First SL Voice, Now Smell, Touch and Taste?
Thursday, March 05, 2009 | 
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Ari Blackthorne™
In the days of my childhood and current real life hero John Henry "Doc" Holliday (oh, and those other guys...Wyatt Earp and brothers) - they simply couldn't have even imagined the Internet, what it is and what it does.In the same vein, neither can even we imagine what it will become in the next 20 or 30 years in terms of what it will become and be able to do for people, both in positive and negative terms.
Think about virtual worlds, including Second Life. For those of us who've been in-world for more than a few years it has changed radically and drastically. Yes, there were a lot of negatives like 'land-bots' snarfing parcels from people who were not alert when transferring land to themselves or a friend for L$1, and not setting it to sell to a specific person. And the SL banking and stock exchange scenes.
There also are those that are arguably a good riddance or sad one, depending on your perspective, such as the casinos that riddle the grid: a good riddance because of the massive lag they caused in any sim one was located in with all the scripts and user agents present - they were a scourge.
But also, they contributed hugely to the in-world economy. The Linden Dollar was trading at an average of L$272 to $1 U.S. In the banishing of casinos, also were wipe clean from the grid were any and all games of chance such as massively popular tringo and it's alternatives. hell, I'm not even sure I remember correctly that that was the original name of that game.
Is second life better? In some respects technologically, yes. Experience with regard to 'things to do'... I don't think so. It's become boring with regard to any activities available. The economy has fallen flat long before the real world economy, and now the real world financial issues will seep into to serious affect the in-world financial landscape even more than these bans and collapses have.
Some of you were around to remember when Voice was first announced and then introduced. It was a hugely controversial issue for reasons I won;t go into here. A quick search for "voice" in this blog will allow you to see my opinions on that subject are quite clear.
I suspect, somewhere in the back of all our minds, we've figured that in-world Voice abilities — microphone and speakers in order to actually talk to each other vocally — was just the beginning and perhaps even wondered what would be next. Well, researchers already are working hard on that:
[Adding] Touch, Taste and Smell to Virtual Reality: "Virtual reality schemes have long tantalized geeks with unrealized visions of holodecks and long-distance cybersex.
Now, a group of British researchers want to round out the experience with virtual touch, taste and smell. To simulate the real world, they argue, all five of your senses must be stimulated. Toward that end, they've mocked up a 'Virtual Cocoon' with a separate glove that — at least in theory — could tickle your tongue as it, uh, nukes your nose."
I am not a fan of Wired magazine. It's too opinionated as rule for my tastes. However, along with all the painfully direction-leaning commentary comes technology news that is actually interesting to see every once in a while.
I can see a use for these kind of technologies in World of Warcraft or that 'Heros" MMORPG and several others. Though I'm not sure what kind of purpose it could really serve in a place like SL — other than corporate use like those rocket scientists who use the grid for prototyping and experimenting and things.
So, five or ten years from now, if Second Life still exists in any semblance of what it is now, how controversial will these new features be, I wonder?
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