Memory

The combination of the internet and gaming has lead to a diverse number of applications that attempt to merge the two systems. There is as far as I know no single application which is commonly in use or is recognised as a merged internet/3D environment interface to the web. In this respect the merger of the two dimensional internet with the three dimensionality of virtual worlds is still an emerging field. The current terminology for this area of research calls it the ‘metaverse’, which is a term derived from the book Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Essentially the metaverse is a description of a system which is based on information transfer and communication through a global digital network, the main element of which is a digital representation of a 3 dimensional space – a digital universe separate from the real world but representing people and entities in the form of digital avatars which can interact in real time.

Some elements of the metaverse envisioned by Stephenson are:

• It is scalable to the extent that it can cope with millions of avatars in a single location,
• There are different levels of access, depending on interface devices,
• Level of detail is sufficient to identify individuals,
• Bandwidth is a factor in the level of sophistication of the Avatar,
• There are code based protocols that determine what can and cannot be done in the metaverse,
• The metaverse has an internal economy

Although there is no clear definition of what constitutes a metaverse, and in fact the overarching concept of a digital environment had been around for many years prior to Stephenson’s book Show Crash e.g. William Gibson is credited with the first use of the term Cyberspace in 1982, and subsequently popularised in his novel Neuromancer (Gibson, 1984).

Outside of the novel, the development of computer technology which was the inspiration for the fictional worlds continues to develop in slightly different directions. The terminology has however been adopted and has become part of contemporary culture. In general terms, the metaverse may now refer to the actual implementation of virtual worlds connected to the internet, and not the internet itself. It is not clear if these concepts will separate or merge into a single entity. Regardless of the terminology the development of a global 3D virtual space will happen in the near future and the technology and language will be derived from and driven by game technology development until an application arrives that tips the balance to bring game worlds into the mainstream of application development (cf. Virtual Worlds, ViOS (3D Internet Browser)).

Related to this is the term 'Web 2.0' which refers to the current trend in web technology to move to a more interactive web environment. As access to the web has increased and the technology has improved the web has become a much more dynamic means of communication. The perception is that the original web (Web 1.0) was essentially a read only interface were people could retrieve information, and web 2.0 is a much more interactive place where people can interact in real time. However, this is merely a perception, the web has always been capable of supporting interaction, it is simply that the technology now runs at a speed which makes interaction appear to be near real time, not only text communication but also audio and video. Hence, to over simplify, Web 2.0 is a term to describe the use of the web as a real time communication tool (cf. Web 2.0).

The new direction of my research is the development of a new type of web browser that supports not only the existing web but also merges with the existing virtual world technology. The concept would be to provide a browser that provides a usable interface to all of the existing web content currently accessed via web browsers such as Firefox and Internet Explorer but which provides a virtual world representation of the web and integrates all of the current communication technologies such as real-time, text, audio and video. Additionally, the browser would provide a dynamic repository of web content presented in such a way as to help organise and maintain the users data. The browser would provide not only asynchronous data collection, e.g. RSS feeds, but also intelligent agent technology to collect and organise user requested data (cf. Software Agents).

The intent of such a 3D world is not to 'make a copy' of the real world but to provide an environment that uses visual display in order to 'organise' and make sense of all of the data available on the internet based on each individual's browsing habits and experiences. In terms of communications technology the browser would enable person to person and muti-user interactions in a 3D environment at various levels of interaction, text, audio and video. Given the ever increasing bandwidth of the internet and computing power of PCs, each machine connected to the internet is capable of acting as an element is a distributed game network i.e. as a game server. There are already many examples of using the internet as a global super computer (List of Distributed Computing Projects).

The scope of such a project is much greater than can be achieved in a short time by me, however some of the design aspects and perhaps an attempt at a demo of the world mechanics could be archived in terms of a prototype design. I have chosen the name 'Memory' as the codename of the project to reflect the function of the application as a 'memory mansion'.