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Transhumanist Day on Uvvy Island

by Erin on June 21st, 2006

Why was I trying out Second Life last week? And why, you might ask, was I fiddling around trying determinedly to perfect Isaac on a computer that threatening to catch fire? I had the opportunity to attend a seminar series last week, naturally. Sponsored by FutureTAG, the Future Technologies Advisory Group, voice supported by Vivox, and attended by a strange combination of tech, media, and others, the coincidental opening of Uvvy Island and Transhumanist Day was an afternoon event not to be missed.

Me, I was really only there to try out the Vivox software because in my hatred of third party voice programs, it really has been the one that has shone through all the garbage. I had the opportunity to test it out at E3 and talked to some of the Vivox folks in Boston briefly. Clear as a bell. Clearer than my stupid telephone which no matter what channel I put it on goes wild with static if I even approach my laptop with it. So I had seen the software in EvE, but here was a chance to see it, use it and experiment with it in an interactive environment with a purpose. I could ask the presenter questions, chat with fellow conference goers and general just have a much more immersive conference experience.

Unfortunately for me, some conflict between my hardware and Second Life (so I was told) prevented me from actually using the Vivox Connector Client to join in on the chat, but it actually worked out almost for the better, seeing that I got to try out a nifty little trick that allowed Vivox to call me on the phone and add me to the voice chat at the conference. Great for folks who may not have the juice to be able to run some of the applications that come out these days, and there was only a minor reduction in quality that I\’m readily willing to blame on my phone. It really goes to show you how much VoIP software has improved to think that I was complaining about having to listen to a long distance conversation over my scratchy phone.

Anyway, Transhumanist Day. I can\’t say much about the actual speakers, simply because one of them was so incredibly biased as to render his entire presentation useless in my eyes. His focus was more making sly little comments and propagating misrepresentations of scientific terms than presenting and promoting his own view point. I didn\’t appreciate it. What was really interesting was the environment that the seminars took place in. Being new to Second Life, I was amazed to walk into a large hall containing rows of comfortable leather couches. Folks were already wandering about making introductions and checking out the slide presentations (naughty!) that were to be shown by the speakers on a series of massive screens on the hall front wall. These presentations turned out to be uploaded PowerPoint presentations that the presenters could cycle through with a simple click while they were talking, much like a live lecture.

Imagine then, sitting your avatar on a couch amidst the hubbub of a few dozen chattering people, hearing the speaker introduction and zooming in on the presentation screen in order to read the slides. It really was like being at an actual seminar and I didn\’t even have to get out of my pajamas to attend. It was, to my horror, like being in university all over again, which really opened my eyes to the potential of this type of VoIP/persistent world combination to break new ground in the business and educational spheres. Distance education, global business, research gatherings… all of these could be vastly improved and simplified to create a more efficient, effective framework. No more would a neuroscientist have to beg for grant money to be able to attend a conference in Japan, instead they could just continue paying their association fees and have access to peers and information at their fingertips.

It was fantastic.

I was so impressed with the integration of Vivox and Second Life that I asked to speak with Vivox following the conference to get a little more information about where they feel their software is headed, and what kind of impact it could have not just on gaming, but in a more general sense.

Rob Seaver, the CEO of Vivox, was kind enough chat with me about the company, telling me that their goal is to get Vivox into every game imaginable, from MMOs such as EvE and Second Life, to eventual expansions into the FPS genre. I was particularly excited by the latter information and can already vouch for the immense improvement in multiplayer matches and clan management that would be provided from access to Vivox technology in FPS games.

He believes that we’ve only hit the tip of the real time interaction iceberg. The web has been evolving from a static system of posting and reading into a more dynamic arrangement of user-created content. One of the problems however, is that the sort of communication available to support these web applications has quite a bit of catch-up work to do. Vivox, he told me, aims to take communication from something segregated and discrete, to something that is an integrated part of the online experience. While the applicability to gaming is fairly obvious, other areas where it could be deployed include things such as: corporate training, marketing, education, and disaster prepardness training.

While the software is very neat, we all know that neat things are often also very complicated, or very expensive. I asked Rob about both of these factors from a game developer’s standpoint. The answers were somewhat reassuring. He explained that Vivox tries to make the integration of the code snippets necessary to run the software as painless as possible for the developer. When approached by a company who would like to use the application in their game, Vivox will scale up or scale down the amount of developer involvement in the actual process so that busy studios have time to work on their game, not on extra add-ins. For EvE Online for example, he said that the developers had given them a copy of the necessary source code and Vivox had done all of the initial integration work completely separately from the game makers.

Thus far, their experience in Second Life has been promising. In addition to providing the voice communication for the Uvvy Island opening, they’ve also partnered up with a Second Life immersive language learning company called LanguageLab, who use Vivox technology to assist in the teaching of (surprise) languages. No more droning language learning tapes, no more need for in-person tutor sessions, here’s your French class, taught by a real live, real time person, from the comfort of your own home. Wider deployment into Second Life is obviously on the Vivox wish list, and I don’t think there’s any better environment to begin pushing the boundaries of the virtual realm than there.

So how much does this Vivox thingie cost? Well I couldn’t actually get a dollar amount out of their CEO, not because he was shy about revealing price tags, but more because each integration project is designed and priced on a per case basis. Depending on the budget of the client, and exactly how many of the available features they wish to include in their application, Vivox will adjust the final price tag. This allows smaller budget companies to get in on the technology with basic packages, while the big boys can pump up their integration with all the bells and whistles they like. Flexibility of deployment is something that I see as a huge plus for the software, and something that is increasingly necessary in order to meet the needs of a broad client base.

Overall, the Tranhumanist Day presentation (I didn’t get to see the full talks of the two other speakers because of other commitments) was a bit of a bust in terms of the conference material, but an effective demonstration of just how easy and effective alternative learning and presentation methods can be. Thanks to Rob Seaver for taking time out of his busy schedule to talk to me, and thanks to Vivox and their PR team for the invite.

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POSTED IN: Clips and Pics, Demos, FPS, Interviews, MMORPG, News, Second Life