Slashdot Log In
Google Launches Lively, an Avatar Based 3D World
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Jul 09, 2008 07:38 AM
from the get-a-first-life dept.
from the get-a-first-life dept.
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."
Related Stories
[+]
Games: Could Google Become a Game Publisher? 85 comments
Forbes is running a story examining the possibility of Google becoming a games publisher. The launch of their Google Lively 3D world and the acquisition of in-game advertiser AdScape has analysts speculating on whether Google will use its enormous reach to tap into the lucrative games market.
"Google also has several existing technologies that could be used to create games. Imagine a flight simulator that uses Google Earth as a backdrop or tracking a spy in a major city via Google Maps' street view. While there would still be significant work required to create a game using these tools, the underlying technology is already fundamentally finished."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
The Shark... (Score:5, Insightful)
What's next, a program to install animated smileys to your Outlook e-mails?
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Funny)
I for one can't wait for google to replace their homepage search bar with a friendly, brightly colored, animated search assistant avatar. It'll be the next revolution in user interfaces!
Parent
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Ok, honestly... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:Ok, honestly... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's something else. There is something that makes certain people hate things that other people love if the first group sees the love as unreasonable.
I've seen groups of people with an unfounded hate for iPhones, VWs, Google, cell phones, text messaging, social websites, instant messaging, ...
So honestly, I think there is just a blind reactionary backlash when some people don't understand why a product, service, company or concept has "Fanboys".
I try to avoid both sides, but I admit that in the 70's-80's I felt a little irrational hate for VWs now and then (even though I've owned more than one). If you're talking this century I've got a hell of a lot of love for Google, and lately I get a little warm fuzzy for Apple every now and then--but I try to be realistic and criticize them as much as praise (something fanboys seem completely incapable of doing--I think that would be the definition of a "Fanboy", the inability to seriously criticize the target of your infatuation).
Parent
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Funny)
"It seems to me that you are searching for porn"...
My I suggest you the "Kleenex Ultra Smooth" link?
Parent
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Funny)
The term "jump the shark" is so yesterday. The current correct term is "nuking the fridge".
Parent
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems right to me. I get that we, as computer geeks, are supposed to love the idea of having 3D virtual worlds, alternate/virtual reality, etc. But can someone please explain to me what benefits these things actually have? Whenever any of these are announced, it always seems like either (a) there's nothing to do; or (b) they allow you to do anything, but it's pretty complex to do anything interesting, and the world ends up filled with penises.
I can never figure out what you're supposed to do with these things if you're not a pervert.
Parent
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree with the social site disappointment.
I use a 3D site (expo3d.com) to hold conferences with customers on product updates and use the 3D feature to really demonstrate what I'm saying, holding up objects, pointing at on the object with my avatar and can use my voice to offer more commentary than texting could accomplish. Texting is sooo 1990's. Use your voice. It really helps.
In my business, some customer updates are mandatory. We used to fly people in and out for the update meetings but now we can, for the smaller updates, use this software and in 15 minutes be done. We still all meet face to face a couple of times a year but it's not a monthly obligation.
We've had 100-200 customers routinely join us for our updates. We place our own teams in the audience to answer questions one-on-one via text or voice. We circulate documents. We post advertisements. And the customers love it.
So I've found a way to save money using this type of application with no perverts or gambling.
Parent
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Real sharing (Score:5, Informative)
If there is an active open source project working on virtual worlds, we'd like to know, too.
You mean like this [opensimulator.org]?
Parent
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well on a 2D webpage, your ad-space is limited... especially in the confines of a chat room.
Now a 3D window, you can fit many many more ads.
Parent
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Insightful)
I see no reason why a "geek" should prefer a 3D interface. If anything, anyone but geeks would.
The best thing about a (well made) 3D interface is that it's intuitive. Now, no real geek would really need that. If anyone, Joe Average needs it. Anyone here who really needs KDE? Or would you be doing just fine with CLI? See? You know the commands, the mnemoics, you could bring a NIC up with ifconfig, couldn't you? Joe Average can't. He needs the clickable interface.
Hell, there's a good chance that it takes someone with knowledge longer to point and click rather than use the keyboard. There is a reason why pretty much every program has a way of accessing their command menues through ctrl- and alt- commands, and not only by point-and-click.
So if anyone, it's non-geeks that will be the first to jump the fancy 3D interfaces when they become popular (and when someone figures out an input device that's affordable and useable).
Parent
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Informative)
You know, it's much easier to call it an apathetic sausage fest... Wait, you meant literally?! Eeeewww.... I knew I liked the real world better.
FYI, the real world is full of dicks too.
Parent
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but we put them all in Washington D.C. so I can avoid them
Parent
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Funny)
Are you nuts? With all the lobbyist assholes running free there, you have a faint idea what this could lead to?
Parent
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Informative)
As far as I'm concerned they just did. When you install this, it installs a Windows *service* called Google Updater... set for automatic, running all the time, even when the "game" isn't running. I *DESPISE* that.
This is #1 on my "hate" list for apps. Followed closely be "calling home without asking", "not asking what directory to install to", and "installing widgets in the system tray".
Parent
GogMMOG (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:GogMMOG (Score:5, Funny)
World of Pagerank?
Parent
Nuts (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Nuts (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, many people are into what you call "make-believe" and what other people call fantasy or fiction. It's inherent to human nature. Novels, movies, games and comics are all 'make-believe': creating a fantasy world. The next logical step is to make such a fantasy world shared between more people. This is what a 'game' like SL or Lively does.
Parent
Re:Nuts (Score:4, Funny)
On the contrary. I'm very much looking forward to a big hug from an animated Wang.
Parent
Re:Nuts (Score:5, Funny)
I think something is wrong with my lively account.
The first time I logged in, some funny looking feller who looked like Colonel Sanders greeted me, "Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the google. You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains a burden to sedulously avoid it, it is not unexpected, and thus not beyond a measure of control. Which has led you, inexorably, here."
So, I punched him in the hoohaw with my Papa Smurf avatar and quickly logged off. Is thing still beta?
Parent
Re:Nuts (Score:5, Funny)
Do not try to comprehend the idea of a Google 20% application leaving Beta. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth: there is no Beta.
Parent
If we rephrase it (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:If we rephrase it (Score:5, Insightful)
That's such a delusion. People you talk to online are not anything like what you think of them. You're not interacting with a person, you're interacting with your own imagination, seeded with a few select facts or fictions from someone else.
do you think the people you talk with in offline (real) life, are the way they are, the way they talk with you ? how many people you have met in your entire life, that were just as they seemed to be, after you got to know him ?
in 'real' life you subject people to the test of time to know them better. only after some time, you can get to know someone. continuous exposure in a mutual environment eventually makes who they really are to come out.
this rule doesnt change in the real world. if there is someone that believes someone whom s/he knows from online communities for just 1-2 months is the way s/he is, you can easily say that that person is naive.
because same goes for online environments. its infallible. constant mutual online activity with a person eventually makes who they are to come out.
If you really do feel connected to people you meet online, then you're actually not connected to anyone, and you're creating imaginary friends, like someone in a sensory deprivation chamber having lucid dreams.
excuse me, but you already are in a deprivation chamber. everyone is. each conscious mind is a deprivation chamber, and the deprivation is only remedied by the extent of usage of sensory organs and interaction with the environment.
by definition, you use the same organs while seeing a bloke and sending voice signals to him on a street corner, and while video chatting with someone on the internet. there is no difference in technical terms.
each interaction produces impulses to your brain through your sensory organs, and invokes certain thoughts and emotions. and those thoughts and emotions are real. they do not differentiate between laughing to a joke told in a pub or a joke told online.
again, time is the only defining factor for personality of any person. nothing else. a person you know from 'real' life is no different than any person you know from online, until they persist through the test of time. and time passes in equal pace both online and offline. sometimes even faster online, as there is more interaction in online world due to the ease of use.
Parent
Re:Nuts (Score:4, Funny)
No, I'm really 6'4", ripped with an 18" cock and squirrel ears.
Parent
obXKCD (Score:4, Funny)
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! [xkcd.com]
Parent
Re:Nuts (Score:5, Funny)
"I mean, it is kind-of like chatroom v. 2.0 or something along those lines. But when it gets to be where you spend more time living in an imaginary dreamworld, then it's time to seek help."
Yeah, I hear there's a chatroom just for that.
Parent
Re:Nuts (Score:5, Funny)
In this space, there are professional-looking avatars...
do they have sticks up their asses?
... and things to pick up and examine.
sticks? to put up their asses?
Parent
Nice (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Nice (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Nice (Score:5, Insightful)
If more companies built stores in SL and sold real goods through it,
holy crap why? I can buy what I want from a good old 2D website faster than some half assed second life store that is impossible to navigate or get any real info about what I am buying.
Last thing I want is to go to a "virtual" dell store and wander around, I want to find the server, click on the options and click on buy.
Parent
Re:Nice (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Nice (Score:5, Interesting)
the interesting parts of second life are the virtual economy, the ability to build and script complex objects, the ability to buy 'land'.
The only interesting one of these is the scripting.
The rest is just side effects of using centralized servers. 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.
Parent
Second life is somebody's walled playground.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Parent
I had to tag this 'wtf', it's so unlike them (Score:5, Informative)
It even makes use of Facebook accounts [lively.com].
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.
"Review" on Ars Technica (Score:5, Informative)
expect things to get better? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
The irony (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
ELVES!!! (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:ELVES!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
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? [...]
Fail.
Because elves are hot.
Parent
Expect things to get better... (Score:5, Insightful)
... 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.
Re:Does it scale? (Score:5, Insightful)
According to their track record, Google scaled reasonably well.
Parent
Re:Does it scale? (Score:4, Interesting)
"According to their track record, Google scaled reasonably well."
You mean google search. Orkut, for example, ran on 5 NT servers when it first came out and didn't exactly have the same subsecond response time that search did.
Parent
Re:No use (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:No use (Score:4, Funny)
Well log on to second life and make one.
Parent
Re:1992 called: They want their Internet fad back (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:Requires Winblows (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Parent