(update: adding new links, correcting the status of the ITEA2 project: this project is no longer a proposed project but an approved one)
The integration of 2D and 3D internet practices, the enhancement of life and work need virtual worlds standards. Without such standards an ernormous amount of time and efforts will be partly lost. There are several procedures to deal with standardization, the key is to have standards, so Dr Yesha Y. Sivan (Metaverse Labs) told us during the second day of the Virtual Worlds London conference.
The flamboyant Dr Yesha presented the Metaverse1 project, a ITEA2 project:
ITEA2 is a industry-driven, pre-competitive R&D program that bring together partners from industry, universities and research institutes in strategic projects.
“The Metaverse1 project will provide: a standardized global framework enabling the interoperability between Virtual worlds (as for example Second Life, World of Warcraft, IMVU, Active Worlds, Google Earth and many others) and the Real world (sensors, actuators, vision and rendering, social and welfare systems, banking, insurance, travel, real estate and many others)”, so the Metaverse1 website explains.
With about 34 companies supporting the the project, there seems to be enough interest from the corporate world. The main points of the project in a nutshell:
1. Virtual worlds will be very big — (metaverse is a technical term that means exactly the same).
2. But… to fulfill the potential we need “standards” — to allow innovation.
3. So we want to do standards. How?
3.1. We have identified several use cases (what virtual worlds can do)
3.2 We will do a review of what standards are out there.
3.3 We will develop a framework system for the virtual worlds.
3.4 It will include a reference for the standards out there, as well as what is missing.
4. We will implement the case studies to test the standards.
5. The standards will be streamed into the work of ISO MPEG-V.
During the discussion critical questions were asked whether these standardization procedures are not old-fashioned in today’s internet context.
It seems however that a number of big companies such as Philips are interested in such a solution. Dolf Wittkamper, senior director of Philips Design, demonstrated how his company uses Second Life to transform the audience into co-researchers.
Very often standardization turns into a war between the various companies involved. It remains to be seen whether standardization in virtual worlds, at least for business and professional applications, will succeed.
What about the OpenSim project and the position of Linden Lab, which seems to promote this open source development? Dr Yesha has some doubts, wondering whether Linden Lab is not just promoting the project in order to control it and to ensure it will never threaten the business interests of the company. Some wars seem to be in the making…
Roland Legrand
