Startup building the open-source “operating system” of the Metaverse • Hacker News Board

Re: Startup building the open-source “operating system” of the Metaverse

#41

Post by eli_gottlieb » Tue, Sep 23, 2014, 5:36 PM UTC

I really do feel the need to ask, these days: am I the only technologist completely uninterested in transforming real life into Snow Crash? As far as massive-world 3D games go, I still see more artistry in the Assassin's Creed series (for all its flaws) or even something more fantastic like Pokemon Snap (safari games are the idea that stay with me for VR implementation: make something that does not already exist rather than copying meatspace) than in these weird attempts to create a "virtual reality" or even just large-scale game world modeled off... Times Square.

Not only can I already visit Times Square in real life, I choose not to. Ditto on the more branded, corporatized, ad-infested portions of the internet (ie: the "downtown internet" approved by official, polite society).

Many scifi novels (insofar as Snow Crash can even be called "fiction" rather than "prediction" these days :-() are written to make fun of wacky technologists and our just-somewhat-off-target ideas, you know.

Now, to end on a zog note rather than zig or zag, here's an idea: someone figure out the massive-game or VR equivalent of 4chan. There's something people will actually want to use. (For all the official disapproval from all sectors, 4chan and 2chan are massively popular and influential. They are offering something users want: anonymity, obscurity, simplicity, and freedom!) EDIT: http://kazerad.tumblr.com/post/96020280368/faceless-together

Re: Startup building the open-source “operating system” of the Metaverse

#42

Post by contingencies » Tue, Sep 23, 2014, 8:18 PM UTC

xnxn wrote: post #27

contingencies wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VR and the web are too far apart. ... for what purpose? Web pages are hard to simplify. Even harder to transform, in a generally applicable way, in to 3D objects that hold the full meaning and functionality of their present-era 2D brethren.

That's true, and I don't think the goal is to simplify or transform the existing web of hypertext, but to take the well-proven principles behind it - hyperlinks, interoperability, decentralization, etc. - and apply them to the nascent medium of VR. It certainly won't supplant web pages. "But why?" is a totally fair question, and I don't think I can produce a satisfactory answer. I've spent a good deal of time thinkin…

Can I ask if your skepticism is specific to this project, or to the idea of a distributed, programmable VR platform?

Well, I've been down the same path before, as with others here .. judging by the earlier comments. I don't discount 3D, far from it, however my conclusion, personally, was that different people consider different types of visualizations preferable or inherantly clearer. For instance, a statistician, mathematician, programmer, poet, sculptor or gamer may wish to visualize or interact with the same information in a very different way. If you accept this temporarily for the sake of argument, then take those same different input/interaction paradigms and start to translate them across multiple cultures and languages, I believe you get an even higher number of preferences. Trying to create the one true standard for interaction with mock-physical representations of aphysical notions may just be trying to put a square peg in a round hole.

Re: Startup building the open-source “operating system” of the Metaverse

#43

Post by ilaksh » Tue, Sep 23, 2014, 8:49 PM UTC

angersock wrote: post #40

ilaksh wrote: post #22

Well, there is are several metric tons of examples out there.. Hard to resist coming up with my own ideas though since this is such an interesting topic. Maybe we don't have to have the most advanced open source 3d networking game engine out there as a protocol. Maybe we can start by building off of Named Data Networking (NDN) http://named-data.net/doc/NDN-TLV/current/ Would be nice to have everything including conte…

I despise your use of YAML instead of JSON, but I applaud your suggestion of a flexible procedural markup language. It allows (theoretically) for us to be sharing the same space, but I see a modern office while you see a Japanese dojo. Effectively, Spatial Style Sheets, right? The big problem (one we still run in to everywhere else) is that people are going to want to be guaranteed that the dragon dildo they proudly…

My idea was that there would be one specific set of code for each procedure loaded in when you say what libs: you want. So 'house' and 'room' are the same for everyone. It would be possible though to come up with a way to allow different definitions of those things which would be interesting.

Re: Startup building the open-source “operating system” of the Metaverse

#44

Post by rwallace » Wed, Sep 24, 2014, 4:08 PM UTC

wmf wrote: post #26

rwallace wrote: post #17

If you try to go extreme on all possible requirements simultaneously, the chance of failure approaches one hundred percent. The key to success is to pick one or two areas where you want to go beyond state-of-the-art, while staying within it in other areas. I strongly recommend deleting the requirement about seamless visualization across servers. Of all the items on the list, that strikes me as adding the most difficu…

Based on the videos, haven't they already implemented that?

They might have, for all I know. It's doable in a product that isn't trying to do much else at the same time, if you own all the servers in question and can make sure they are connected by a low latency network. The bad news will come when you try to keep the property of seamlessness between servers while scaling up to do other things as well.

Re: Startup building the open-source “operating system” of the Metaverse

#45

Post by azinman2 » Fri, Sep 26, 2014, 12:36 AM UTC

DennisP wrote: post #36

azinman2 wrote: post #34

The more important test is not the technological one, but if the idea is useful at all. So far 3D worlds haven't proven themselves as necessary or something that leaps forward communication. It provides all kinds of constraints with few upsides. Just because the world is in 3d for my normal life doesn't mean that constraint is natural or useful by extension -- when I read I absorb language and abstract thoughts mixed…

For a lot of purposes I agree. Hypertext is one. But I think one reason 3D hasn't done much is that we're looking at it through a little 2D window. When VR really hits the market I think 3D worlds will be a lot more compelling.

The question then becomes what new applications will that enable, rather than how can we do what we already do in 3D. That's the problem I see with secondlife and as they're defining the metaverse...

If it's about simulation/training for doctors/firefighters/etc then I can see the uses because you're wanting to simulate a complex situation in the real world. But what purely virtual tasks will be better accomplished with VR than without? Is it more simulation of reality or something totally new? My guess is for whatever is new it mostly will be about navigating something inherently 3D such as DNA. If that's true, then do we really need a decentralized metaverse to populate it, or can whatever random DNA VR software be enough?