Archive for July 14th, 2008
Innovator’s Dilemmas: to be or not to be… virtual?
“As the consumer buzz over Second Life has faded, organizations like the I-95 Corridor Coalition, accountancy Pricewaterhouse and healthcare technology provider Greenleaf Medical have quietly explored business uses for virtual worlds. From setting up 3-D environments for geographically dispersed workers to giving therapy to troubled teens, early adopters are testing virtual worlds as a collaborative tool.”
Read C.G. Lynch’s article, “Companies Explore Virtual Worlds as Collaboration Tools,” on CIO Magazine.
“Companies looking for more interaction than a collaborative environment like IBM Lotus Sametime are also turning to other virtual-world-environment providers like Qwaq for private activities like pre-first-day job orientation, meetings and project collaboration (…) Implenia started the Eolus One project exploring how virtual-world technology could be used for to help with CO2 reduction, energy/facilities management, and other tasks, including data center management (…) using IBM’s Holographic Enterprise Interface (HEI) virtual-world integration middleware.”
Read Daniel P. Dern’s article, “Using Virtual Worlds to Run Your Network Operations and Data Centers,” on CIO Magazine.
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The above video introduces Project Wonderland, a new tool to develop 3D Virtual Worlds, sponsored by Sun Microsystems. In addition to all of the work that IBM has conducted on SecondLife, the company is working on BlueGrass focusing on 3D virtual worlds for business.
Not so long ago, when working on concepts, product designers would provide customers with drawings and renderings illustrating perspectives as shown in this picture. The process often involved hand crafted models and scale mock-ups to better portray the product’s form factor.
Over the past decade 3D CAD, computer aided design, and rapid prototyping tools have taken things to the next level. Interestingly enough, the rise of interactive virtual environments as part of multi-player games has contributed to further popularize these technologies, coupled with the availability of multimedia and high performance personal computers.
As Edwad S. Tufte mentions in his best seller, “Envisioning Information,” our world is complex, dynamic and multidimensional. So, I think it is safe to state that the benefits of escaping flatland and delivering interactive 3D simulations as well as augmented reality tools would appear to be a no-brainer.
However, shortcomings seen in early technologies and faulty implementations can lead to the wrong conclusions. Needless to say that this paragraph is a direct reference to SecondLife’s past hype, which I addressed in a year old post under the title “New branded and mission specific virtual environments” and “Make your own virtual world with Olive.” Tufte’s book talks about the development of a “cognitive art” which should be applied to immersive 3D simulations aiming to deliver richer audiovisual information and extreme ease of use. If interested in this subject, see my post on “the trouble with computers.“
As far as the innovator’s dilemma raised by the title of this post, the fact is that we are headed for a hybrid world where digital content becomes ubiquitous. So, a kind of paraphrasing Nicholas Negroponte I would say that ‘being virtual’ is now a fact of life.
For instance, you can already learn about a new product, such as Apple’s iPhone, thanks to guided online tours and user manuals that you can browse and download. Some other vendors in the mobile phone market, such as Samsung, have already experimented with interactive online simulations helping users become more familiar with product features.
Going one step further, it is worth watching Aloft Hotels’ in-room connectivity unit. In September of last year, Starwood Hotels became the first company launching a new hotel brand inside of a virtual world in advance to opening to the public in 2008.
Tufte’s book talks about ‘Micro/Macro Readings’ which involve details and individual stories as part of maps, a concept that would resemble HP’s Mobile Mediascapes coupled with ‘Twitter’ in today’s terms. Right below, I have posted a map from 1739 and a picture I just took from Google Earth of the same location.
Beyond just showing and sharing information, one interesting question is whether immersive 3-D environments can become real time management tools. As an example, C.G. Lynch’s article talks about dealing with real network operations centers. Augmented reality would make visible things usually hidden to us, e.g. color coding servers temperature and air flow.
“Sensors everywhere. Infinite storage. Clouds of processors. Our ability to capture, warehouse, and understand massive amounts of data is changing science, medicine, business, and technology.” Chris Anderson’s “The End of Theory” on Wired.
| J. de Francisco |  |
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| Chicago, IL 14 July 08 |  |
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