Virtual Worlds, Real People

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Virtual Worlds, Real People

• John Lester (Pathfinder Linden)
• Boston Operations Director
• Education/Healthcare Mentoring Program
• Linden Lab

Partners Healthcare Tech Summit May 8,
2008 Boston, MA
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what is Second Life?

• Second Life is a unique online world
• international community, multiuser, persistent
  world
• a platform, not a game
• Linden Lab provides a platform and tools for
  content creation
• Open Source client
• all content created and owned by the residents
• best fictional analogs are Stephensons Metaverse
  from Snow Crash or Vinges Otherverse from
  True Names

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A new approach to world building

• Stream all content via broadband
• Extremely dynamic content
• Apply distributed/grid computing

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As of March 200818,000 CPUs460 square
miles540,000 Residents spending average of 56
h/mEscape, Entertainment, Education, Work,
AdvocacyFree to Access, Fees for Land Ownership
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Demographics

• SL community older and more gender balance than
  typical MMO games
• Gender neutral by hours of use
• Median age of 35

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Building in 3D using geometric primitives
http//tinyurl.com/2bwrtj
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Breathing Life into Objects with Scripting
Any object can be given physical behavior,
interactivity, and can communicate with the
world (e.g., email, HTTPRequest, XML-RPC)
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Property Rights

• In Second Life, residents own their creations
• What does this mean?
• Residents retain their Intellectual Property
  rights to their creations
• Residents may buy and sell L for US
• Residents may license their creations back into
  the real world

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Advanced Atmospheric Rendering
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Voice
Spatialization and Attenuation
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Sculpted Primitives Sculpties
Creating Complex and Organic Shapes
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Shared Spaces based on Reality
Vassar Colleges recreation of the Sistine Chapel
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Shared Spaces based on Reality
Vassar Colleges recreation of the Sistine Chapel
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Shared Spaces based on (intangible) Reality
Collaborating on Molecular Structures Enoyl-ACP
reductase
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Shared Spaces based on (soon to be) Reality
Palomar Medical Center West Hospital (opening in
2011)
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Shared Spaces based on (imaginative) Reality
Sky Dancers Live Music and Dance Performance
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Perceptually Immersive Environments
Full of Real People
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Emotional Bandwidth
( ) P
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Emotional Bandwidth
Use real-world social cues and proxemics,
animations and sounds, and create your visual
identity
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The Challenge of New Media
Bells attempt to sell patent for telephone to
Western UnionWhy would telegraph operators want
to talk to each other?First online
marriage,via telegraph, late 1800sIt took 65
years after the invention of the printing press
for someone to decide that putting page numbers
in books was a good idea.
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We get Mired in Past Frameworks
Phonograph and the Spoken WordThe telephone is
not the telegraphMovies are not playsWhat
does a clinical intervention look like in a
virtual world?What does medical education
look like?
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Thank you for listening

• John Lester (SL Pathfinder Linden)
• http//del.icio.us/secondlife/healthcare
• pathfinder_at_lindenlab.com
• www.pathfinderlinden.com