Strangers In A Strange Land: IBM

1
Strangers In A Strange LandIBMs Exploration of
Virtual Worlds
Craig Becker / Jessica Qinjlpicard_at_us.ibm.com2
April 2009
2
In The Beginning

• Technology Team study on Simulation and Gaming
  (C. Becker, D. Boloker, C. Sharp)
• Presented to IBM CEO and Board July 2005
• Technology Team study on Digital Convergence (C.
  Becker, N. Katz, others)
• Presented early 2006
• Lineage (NCSoft) 2M
• (Jan 2005) source http//mmogchart.com
• Lineage II (NCSoft) 2M
• (Jan 2005) source http//mmogchart.com
• World Of Warcraft (Blizzard) 2M
• http//www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?st
  ory5696

3
Quick Shard Architecture Overview
Quick and easy scalability just add more
shards! No communication between shards
4
Quick SL Overview

• SecondLife Grid Architecture
• The World Is Flat (and composed of a very large
  grid of processors)
• Assets are stored on one or more Asset Servers
• Good for user-created content
• Scaling issues as grid / number of users grows

5
And then

• May 1, 2006

6
The IBM Virtual Worlds EBO

• 3Q 2006
• EBO Emerging Business Opportunity
• Under direction of Dr. Colin Parris
• IBM Research
• Initial 12 sim public IBM facility in SecondLife
• 6000 IBMers created SL Avatars
• World Agnostic ActiveWorlds, SecondLife,
  OpenSim, etc
• The Experimental Years

7
IBMLand

• Aka The Big Twelve

8
IBMLand (2)

• 3 large (200 person) theatres and numerous small
  builds

9
Experiments Circuit City / Sears

• Its just like the WWW back in 1996!

no, it isnt
10
Experiments Content Creation

• Manpower Corp and others

11
Experiments Meetings and Conferences

• Used for a variety of meetings from small to
  large
• No voice
• No Confidential material

12
Experiments Visualization

• Rhodopsin Molecule
• Virtual Data Center
• Complex Systems

Also Architectural modeling / machinima
13
Academy of Technology Conference

• Work started January 2008
• Hybrid SecondLife grid complete September 2008
• Content creation September-November 2008
• Conference November 2008
• (followed 3 weeks later by a second conference)
• Timing
• Economic slowdown no travel budget
  large interest in virtual meetings

14
AoT Overview

• Private SecondLife hybrid Grid Architecture
• Aka AoTland or the AoT Islands
• 30 current requests to use facilities from misc
  IBM organizations
• Successful! ?
• The World Is Still Flat etc
• Private Asset Server, Voice server, and land grid
  hosted behind IBM firewall
• Avatars can move between public SL grid and
  private hybrid SL grid
• Secure environment
• Only IBMers can access
• Private content cannot leave private hybrid SL
  grid
• Secure Vivox spatialized VOIP
• Still connected to LL / public SL grid
• External content can be transferred in

15
AoTLand

• 16 SecondLife regions, all behind the IBM
  firewall

16
(No Transcript)
17
(No Transcript)
18
(No Transcript)
19
(No Transcript)
20
(No Transcript)
21
(No Transcript)
22
(No Transcript)
23
(No Transcript)
24
(No Transcript)
25
(No Transcript)
26
(No Transcript)
27
(No Transcript)
28
John Kelly III 2009 Research Kickoff

• 4 Feb 2009
• Two Sessions
• Americas Yorktown, Hawthorne, Cambridge, Austin,
  Zurich Haifa
• Asia-Pacific Yorktown, Almaden, Beijing,
  Shanghai, Tokyo, New Delhi Bangalore
• Broadcast via SecondLife

29
Quick Nebraska Overview

• SecondLife Grid in a box
• Modified SL environment
• Totally disconnected from public SL grid
• Allows use of peoples real names (instead of
  funny AV names)
• Linden Labs first attempt at an information
  appliance
• Composed of three physical servers
• SecondLife server box - SecondLife environment
• Vivox server box - 3D Spatialized VOIP services
• Immersive Workspace (IWS) server box - Stores /
  streams media (audio, video, PPT, etc)
• IBM working with Linden Lab to Enterprise-enable
  Nebraska

30
Nebraska
31
Lessons Learned

• Stay technology-agnostic
• Dont let the tail wag the dog
• There is still no one perfect technology for all
  needs
• (and the technology has a way to go)
• For public facilities Staff your build!
• People act differently when doing business
• Voice is a must-have
• Real-life names
• Real-life AVs (if possible)
• Reputation
• Realism is not as important as Immersiveness

32
What is the Killer App?

• We still dont really know ?
• Meetings and Conferences
• No travel costs
• Allows networking
• Seems silly for just PPT
• Education
• Training
• Machinima?
• Collaborative Design?
• Medical Collaboration?
• Complex Systems?

33
This page intentionally left blank