{"id":3903,"date":"2014-04-24T19:29:22","date_gmt":"2014-04-24T18:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/?p=3903"},"modified":"2014-04-24T19:29:22","modified_gmt":"2014-04-24T18:29:22","slug":"new-scientist-visits-high-fidelity-and-feels-a-great-social-presence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/?p=3903","title":{"rendered":"New Scientist Visits High Fidelity And Feels A Great Social Presence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Samantha Murphy of New Scientist Magazine has had an early look at High Fidelity and appears to be very enthusiastic about it, without actually going into a lot of details, the article\u00a0Second Life 2.0: Virtual world recreates the real you<\/a> is a little out of date in some regards, for example Samantha writes :<\/p>\n

It’s easy to forget that Second Life, a free-roaming virtual world, was a big deal when it launched in 2003. Users could go anywhere, do anything<\/a>. Reuters even had a dedicated Second Life reporter<\/a> for a while. It still boasts a million active monthly users according to Rod Humble, the CEO of Linden Labs, which owns the game. But despite this it has never really lived up to its promise.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s tempting to pick this apart, Rod Humble these days appears to be a chap in a hat somewhere as we await more news on his latest venture, rather than being CEO of Linden Lab. Oh and yes, it’s Linden Lab, not Linden Labs of course. However these sort of things can be overlooked, the article is more about High Fidelity, rather than Second Life. However it’s fair to say that Samantha Murphy appears to be a virtual world enthusiast and she does mention issues with her Second Life experiences of the past :<\/p>\n

I had a few issues with Second Life. I often conducted interviews<\/a> there, but my painstakingly created avatar would often appear half-naked, with an arm stuck awkwardly above its head or facing a wall. So when Rosedale invited me to be the first to interview him in High Fidelity, I jumped at the chance.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now what is surprising after reading that Samantha had problems with appearing half naked in Second Life is that she reveals that when she goes to High Fidelity to interview Philip Rosedale she isn’t half naked, no, it’s worse than that, she informs us that she has no clothes on! However, there is a perfectly plausible explanation for this, Samantha is in robot form in High Fidelity and therefore doesn’t need to be clothed.<\/p>\n

Samantha soon discovers that her facial expressions are being mimicked by her avatar via use of a webcam. Then Philip arrives, unlike Samantha, Philip is clothed and in human form. Philip’s facial expressions are portrayed on his avatar too, the eyebrows rise, the mouth moves and it goes further, his hands move and point too. This isn’t all done via webcam of course, other pieces of hardware are required such as a\u00a03D camera that uses the same chip as Microsoft’s Kinect and the hand movements are captured by use of a Razer Hydra games controller. High Fidelity’s use of these extra peripherals are signs of a more advanced experience but it’s not going to appeal to everyone.<\/p>\n

However Samantha is impressed by this and so is\u00a0Jeremy Bailenson, director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab.<\/p>\n

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One of the big issues with virtual worlds is latency and Philip believes this is key to empowering virtual worlds. Philip, it should also be added, has some very odd views on telephones and latency with them too, so Philip may be a little bit too enamoured with latency. However whatever it is they’re doing in High Fidelity in terms of latency, it impressed Samantha and Jeremy. Jeremy felt that Second Life’s slow graphics rendering and lack of naturalistic avatar tracking undermined the platform to a degree, although he isn’t quoted directly as saying this. However he feels both issues are being addressed in High Fidelity.<\/p>\n

Latency and the facial expressions create a more social feel according to Samantha. During the interview Samantha claims that it only takes 100ms between Philip doing something and his avatar replicating it on screen at Samantha’s end. Samantha also writes :<\/p>\n

As we face each other, the most obvious difference between Second Life and High Fidelity is immediately apparent. Although it is still in early testing, High Fidelity already has the social presence that was lacking in Second Life.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This had me scratching my head somewhat. A social presence is achieved via interaction, but it seems that the facial recognition, more natural avatar movement and the increased performance in terms of these interactions create a more social experience. Jeremy also touches upon this :<\/p>\n

I used the system to interact with a person in real time and it felt like he was in the room with me<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That sort of performance could improve social presence but I still believe there’s more to it than that, however it’s a start and a quite impressive one, although High Fidelity is still in the alpha stage and according to the interview is unlikely to be released into the wild for another year or so.<\/p>\n

Comparisons between High Fidelity and Second Life are in many ways unfair, they are different beasts. The social side will be important because, as I’ve stated many times before, in terms of virtual worlds Second Life is where it’s at. High Fidelity may be able to create a more rich social experience but the real social experience is created by volume.<\/p>\n

High Fidelity is certainly making plenty of the right type of noise and has some fascinating technological concepts going for it. Interesting times indeed for virtual worlds, but Second Life still has plenty of life left in it, half naked avatars included!<\/p>\n

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