SecondPlace, QwaqLife or TeleSim?

I am very much in love with both my two favorite virtual meeting technologies: Second Life, partly cloned by the open source OpenSim, and Teleplace, recently open sourced as OpenQwaq. In the pictures, two recent online conferences in Second Life and Teleplace.

I love both, but most VR users tend to strongly prefer one. I am interested in "serious" applications to, for example, online talks and e-learning (no value judgment intended, and please see "Telepresence Education for a Smarter World" for more), and I like both.

The Teleplace / OpenQwaq technology, on which my teleXLR8 online talk program and "telepresence community for cultural acceleration" is based, has much better built-in voice and support for multi user collaboration, document sharing and webcam videoconferencing, all very important features for "serious" applications, but those who prefer Second Life may find it too aseptic and square.

The Second Life / OpenSim technology, much closer to (and directly inspired by) the Metaverse of Snow Crash, has a certain built-in playfulness which is also very important (more important than I used to think) for "serious" applications, and is much more appealing to persons with strong artistic sensibilities, but those who prefer Teleplace may find its more, um, extreme aspects too annoying and distracting.

As I said, I like both. The "conflict" is mostly cultural and psychological, and I have no doubts that both technologies, especially in their open source versions, can easily support both work and play in both square and creative modes. For example, I have prototyped simple examples of videoconferencing and collaborative document sharing in Second Life, and OpenQwaq can import very creative 3D models and avatars.

Open ended, comments welcome.

Video - Videoconferencing and realtime collaboration in Second Life

This is a simple example of videoconferencing and realtime collaboration in Second Life, which extends and details my previous post Video - Simple videoconferencing demo in Second Life, posted last week. Audio in Italian.



This demo has been done using the Shared Media feature of Viewer 2.x and integration with external services. Three participants have a videoconference in Second Life using live video streams from respectively Ustream, Livestream and Justin.tv, and use Google Apps for collaborative work: they watch together a PPT -like presentation available on the web, and edit together a document using the new realtime co-editing feature in Google docs.

The demo shows that some essential videoconferencing, realtime collaboration and co-editing applications features of business and e-learning oriented platforms like Teleplace could, with some tweaking of the platform, be implemented also in Second Life.

Video - Simple videoconferencing demo in Second Life

Simple videoconferencing demo in Second Life (audio in Spanish)

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzGqo_NgwY4

Blip.tv: http://giulioprisco.blip.tv/file/3803400/

We were only two participants in this demo, but this should work with up to 10 users. All three major free personal live streaming services can be used. The user on the left is broadcasting video via Ustream. The user on the right is broadcasting video via Justin.tv, and the middle screen is prepared for Livestream.

The best way to do this is broadcasting video only, and using native Second Life voice to talk. The sync lag between video and audio is 3-4 sec with Ustream and Justin.tv, 2-3 sec with Livestream, but for applications like seminars etc. it does not matter that much. Using the higher quality options available with all three major free personal live streaming services, the video quality is good enough for videoconferencing in Second Life.

Simple videoconferencing in Second Life

A simple videoconferencing experiment in Second Life, using Gmail video chat.

In my previous post on Telepresence Education for a Smarter World I wrote about the importance of videoconferencing and how it can add to immersion in VR worlds. So I made this simple experiment using Gmail video chat.

The result is surprisingly good, vith very clear video and voice. Note that Google video conferencing may soon become multiuser (more than 2) and integrated with Google Apps (Gmail, Google Docs, calendars etc.), so this could be a very good solution for videoconferencing and collaboration in Second Life with some tweaks:

1) It should be possible to detatch the video screenlet (second image), or make it full prim. In this first test, pressing the full screen button displays the video full screen on the PC, but it should be full screen on the prim. The video screenlet cannot be detatched because of pop-up blockers. I made the video in the first image full screen by tweaking the texture parameters, but this is not an elegant solution.
2) It should be possible to access a password protected website and show it to other users without asking them to login. In this first test, other users see the Gmail login screen on the prim. If we can do something about this, Google Apps could become a VERY good solution for videoconferencing and collaboration in Second Life.

I am sure 1) and 2) can be solved with some tweaking and/or programming SL side and/or Google Apps side. Ideas?