Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Sansar Social Virtual Reality Platform In 2017?
You may recall the early virtual world experiment Second Life (see Second Life - Your Virtual World Is Ready Now) which had up to a half-million members a decade ago.
Now, Linden Labs is bringing out Sansar, which promises to "allows you to create, share, and monetize your own social VR experiences".
(Sansar VR world)
Several weeks ago, I headed to the Linden Lab offices in San Francisco to get a demo and hear about the ways Sansar is taking a new approach.When I arrived, Altberg brought me to a room with an Oculus Rift and Sansar fired up on a computer. The first virtual space we entered was a breezy outdoor basketball court in a sunny beach location. The visuals were crisp, and off to the side, music was coming from a boom box. There were also some virtual basketballs lying on the court, and I was pleased to find that I could bounce and throw them using my touch controllers.
When Altberg headed down the hall to settle into his own Rift, a pudgy devil mascot with his voice coming from it suddenly spawned next to me. The first thing I noticed was that his character’s lips moved in the way I’d expect them to if he were speaking in real life. Sansar uses a facial animation technology that syncs an avatar’s lip movement with the user’s actual speech in real time, something I had not seen in other social VR platforms and which added realism.
We spent a few minutes tossing the basketballs and wandering the space. Within moments, I felt immersed in the experience, like I was actually hanging out with someone at a basketball court.
“This whole thing was created by one of my team—a guy who’s not a 3D modeler or programmer,” Altberg tells me. I later learned that Sansar’s VP of Product, Bjorn Laurin, created the entire space with his six-year-old son in a single afternoon simply by dropping assets from the Sansar store into the scene.
And this—at the core—is the focus of Sansar: making it as easy as possible for anyone who wants to design, build, publish, share, and experience a virtual world.
Science fiction writers have been fascinated by the idea of virtual worlds; arguably, the first science fictional example is portal from Vernor Vinge's 1981 story True Names.
Virtual world aficionados will also want to check the references for cyberspace, by William Gibson, the virtual matrix from The Judas Mandala (1982) by Damien Broderick, the virtual reality video game from The Age of The Pussyfoot (1966) by Frederik Pohl and the Saga simulation from Arthur C. Clarke's 1956 novel The City and the Stars.
Read more about Second Life:
- Paralyzed Walk In Second Life
- Japanese Researchers Jack Halfway Into The Matrix
- Second Life Now Has Reporters, Taxes
- Avatars To Walk Between Virtual Worlds
- The Church of Elvis.
Via Sansar (not much to see here) and SingularityHub.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 7/16/2017)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Communication ")
Birds Learn To Sing Pictures ala Frank Herbert's Distrans
'We will fight in the time of fighting.' - Frank Herbert, 1965.
Polish Turns Your Nail Into A Stylus
'He wrote on it, using the pointed fingernail of his right forefinger...' - Cordwainer Smith, 1950.
Huawei Pura X Folding Phattie Phone
Why can't we get more innovative phone configurations?
Positioned Cybertrucks With Free Starlinks WiFi In LA
'Several thousand of them formed the positioning grid on the rubble pile.' Vernor Vinge, 1999.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Prairie Madness - And Space Sickness
'Space-sickness is one of the most unpleasant sensations that a human being can experience. Not all are subject to it...'
Can Stratospheric Aerosol Injection Control The Weather?
'...I saw a nice black heavy-looking cloud sailing by just now, and I can get the electrical machine out in five minutes to draw it down.'
SETI Suggests Prospecting The Solar System Without Landing
'From a distance it could resolve the cosmic rays reflected from various substances.'
Wolfram Alpha Mathematica Predicted by Science Fiction in 1948!
'The answer to the dumb student's prayer.'
Cislunar Space And The Space Lanes of Golden Age Science Fiction
'He had travelled the space-lanes of the solar system for the greater part of his life...'
NASA Moonbase Update
'The dinner was excellent. It was completely vegetarian — grown in specially prepared gardens in this Moon base...'
Neuralink Will Allow Humans To Communicate With ... Animals?
'Telepaths had their sensitiveness enlarged to an immense range by the pin-sets, which were telepathic amplifiers adapted to the mammal mind.'
Special Lights For Driverless Cars!
'That light is actually the Anamorphic Equalizer...'
'Old People Began to Cross The Continent In Their Own Cars'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
Harrison Bergeron, Illustrated And Practiced
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
Starfall Manufacturing Drugs In Space
'The vast spinning sphere of Factory in the Sky loomed above and ahead of us, gleaming white against the unfathomable jet depths of surrounding space.'
The Solar Oberth Slingshot
'And if it doesn’t work,' inquired Lazarus, 'what does that make us? Sunspots?'
'Maybe The Woman Of Your Life Is Still Under Production'
'The Dillard people had performed a miracle and put all the works in a girl-modeled case.'
'If Anyone Is Watching Earth...'
'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'
Epirus High-Power Microwave Defeats Drones
'...the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and Then one toppled and fell. Then another.'
Cloud Of Space Rubbish From China's Long March Rocket
'Within seconds the material was spread out over fifty yards, in a matter of hours it might occupy several cubic miles of space...'
