Hi everyone, I just came back from vacation and am catching up with my e-mail right now. I may be late to the discussion, but I want to throw in my two cents anyway :-)
What is the Metaverse? (Matrix, Cyberspace, YouNameIt) In my opinion, it is not a protocol/file-format/system, it is a feature. <background> In the "traditional" Internet world, you don't have a one-size-fits- all protocol, file format, or tool. What you use depends on the requirements of your application. If you want to transfer a file, you use an FTP client and the FTP protocol over TCP. If you want a live audio stream, you use an audio player supporting RTP (or something similar) over UDP. Sure, there is the common IP protocol, but by itself it is good for nothing at all. The WWW integrates a number of these different functions in the form of hyperlinked multi-media documents. But this is still only a partial solution! Sure you can watch a video in the browser, but for a better experience most people download it and use a full-screen standalone player. Sure you can design great documents with HTML/CSS, but PDF still has its place. There is AJAX, but... you catch my drift. The Web-Browser can get you 90% of almost everything, but never all, and nobody really expects it to. Its main quality is to provide a common interface for browsing information. </background> The Metaverse/Cyberspace/Matrix in SF literature has the same quality as the WWW - it is an integrator for a number of different spatial content and applications. This is something we don't have today, regardless of what LL or anybody claims. VRML, Collada, Flux, even VOS... interesting building blocks already out there, but no Metaverse by themself. I don't believe that a single protocol, data model, or system could ever solve all problems and accomplish every goal. Like in the traditional Internet, the requirements differ too much among 3D applications. When you chat with friends in a virtual pub, you need a different protocol than when you go to the arcade to play an FPS game. When you do virtual flight training, you need a different data model than when you study surgery at Virtual Medical School. And so on... In my opinion, if we want a Metaverse (do we?), we need something that can get us from application A to B without too much of a hiccup. It likely has to support multiple protocols and data models for this purpose. It will not deliver 90% right from the start, and I'd settle for a lot less. After all, you cannot really compare Mosaic to Mozilla. The question to ask of every protocol/data model/tool thus is, how well does it serve integration? Or in other words: How metaverse is it? Regards, Karsten Otto (kao) _______________________________________________ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
