
Fans of Second Life Hope to Bring VR Back to the Classroom - jyosim4
http://chronicle.com/article/Remember-Second-Life-Its-Fans/236675?cid=cp34
======
ideonexus
I once loved Second Life. So many science demonstrations (NASA, NOAA, and many
museums setup virtual campuses there that are still amazing), gatherings,
museums, and educational experiences that only a virtual world can provide.
Then it became a ghost town (with some mostly-NSFW exceptions).

The problem is that SL is closed source. I once tried to run a virtual field
trip with 10 kids to show them around, but Linden Labs blocked us for having
too many users access SL from the same IP address. You have to lease property
on Linden Labs servers for a presence there. Why am I going to invest the time
and energy into building something amazing on rented space that will vanish
the moment I stop paying for it?

If SL were to be released as a open-protocol, like WWW, where anyone can pop a
server onto the Internet and host a community, I think SL would thrive again.
I would love to see that.

I found a nine-year-old blogpost I wrote on the science attractions in SL. It
really was an amazing place. I would really like to see something like it
again, but open. I think there's a huge opportunity there for someone with the
right technical capabilities.

[http://ideonexus.com/2007/03/03/science-in-second-
life/](http://ideonexus.com/2007/03/03/science-in-second-life/)

~~~
return0
There is opensim[1], which is used to run thousands of similar 3d worlds
(shameless plug[2]), and the upcoming open source highfidelity platform [3].

1\. [http://opensimulator.org](http://opensimulator.org) 2\.
[http://opensimworld.com](http://opensimworld.com) 3\.
[http://highfidelity.io](http://highfidelity.io)

~~~
laksjd
Did OS/Hypergrid ever solve the avatar/inventory issues? I haven't followed
SL/OS for the last few years so my information is probably out-of-date but
when I last used it, it was still a hit-and-miss experience.

~~~
return0
still is.

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azinman2
Just because something is in 3D doesn't make it automatically better -- often
times it's worse as you now have artificial constraints that you didn't have
before. For example, it's far easier to scroll through Instagram with your
fingers (a UI win) and have every photo at 100% scale than to glide through a
3d representation where much more work has to be done. Certainly you wouldn't
want the world to scroll you in VR -- you'd throw up.

This was true before with SL, and it'll be true with VR in the future. It'll
be great for certain kinds of games, therapy, housing walk throughs, and other
contexts for which a synthetic 3D world is useful, but it won't be the panacea
that replaces all other forms of UI. Immersion also has a cost -- it's very
intense and you don't want it for hours and hours and hours. Just like you'd
never want to be on a rollercoaster for 8h, VR for 8h will also be too much
(unless the world itself is not an intense game, you don't have a screen 2"
from your eyeballs, etc).

~~~
BOBOTWINSTON
I agree with the key point here: VR will not replace all other forms of UI.

It is a mistake to look at VR UIs as strictly 3D. There is no reason you could
not scroll through your photos on a 2D screen with your fingers in VR. You can
even have the added benefit of spawning multiple giant 2D screens, then
grabbing photos off them for a scrap book or a virtual art gallery.

I've shared a great deal of locomotion experiences with other Vive owners. VR
sickness seems a lot rarer than it was hyped up to be, and definitely a lot
easier to acclimate to. I wonder how many vomiting journalists would be fine
if they eased into it over a day or two. I can fly around in Windlands without
flinching these days. Don't get me wrong, nausea is still a real design
constraint, but we might be a lot more adaptive to VR and weird locomotion.

On the topic of session lengths, I firmly believe this is just an issue with
content and ergonomics. I've done a few 6 hours sessions in multiplayer games,
the problem is barely any exist. I haven't heard anyone experience "immersion
fatigue", but some games will cause actual physical fatigue. Thankfully I
already stand all day and it isn't an issue. I think if you already can play a
game for 8 hours, VR will be there to provide the same in the future.

~~~
BatFastard
One BIG problem with SL is a horrible, hard to use, unintuitive UI.

\-- It's easy to make things hard to use, it's hard to make them easy to use.
--

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outworlder
I know this is anecdote and a single data point, but I find it interesting
nonetheless.

My mom, 60+ year old, decided she wanted to learn proper English. Being an
aircraft controller, she already knew enough to get by on the job
(communication is pretty much standardized). But nowhere near enough to get by
in the US.

After a few conventional approaches (such as physical English classes), she
somehow found out about Second Life and enrolled in a (paid!) course.

Fast forward a couple of years. She can now hold conversations in English and
go out by herself without a family member translating. As an observer, the
progress was outstanding.

One thing that I have noticed is that it can be way more interactive than
"normal" classes. For instance, there was a lesson that took place at an
airport. So, instead of just an opening dialog in a book, and then some
discussion, their avatars were at a functioning airport. So they could go all
the way from arriving at the airport to boarding the plane, having dialogue
all the way. Not sure if the airplane did or could take off though.

At another one that I witnessed, they were at a clothing store. So they could
actually interact with a human shopkeeper, buy the article of clothing they
wanted, then put on their avatar.

Having attended "standard" classes all my life, I was blown away by how much
the virtual environment would foster dialogue. Usually, a teacher has a hard
time coaxing this kind of interaction in a classroom setting.

Also of importance is that, since you are hidden behind an avatar, shy people
seem more comfortable. Things such as race and, to an extent, age, are
completely hidden.

Not sure if VR would help anything, except for the "cool" factor, which can't
be discounted.

~~~
laksjd
The ability to cheaply simulate environments is at the core of many VR
education/training concepts. I hadn't heard of it being applied to language
education, that's really interesting!

Second Life specifically excels at being a platform for roleplaying (in the
educational sense as well as the D&D sense). The built-in creation tools allow
people to very quickly create environments that have enough fidelity to be a
significant step up from 'this table is now an airplane' and thanks to the
marketplace one can often quickly and cheaply acquire ready-made props for
virtually any scenario. Using the more advanced creation tools one can even
create video-game-level fidelity however that is usually not necessary for
educational environments.

------
arcanus
The biggest issue for VR is similar to that of Second Life: outside of gaming,
it needs to seamlessly _augment_ reality.

If the pervasive influence of social media in our times has taught us
anything, it is that a platform that does interface with our everyday
existence will never be more than a cool tech demo.

Off the top of my head, for success VR needs to provide:

    
    
      * Virtual Conferences
    
      * Remote Home Sale Walk-throughs
    
      * Credit for remote class attendence. 
    
      * Remotely Shared Sports Viewing with Friends
    

Until the VR experience can supplant some of the activities above, I doubt it
will take off.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
I hear "Virtual Conferences" as a big VR application. But how about we solve
videoconferences first? Skype/Hangouts etc. hasn't improved noticeably in the
last ten years. Videocalls still suffer from latency and poor image quality.

~~~
tlarkworthy
really? I frequently video conference to places will 11 hour time differences,
and I am constantly amazed how well it works. I am pretty sure 10 years ago
this wasn't practical.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
I did a Hangout a few weeks ago from Europe to a startup in TX. At least on my
end I was on a 1Gbps fat academic ISP; can't speak for the other guy, but he
was in his office. Still, voice and video quality was poor and we had to
restart everything once.

Also have had many poor quality video conferences on Lync/Skype for Business
where all participants have been on the same fat academic ISP.

~~~
tlarkworthy
Yeah it happens. I still have both Skype and hangouts and swap depending on
who is having a bad day. Still, it used to be much worse, but it's nowhere
near perfect yet

------
amateurpolymath
I recently listened to an interesting discussion[1] about VR on a friend's
recommendation. One of the guests had a great test for quality VR: can it
perform as a hiking simulator? Can it mimic all the qualities of a good hike
-- visuals, body movement, sounds?

It seems to me we're much closer to a great AR experience than truly great and
immersive VR.

[1]: [https://www.relay.fm/rocket/20](https://www.relay.fm/rocket/20)

~~~
sandworm101
>> Can it mimic all the qualities of a good hike -- visuals, body movement,
sounds?

I've got some VR hiking goggles to sell you. They are cheap, lightweight and
totally wireless, but only work in the woods. They were featured on a recent
SouthPark episode.

Too many discussions focus on VR being a drop-in replacement for reality.
Nobody should expect them to mimic reality any more than they expect computer
screens to mimic sunlight. I don't much care if VR helms don't allow me to jog
up Everest. I just want to be free to look around as if I were standing on the
top.

~~~
amateurpolymath
I think many people who are physically unable to take a hike (disabled,
elderly, ill, etc.) would appreciate a VR system that can closely mimic a real
hike.

Also, if a VR system can perform well as a hiking simulator it would be able
to realistically simulate things that don't exist, places that are too
difficult/expensive for an average person to visit, or experiences that are
too dangerous to attempt in reality.

EDIT: For example, I'd love to visit the moon or Mars but it's highly unlikely
I'll ever be able to physically go there. A highly immersive VR simulation
would be very appealing to me!

~~~
sandworm101
But if they are disabled, then they in fact want the VR system not to emulate
a hike. They cannot walk and so do not want a VR system that makes them walk.
The OP was discussing a VR scheme that would mimic body movements akin to the
physicality of actually hiking (ie VR on a treadmill).

------
drzaiusapelord
Do these planned top-down approaches ever work? Especially in education? It
seems like when technocrats have questionable ideas they try to shove it down
the throat of kids instead of having a more decentralized approach with more
choice. Negroponte's failure with the OLPC project comes to mind. A mix of
cheap netbooks, tablets, and phones made it quickly irrelevant.

If we see social VR in education it'll be impromptu study groups in Altspace
or screensharing in Bigscreen. It'll happen dynamically as kids decide what
platform they prefer. Teachers will probably make similiar decisions on a per
teacher/classroom way. I've already spent a bit of time in Altspace and
Bigscreen and its very impressive from many aspects like usability,
discoverability, presence, features, etc. I can't imagine using a SL-like
system. Its too messy, ugly, and complex. It feels very Web 1.0.

Also, my god, the uncanny valley in SL is inexcusable. Either do photorealism
or use cartoony avatars, there's really no room for middle ground here.

~~~
Jtsummers
> Negroponte's failure with the OLPC project comes to mind. A mix of cheap
> netbooks, tablets, and phones made it quickly irrelevant.

To be fair to OLPC, it just predated those other devices. It [the hardware]
was developed precisely because cheap laptops didn't yet exist, and then the
form and market came into existence and obsoleted a large part of the
project's efforts (the physical hardware development, not its educational
goals).

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Not really, but the time they were actually shipping the olpc in non-trivial
deployments, the netbook revolution was already here. Intel also had the
education aimed Classmate netbook as well. 2007 article on the two competing
platforms:

[http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2007/03/acomparison-
of-...](http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2007/03/acomparison-of-olpcs-xo-
laptop-and-intels-classmate-pc/)

>nd then the form and market came into existence and obsoleted a large part of
the project's efforts

It was also a terrible, terrible product. The crappy screen, low ram, low
performance, lack of software, etc. When I used one I considered it something
for toddlers or preschoolers. The Classmate by comparison is something I could
use right now if I had to and still be mildly productive with.

The market moves fast and OLPC wasn't ready for it. They built their house on
not just last gen technology but last junky gen technology (milquetoast AMD
designs, shovelware linux distro, etc). They got leapfrogged trivially. The
fact that they couldn't see that is inexcusable. Moores law reigned supreme
back then.

While the OLPC was ambitious, it pretty much is the poster boy for incompetent
central planning by out of touch technocrats who thought they were smarter
than the market, educators, and policy makers.

~~~
corysama
I seem to remember around 2007 there were several netbook manufactures who
were just getting started calling out the OLPC as the direct inspiration for
creating the market segment in the first place. Meanwhile, that article
describes Intel's device as having a better CPU, but half the screen rez, 1/5
the battery life and costing hopefully only a bit more than twice as much two
years later.

The OLPC hardware was very low-spec. But, it was a brilliant design for being
so low spec. It's UI was considered alien at the time. But, today the app-
based, fileless approach has been proven out by the tablet market to be much
better for the mainstream, non-hardcore user.

It's unfortunate they insisted on running so much in Python on such a tiny
CPU. I understand that they really wanted view/modify source as standard for
the kids. But, the only language I could see that working out well at the time
would have been Lua --which doesn't have nearly as much clout as Python even
today.

In my outside observation, OLPC was mostly tanked by politicians declaring
that "If our kids can't use it to learn Microsoft Office, I don't want it even
for free." There were a multitude of issues. But, that one really cut off the
investment that could have overcome them.

------
ilaksh
Second Life is/was actually great especially in its open content and
customization system and economy.

But there's kind of a weird thing about Second Life and VR and video games.
Video games have really filled the virtual reality space without being called
virtual reality.

For example, the detailed simulation of Los Angeles in GTA 5 or the details
and immersive story in The Witcher 3. It isn't usually called virtual reality
and doesn't usually involve HMDs, but these types of games are largely what
people were thinking of when they started talking about VR many years ago.

Now there are things like GMod (Garry's Mod), Minecraft, Space Engineers,
Scrap Mechanic etc. that allow you to satisfying your virtual reality
engineering itch with component-based development i.e. snapping things
together, which is just much more practical, efficient, and just easier for
people who are trying to entertain themselves than doing a bunch of scripting
in OpenSim/SL/OpenCroquet/High Fidelity/etc.

Look at the first person perspective in the Mirror's Edge series. Its a very
cyperbunk-type vision along the lines of early VR concepts.

Anyway long story short, VR is a massive business, they just call it "gaming"
and we don't bother wearing HMDs.

------
simonebrunozzi
Well, interesting anecdote: I found my job at AWS through Second Life, back in
2008: [http://brunozzi.com/2008/05/22/how-i-got-hired-by-
amazoncom/](http://brunozzi.com/2008/05/22/how-i-got-hired-by-amazoncom/)

