed to be used for free exploration.
2, I've talked to some Googlers who say it's more like 100/20, as in you have a huge workload so if you want to stay after hours and do your 20% you can go right ahead, but only about 1% of engineers can be bothered to do so. Especially since Google owns your bright idea once you come up with it.
I quite enjoy virtual worlds with a subject (MMORPGs, online shooters), if only for a while. However, things like Second Life are too open-ended for any real 'game' to take place. As for aiding in communication, virtual worlds don't even do that to any appreciable extent; it's all just text with a 3D avatar that doesn't do anything to convey tone any better than an emoticon would. About the only use of a 3D avatar is to show facial expressions, which no current MMO does.
In short: :(
I just read Slashdot for the articles.
Thanks for being that guy who brings up the "don't be evil" motto in every Google-related story. Ars Technica mentions that Mac and Linux versions are on the way. Or are you insinuating that supporting Windows at all makes one evil?
We've all tired of posts with no redeeming qualities beyond bashing Microsoft, particularly in those cases where they haven't actually done anything.
Google, Microsoft's main competitor at the moment for those keeping track, released a tool to do something of dubious value to much of the Slashdot community. They have opted to release the tool on Windows first, probably because it has a larger install base than all competitors combined, but have stated there will be Mac and Linux versions "real soon now". Precisely which part of this story involves Microsoft doing something that could or should be criticized?
I'm all about making fun of Microsoft when they do something stupid, and Dog knows it happens plenty, but sadly they've done nothing mockworthy in this story.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
If Google launches an MMO, I am *so* out of here.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Well, I'm sorry that I didn't read the ars technica link posted at 1:54 before making my post at 1:52, but the question remains, why isn't this cross-platform to start with? I can't see anything there that isn't already available in Java games, so why does this need a plug-in, and why is it platform specific?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
We already heard about this:
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/25/1437249
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070924-google-testing-my-world-for-launch-later-this-year.html
To us, it seems that a virtual world is natural progression of Google Earth and its 3D representations of... well, the Earth. Users could create avatars, like those in Second Life. The "street view" feature of Google Maps could be incorporated, as well as Google SketchUp, with avatars being able to walk around on actual streets and enter real buildings to check out what's inside and socialize with other avatars.
Twinverse - Our Planet is a Virtual World
http://twinverse.com/
I am not interested in any virtual 3d world that isn't decentralized, meaning that anyone can set up their own server with their own rules, with the ability to easily and seemlessly travel between servers. Something like a 3d version of the www.
I second that 100%. A 3D-equivalent of the WWW would perhaps have many advantages (as usual, it is hard to imagine how we would really use it), but it needs to be as open as the WWW to be of any real use. So there needs to be an interoperable standard for avatars, and a standard protocol for your "browser" to interact with any 3d server. Why would I, as a company, invest in an online store inside second life, which is an environment over which I have 0 control, where some other company has the power to print money?
Real human conversation contains lots of emotional cues such as intonation, facial expression, and guestures. Text loses most of this, save for CAPS, obscenities and emoticons. The result is people will say things in text messages they'd NEVER say face to face (unless extremely chemically uninhibited). Avatars are a way to restore this, if done properly.
In that case, since I am not in the habit of arguing with myself, I see no need to rebut the obvious fallacies of your argument — or perhaps you meant something else by "not interacting with a person, you're interacting with your own imagination"?
Do you like Japanese imports?
If there is an active open source project working on virtual worlds, we'd like to know, too.
You mean like this?
The wise follow a damned path, for to know is to be forsaken.
... because right now they're terrible.
I'm honestly surprised; Google's previous beta rollouts have, to my memory, been a lot more functional at first unveiling. This new system is seriously broken... I can't put more than one person in a room (no idea why, as others seem to have no trouble), it's slow, it's limited, and it has serious user interface design issues.
Google will have to move fast if they want to compete in this space. There are, quite frankly, too many options for social interactive chat right now; the only thing Google has going for it in this market is name recognition.
Take care,
Mark
There is a solution...
I know that it's cool now to hate google and all, but I have NEVER seen anything from them that I didn't admire at least somewhat, and for most things I find them unbeatable.
If they came out with gClippy I'd have to give it a try, and I'll give you 3:1 odds that it would be surprisingly useful.
Seems to me it's following their original corporate strategy: To make all things depicted in Snow Crash come to life.
Well, they already made the CIC database (Google Search/Video/Books/etc.), Earth (they even took the name from it), now the Metaverse.
Something tells me though that Google might be able to succeed in that realm where Second Life failed, just because they would seem more willing to integrate it with stuff like Android to get people to build their own apps for it.
Karma: Non-Heinous