There are some interesting thoughts brewing about a topic called Web 3D, a future vision of the web which resembles Second Life, rather than the 2D browsers we see today.
There are lots of reasons why Web 3D could come to fruition, but I want to pose three roadblocks that might prevent that:
3D environments are not efficient at representing lots of info. Spend some time immersing yourself in the 3-D environment of a First Person shooter video game like Doom 3 or Halo, and you’ll see why. 3-D worlds are great at making you feel like you are in a real environment, where there’s graphic and physical rules, and danger around the corner — but it doesn’t allow for what people do on th Web, search and gather large amounts of information, and multi-task.
The Web isn’t an open platform (yet). What one technology will drive the 3d environment? HTML is a very simple technology, and yet look how hard it is for today’s sites just to work well on all the different Web browsers available. Not to mention, large companies want to keep their content and experiences under ball and chair still.
Big business will be sluggish to catch up. Flash is a Web standard for displaying rich graphics on the Web, and yet how many big brands and major sites use it today? Big business is just slow, very slow, at integrating new experiences. If a 3D Web does become available, it will stay on the fringe of site experiences for a while.
The 3D Web that exists in Johnny Mnemonic, where he navigates virtual reality with motion-sensing gloves, is an awesome idea for the future of HCI, but it’s a huge shift in the way we interact with computers. But sometimes big changes happen in rapid bursts…
This video from CMU grad student Johnny Chung Lee, started circling around a few weeks ago, and has now hit the blogosphere bigtime on sites like Penny Arcade.
And with good reason, it’s a nerdy little video that sets up low expectations, to only reveal a WTF OMG amazing development in interface design — a flowing, 3D perspective on a 2D screen.
So, last year it was the multi-touch interface video from Jeff Han, which then developed into Microsoft’s vague Surface product. Remember that? Yea, but where the f*** is it? I have yet to see Surface in any home or normal consumer hands. It’s still just R&D (although amazing R&D).
But of course there’s the ubiquitous iPhone — now THAT is a successful multi-touch device.
But this 3D VR interface is different. While the man behind it might be an uber geek, he was able to set it up using stuff bought from Target. I hope it will lead to the next iPhone-type product, in that the interface is so simple yet so immersive, the first well-designed product to use it will be a breakthrough hit.
I’m so excited by this, not only because its from a CMU student (I spent three years there), but because it’s so VR driven. And while at CMU I had the pleasure of taking Randy Pauch’sBuilding Virtual Worlds course. We used super-primitive, head-mounted VR headsets, crappy sensors, and buggy Python code to link the two. The result was a great platform for experimentation. But this simple Wii concoction is so smooth and clean, it just leapfrogs all of that.
It’s an exciting time to be in the business of technology. Why? Because old business models are failing, which means now is a time for great innovations and steps forward. Haven at Birdahonk writes about Henry Chesbrough’s Open Business Models, as one instance.
One scenario which really interests me: for-profit organizations. Gutsy corporations like Google are paving new ground as they prove for-profit philanthropy can work. This really excites me personally, because it means corporations no longer have to play a role of ravenous industrial plunderer, but can make both peace and profit at once (if you’ve seen the documentary The Corporation, or read Naomi Klein’s No Logo, you know what I mean). I’ll post more about that later on.
I thought of this map when I read this post today, from Smart Mobs…
Hackers briefly overwhelmed at least three of the 13 computers that help manage global computer traffic Tuesday in one of the most significant attacks against the Internet since 2002, reports Associated Press via Engadget.
Experts said the unusually powerful attacks lasted as long as 12 hours but passed largely unnoticed by most computer users, a testament to the resiliency of the Internet. Behind the scenes, computer scientists worldwide raced to cope with enormous volumes of data that threatened to saturate some of the Internet’s most vital pipelines.
The Homeland Security Department confirmed it was monitoring what it called “anomalous” Internet traffic.
“There is no credible intelligence to suggest an imminent threat to the homeland or our computing systems at this time,” the department said in a statement.
The motive for the attacks was unclear, said Duane Wessels, a researcher at the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis at the San Diego Supercomputing Center. “Maybe to show off or just be disruptive; it doesn’t seem to be extortion or anything like that,” Wessels said.
