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Next Generation Virtual Worlds

Michael Macedonia

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Summary

• Virtual Worlds are disruptive technology• Using “Netgames” in the context of work changes

their nature and design• Collaboration and integration become the central

themes• The mobile Internet presents a major opportunity and

challenge

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What Makes A Technology Disruptive?

• Introduces a new capability– the digital camera divorces photography from film

• Maybe “inferior” but a lot cheaper – the transistor in portable radios bought for teens

• A result of the “harmonics” of technology curves – the smartphone is an inferior, but cheaper, mobile version of

a PC, made possible by many technologies

• Ultimately forces change in business model– Internet, search engines

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First Generation Virtual WorldConnecting the Planet

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First Generation UI

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Second Generation VWConnecting People with Sensors

People looking at dots on a screen trying to

imagine they are ships and airplanes1975

2005

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What is the business model of

command centers?Its all about

collaboration.

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Third Generation VW

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The Big Idea

• Many people can be present together in cyberspace– Regardless of distance– Aware of each other– Friction-free– With the illusion of synchronicity

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1995: $1 million for virtual

astronauts to shake hands

between Houston and Germany

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2010: unit cost of virtual worlds go toward $0 while performance goes

exponential

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Value Proposition

•Requires visiting installed sites

•Large download•Proven effectiveness•Easy entry for employees

•Same as audio•Single media sharing•Pay extra for audio or VoIP calling

• Poor participant attention span

• Discussion context

• No display of data

Challenges

•Face-to-face like•Face-to-face like•Multiple media sharing•Appealing to Internet generation

•Familiar•Ubiquitous•Inexpensive

• Familiar• Ubiquitous• Perceived to be

inexpensive Benefits

Video

Conferencing

Virtual

Worlds

Web

Conferencing

Audio

Conferencing

• $1000s• $60 to $167

• $500 to $1000sCosts

(per person per year)

• $30 to $100

Enterprise Virtual Worlds Yield Immersive, Engaging, Interactive Experiences

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Harmonics: The Fully Connected World

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Harmonics: Everyone Lives in the Virtual World

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Imagine This: Virtual Worlds as the Workspace

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Virtual Worlds Are Disruptive

• New capabilities• They make the abstract a real experience• Provide for synchronous group operations• Enable rich collaboration from anywhere on the

earth• Cheaper

• They are far, far cheaper than existing physical solutions

• They ride the harmonics of the Internet, Computing, Social Networking and 3D graphics

• They are changing business models in a Internet world

Market TrendsMarket TrendsImmersive and Real-time Environments are the Next Generation of the Immersive and Real-time Environments are the Next Generation of the InternetInternet

Richer and more realistic human interactionRicher and more realistic human interaction

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Characteristics of most current “serious” Virtual Worlds

• “Point” applications (e.g. training)

• Private sector: training, meetings and events

• NOT games

• Small scale user bases - can’t partake of benefits of large-scale communities

• Early push towards large-scale collaboration

• Advanced and experimental applications:

• Energy industry and Homeland Security interest as UI for virtual operations centers

• “Mirrorworlds” (Lockheed Martin/Forterra experiments)

• Real-world terrain and sensor integration (domestic)

• Rapid environment generation and remote/distributed operations (deployed)

Early explorations/users

Government

• Military

• Intelligence Community

• Diplomacy

• Federal Consortium of Virtual Worlds

• Misc. agencies (NIH/NIST)

• Education

Private Sector

• Healthcare

• Energy

• Financial Services

• Technology

• Education

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Training

• Realistic & hypothetical Scenarios

– Scenes– Simulations– Role players

– NPCs• Scenario & Scene

Editor

• CBT or SCORM Integration

– Instructor led– Self-paced

• Record & Replay• Datamart

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Media SharingVideo or Flash Based Web Content Sharable Content Object

Desktop Applications

Microsoft PowerPoint

White Board

PowerPoint

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Group Meetings & Collaboration

• Branded Rooms & Accessories• Identity– Personalized avatars– Profiles

• Media Sharing– MS Powerpoint– Video– Desktop applications

• Virtual Meeting Reservation System (VMRS)• Lotus Sametime Plug-in

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Events

• 3D Models• Event Roles

– Organizer– Moderator– Presenter

• Optimized Attendee Experience

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Team Project Management

• Persistent Room• Screen placement

optimized for team use

• Team Documents

26© 2008 Forterra Systems, Inc.26

Operational Solutions

• Virtual Emergency Operation Centers

• Common Operating Picture

• Context Specific Operation Centers

• Connection to real world – GPS, RFID and other sensors

• Embedded Rehearsal Environments

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TeleOperations

Predator crew in Nevada

• Collaboration with many robots and people

• Consistent views of the world needed between robot and operators

• No longer just research

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Pitfalls and Opportunities

The pitfalls and opportunities inherent in implementing virtual world technologies

– what we’ve learned works and doesn’t work; where the cost goes; adoption impediments

• Understanding the application• Security and privacy• Content development• Intellectual property (IP)• Hardware and network performance• Interoperability

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New Applications for Virtual Worlds Will Force Diversity of Requirements

and Divergence of Designs

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Understanding Application and Requirements

• Do you need physics simulation?• Is AI required?• Sensor integration?• What type of collaboration is

required?• Is a record/replay capability needed?• What type of user?• Will you have to integrate with

external models and simulations or other applications?

– E.g, Learning Management Systems

• How much control do you give your users vs. administrators?

• What is your need for customization?• Need for real-world terrain?• Location based services?

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Challengesand Research

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Avatars

Source: Image Metrics

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Latency, Jitter, and Unreliable Nets in Virtual Worlds

• Where– On the client system– On the server– In the network

• New issues– Controllers

• Getting worse, not better– Competing with video

• 30% of Internet traffic is now video

– “Cloud computing”– Multiplexing streams

• Voice• Video• State

• Research– Hiding latency

– Experiments over satellite links

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Energy Impact of WoW

• Over 15 million subscribers• 1.5 million online now• 300 Whr/PC x 1.5 million = 450 MWh• Some estimate that there are ~250,000,000 user of virtual worlds

– what impact?

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Virtual World Architectures

• Not much has changed in ten years

• Experiments with server-side rendering of everything

• Hardware virtualization may make things worse!

Source: Intel

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When Can I Have “Call of Duty” on an iPhone?

II

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Universal Broadband Latency, Jitter, Unreliable Nets

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[e2e] What's wrong with this picture?David P. Reed dpreed at reed.com Sun Sep 6 18:00:16 PDT 2009 Previous message: [e2e] a future for circuits? Next message: [e2e] What's wrong with this picture? Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] For those who have some idea of how TCP does congestion control, I ask "what's wrong with this picture?" And perhaps those who know someone responsible at the Internet Access Provider involved, perhaps we could organize some consulting help... (Hint: the problem relates to a question, "why are there no lost IP datagrams?", and a second hint is that the ping time this morning was about 193 milliseconds.) Van Jacobsen, Scott Shenker, and Sally Floyd are not allowed to answer the question. (they used to get funding from the IAP involved, but apparently that company does not listen to them). $ ping lcs.mit.edu PING lcs.mit.edu (128.30.2.121) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from zermatt.csail.mit.edu (128.30.2.121): icmp_seq=1 ttl=44 time=6330 ms 64 bytes from zermatt.csail.mit.edu (128.30.2.121): icmp_seq=2 ttl=44 time=6005 ms 64 bytes from zermatt.csail.mit.edu (128.30.2.121): icmp_seq=3 ttl=44 time=8509 ms 64 bytes from zermatt.csail.mit.edu (128.30.2.121): icmp_seq=4 ttl=44 time=9310 ms 64 bytes from zermatt.csail.mit.edu (128.30.2.121): icmp_seq=5 ttl=44 time=8586 ms 64 bytes from zermatt.csail.mit.edu (128.30.2.121): icmp_seq=6 ttl=44 time=7765 ms 64 bytes from zermatt.csail.mit.edu (128.30.2.121): icmp_seq=7 ttl=44 time=7168 ms 64 bytes from zermatt.csail.mit.edu (128.30.2.121): icmp_seq=8 ttl=44 time=10261 ms 64 bytes from zermatt.csail.mit.edu (128.30.2.121): icmp_seq=9 ttl=44 time=10624 ms 64 bytes from zermatt.csail.mit.edu (128.30.2.121): icmp_seq=10 ttl=44 time=9625 ms 64 bytes from zermatt.csail.mit.edu (128.30.2.121): icmp_seq=11 ttl=44 time=9725 ms 64 bytes from zermatt.csail.mit.edu (128.30.2.121): icmp_seq=12 ttl=44 time=8725 ms 64 bytes from zermatt.csail.mit.edu (128.30.2.121): icmp_seq=13 ttl=44 time=9306 ms 64 bytes

from zermatt.csail.mit.edu (128.30.2.121): icmp_seq=14 ttl=44 time=8306 ms ^C

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NVIDIA GPU Pixel Shader GFLOPS

• GPU Observed GFLOPS• CPU Theoretical peak GFLOPS

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Battery Technologies2X potential performance growth

Apple iPhone Battery

4.5 Whr/.01 L= 450 Whr/L

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Very Few People Use a Mobile Phone for Work

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Summary

• Virtual Worlds are disruptive technology• Using “Netgames” in the context of work changes

their nature and design• Collaboration and integration become the central

themes• The mobile Internet presents a major opportunity and

challenge

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Questions?

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Backup

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Security and Privacy

• Content distribution• Behind the firewall or behind the

firewall– Services vs. internal operations

• Authentication of users and client software

– Lightweight Directory Access Protocol - LDAP

– Virtual world identities– Hashing– E-Authentication (USG)

• Encryption of traffic– SSL– VPNs

• Firewall and ports• User scripting• DIACAP/Networthiness Certification• HIPAA and FERPA and COPA

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Content Development

• Generally the most expensive part of virtual world development

• In-world tools (e.g. Second Life)– Content can’t be reused outside of SL

• Commercial and free tools– Google Sketchup– 3DSMax– Autocad– Google KMZ

• Data import/export– Collada

• Legacy Content– OpenFlight

• Government standards– SE CORE

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Intellectual Property

Organizations have much to gain from the leaps in technology behind multiplayer virtual worlds, but companies might be best advised to begin considering alternatives to public worlds now. Organizations can design, deploy, and maintain their own proprietary virtual universe solutions.

Public Virtual Worlds: Ready for Corporate Prime Time?

Sandy Carter

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Hardware and Network Performance

• Network performance is a function of:– System hardware (computers, routers)– Application efficiency– Network topology

• Big pipes going into smaller pipes you lose packets

– External network traffic– Selfish real-time competing applications

• E.g. video and VOIP– Denial of Service (DOS) attacks– Poorly configured sub-lans

• Server performance– Scalability

• As new client are added can processes be spread across more CPU’s/Cores

– Network bandwidth both internal and external– Memory

• PC client performance– Graphics

• Function of CPU and GPU• Graphics card memory

– Physics simulation– Other applications that are running

Fiber Optic Modem

Internet

User

User

Firewall

DSL Modem

User

User

College Dorm LANModem

Cable Modem

Firewall

Firewall

Firewall

Firewall

Server Cluster

Typical MMOG NetworkTopology

Cloud

Internet

Internet

Internet

Internet

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Interoperability

• Industry standards– 3DMax

– KMZ

– XML

– Collada

• Government standards– DIS

– HLA

– OneSAF

– SECore

– SCORM

• API’s

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Understanding Your Application and Requirements

• Live lectures in conjunction with PowerPoint?

• Avatar-based role plays?• Asynchronous breakout

sessions for team work, collaboration on lesson?

• activities and exercises• Team presentations?• Classroom discussion, Q&A

and interviews?• Live integration of video

clips?• Voice integration?

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