I will be attending the Virtual Worlds Fall Conference and Expo in San Jose on October 10 and 11th. I will actually be in town on the 9th as well, to have extra time to meet with several companies in town. The speaker list looks amazing, and I think it is going to be a great event. Please feel free to drop me a line if you are going to the conference and would like to meet in person. Thanks, Jacob Sullivan (Navillus Batra)

We are happy to announce that we will be involved with Theory Shaw and Keystone Bouchard in the development of their Studio Wikitecture project—an inworld and web-based platform to explore the potential of applying an Open Source paradigm to the design and production of architecture and urban planning. You can read more about the concept here in the manifesto .

We are very excited to be a part of a project that truly embraces the capabilities of 3D collaborative spaces, and pushes the boundaries of what is possible in Second Life. We have quite a few technical innovations in mind to put this concept into practice, and Theory has several interesting things in store for Studio Wikitecture’s first implementation … but I am going to have to leave that for a future post.

Yesterday at the Metaversed First Friday event

we demonstrated the capabilities of the SilverStream Network, and the vHUD in particular, to a group of 70+ avatars! SLCN was also broadcasting live, as well as an Australian news organization, to who know how many more… It was a smashing event, and kudos to Nick for pulling it off again! I must have given out 20 SilverStream Starter Packs and twice that many vHUDs.

At the event we made several important announcements that I would like to talk about here.

First, I would like to talk about two new relationships that we have begun to develop with other companies wishing to be involved with the vHUD. We are very happy to announce that we are working closely with SLCN

as a major content provider for the SilverStream Network. They are rolling out three new specialty live channels, all of which we will be showing on the vHUD. You can find this new content under the Public tab for now, but the newest version of the vHUD will feature a SLCN section of it’s own. We will also be developing a new series of stationary eINDV screens for SLCN, that will be distributed throughout Second Life. I am very excited to work with the team over at SLCN, they have an amazing level of high quality production.

I am also very happy to announce that we have been in talks with SLEXCHANGE,

and will be rolling out a targeted product suggestion program with the newest version of the vHUD. I believe that this is just the beginning, as we have discussed a few bigger plans … but I am going to have to let your imagination run with that one for a bit.

With everything moving so quickly on the content and services front, we are ready to implement a more rapid deployment plan for the SilverStream. In order to encourage landowners throughout Second Life to setup a SilverStream Server, will will now be giving away the following products as a incentive to whomever sets up the first SilverStream Sever in a region we are not currently enabled.

- 3 eINDV Screens, fully functional, an can be completely controlled through SilverStreamNetwork.com
- The multimedia WhiteBoard from our Collaboration Suite
- A copy of the vHUD prototype, the most powerful application of the SilverStream Network

All interested parties should visit our sim i3D for your SilverStream Starter Pack.

We are very happy with the latest progress, and how well received the vHUD has been. Thanks to Fiend Ludwig, and the great article that he posted about us. We will continue to look for content and service partnerships to enhance the vHUD project, and benefit all of it’s users. We currently expect to have the next version of the vHUD ready for wide spread release at the end of this month, but you never know how things will be on the bleeding edge …

Caleb posted a review of the First Friday here.
With links to a video copy of our presentation on blip.tv.

i3D inc. was happy to have the great weekly talk show, Metaversed Live on our new sim SilverStream Park yesterday. The topic was Identity Verification, prompted by Linden Lab rolling out the Age and Identity Verification System in the previous week.

Nick Wilson (57 Miles in Second Life) was kind enough to ask me to be in on the panel discussion this week, so I did have an opportunity to share my opinion … but I think some clarification might be helpful.

I am very strongly in favor of open systems like the existing Internet, where people (and avatars) can follow their dreams where ever it might take them. I am strongly against mandatory anything, unless it is specifically required legally or technologically vital to the normal operation of the system in question. Having said that, I think the option of verifying age and identity is invaluable to business, financial, and serious collaboration in the virtual worlds. If you want to live your virtual existences as a furry, never mixing the your first and second lives … I think that is great. I also think that the option of verification does not interfere with that dream.

Virtual Worlds are developing quickly, and there is certainly a sense of controlled chaos in this industry right now. I do think mistakes will be made by all the players involved, and history might even show that the timing and choice of implementation at this juncture was one of those mistakes. However, I can’t shake my optimism that the rapid advancements we are making in all aspects of the metaverse are wildly encouraging. The heated discussion of these issues, and the progressing lawsuits, are opportunities to clarify and define what type of world tomorrow will be … and it looks like it will be a rather cool place.

Davee Commerce let me know that it is now alright to talk about a project, now it was announced at SLCC, that we have been helping him with … Second Health.

As detailed from their website, Working in conjunction with the UK’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL), Imperial College London (ICL) has created a virtual hospital in the 3D virtual world of Second Life and a series of ‘machinima’ documentary films that describe what healthcare of the future could look like.

Davee and his team had put together a significant amount of video and machinima for use in this build, and came to us to see if the SilverStream Network could meet those media delivery needs. I am happy to say that the system is performing beautifully, you should be sure to check it out - Second Health Hospital

We have been working for more then a year on a host of interactive media products, many of which I have blogged about here. Today I want to tell you about our latest endeavor, the vHUD, which is currently in pre-beta development. As you may know, we use our SilverStream Network to connect our applications to data and media outside of Second Life. We have developed methods to display images, video, and formatted text in mixed media environments. We can show multiple streams to the same avatar simultaneously, or show different feeds to different avatars on the same parcel.

We have taken the best from all of our previous applications to create the vHUD. Worn on your screen, we can beam media directly to you in any sim enabled with the SilverStream Network. As a proof of concept, we have setup dynamically created lists of available content that are separated into categories.

Tutorials - A list of machinima tutorials of or various products.
Products - Machinima commercials created and hosted by AWM Mars.
Public - Video feeds from in world broadcasters such as SLCN and Metaverse.TV, as well as RSS feeds of Metaversed and Reuters.
Flickr - A Flickr application that allows you to search for photos based on tags or user name.
Region - A short list of regions currently supporting the beta network, with teleport links for convenience.

Now the vHUD is not without its’ challenges. Using the video stream can be interesting with parcel boundaries automatically reseting the feed. Although our other media products on the SilverStream Network are designed to operate together in harmony, not all media equipment is made by us. And then there is the occasional parcel with all scripts turned off anyway … You get the idea.

We have put together a series of low rez videos covering some current operations of the vHUD.

I can imagine amazing potential for this product. You could deliver content … RSS news feeds, product videos, BlogHUD reviews … relevant to the locations that you were visiting in Second Life. Or tutorials not limited to textures, that helped you get oriented or learn a new building technique. Or simply stream individual music or entertainment videos while you work. My business partner and I watched SL Hockey for the first time today, while we finished up a build on our new island i3D. I have never watched SL sports before, but it was on SLCN, and the HUD followed me where ever I looked.

Our goal is not now, or ever has been, to convince people to log into Second Life to watch a video or surf the web. Our products are about enhancing the 3D environment by connecting users to mixed media content. Text did not die when video came to the web, and old media has its place in the new world as well.

At this stage we are looking to partner with content and service providers in Second Life. We have developed an API that will allow other companies and individuals to access the resources of the SilverStream Network for their own applications, we are interested in content providers who want their media to be available on our vHUD, and we are interested in hearing if we can develop specialized HUDs for use on private sims. Imagine the possibilities …

I first met AWM Mars almost a year ago, after we had released our initial version of the Split Stream. Mars was already well on his way to becoming the leading provider of machinima style advertising in Second Life, with his company WBA-Advertising out of Great Britain. For several months we collaborated on technology, sending him alpha versions of our latest media screens, and he worked with us until they were good enough for even his advertising accounts. Until they were good enough for him to shelve media systems that he had paid good lindens to have custom built, and begin selling only our Screens through his EML brand.

Mars bought the first working copies of the Proximity Server System, and as the system continued to evolve … the first List Prox … the first INDV … the first eINDV … you get the picture. Since we rolled out our new Metrics system, and Mars began upgrading his advertising clients, we have recorded some great numbers. The units we have sold his companies in total are serving an average of 320 avatars a day, and some 7,000 streaming urls in that first weekend alone.

Now, as the SilverStream Network is in the final stages of development before widespread deployment, it felt right to cement the business relationship between i3D and AWM Mars and his group of companies. So we have put into motion several mutually beneficial contractual agreements.

Mars will continue to distribute the latest and greatest i3D media systems through EML as an authorized reseller, and will now also work with us to develop new clients for our custom application development in Europe and Great Britain particularly. Most importantly, Mars has agreed to be the first member of a new Steering Committee for the SilverStream Network, to help collaborate with us in this next phase of development. We have some great things coming up at the end of this month, and with the help of people like Mars you are sure to love what we have in store for you.

We are opening a new SIM in Second Life, a little place we call i3D. Although the island is still under heavy construction, we feel that since we will always seek to improve every project, we might as well invite you in to see the process in action. We have put out demonstrations and additional information for all of our major products.

We have set aside a large portion of the island to develop as a Business Park for companies looking to explore the potential of the 3D Internet for serious business. All residents of the park will have full access to current and upcoming business and media applications from i3D; Cahoots collaboration suite, eINDV media systems, as well as our selection of developer tools.

Please come by and check it out. i3D

On Friday we presented a demonstration of the new LSL Test Harness, that we have produced for Linden Labs, at the first “First Friday“. The demo was a smashing success, and well received all around. First Friday is the newest evolution of the Geek Meets and a great opportunity to show off, and see, up and coming technology.

If you are interested in participating in a Beta Trial of the new Test Harness, please email team@i3dnow.com for more information.

UPDATE: Metaversed has posted the audio from the demo.

We had an opportunity to speak with Steven Nelson of Clear Ink yesterday. He has been testing our Collaboration Suite over the past couple of weeks, and actually managed to use his Mac experience to track down a XML bug in the BlackBoard that was only affecting Mac users. Thanks Steve! He has asked us to participate more closely with Clear Ink in a longer term evaluation of the Collaboration Suite. We are excited for the chance to see the tools really put to use, and look forward to seeing what feature request are really priorities for serious users in Second Life.