Transcript Slides - NetGames 2009

Next Generation Virtual
Worlds
Michael
Macedonia
1
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
2
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
3
First Generation Virtual World
Connecting the Planet
4
First Generation UI
5
Second Generation VW
Connecting People with Sensors
2005
1975
6
People looking at dots
on a screen trying to
imagine they are ships
and airplanes
What is the
business
model of
command
centers?
Its all about
collaboration.
7
Third Generation VW
8
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
9
1995: $1 million for
virtual astronauts to
shake hands between
Houston and Germany
10
2010: unit cost of virtual worlds go
toward $0 while performance goes
11
exponential
Value Proposition
Audio
Conferencing
Benefits
Challenges
Costs
Web
Conferencing
Virtual
Worlds
Video
Conferencing
• Familiar
• Ubiquitous
• Perceived to be
inexpensive
•Familiar
•Ubiquitous
•Inexpensive
•Face-to-face like
•Multiple media
sharing
•Appealing to
Internet generation
•Face-to-face like
• Poor participant
attention span
• Discussion
context
• No display
of data
•Same as audio
•Single media
sharing
•Pay extra for audio
or VoIP calling
•Large download
•Proven
effectiveness
•Easy entry for
employees
•Requires visiting
installed sites
• $500 to $1000s
• $30 to $100
• $60 to $167
• $1000s
(per person per
year)
Enterprise Virtual Worlds Yield Immersive,
Engaging, Interactive Experiences
12
Harmonics: The Fully Connected World
13
Harmonics: Everyone Lives in the
Virtual World
14
Imagine This: Virtual Worlds as the Workspace
15
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
16
Market Trends
Multimedia
Transactions
E-mail
Ads
Social
Networks
Wikis/blogs
SaaS
Web 3.0
Text
Web 2.0
Web 1.0
Immersive and Real-time Environments are the Next Generation of the Internet
3D
Real-time
collaboration
Avatars
Mash-ups
GPS/Sensors
Online video
Virtual goods
Microtransactions
Richer and more realistic human interaction
17
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
Private Sector
• Healthcare
• Energy
• Diplomacy
• Federal Consortium of Virtual Worlds
• Financial Services
• Misc. agencies (NIH/NIST)
• Technology
• Education
• Education
Training
• Realistic & hypothetical
Scenarios
– Scenes
– Simulations
– Role players
– NPCs
• Scenario & Scene Editor
• CBT or SCORM
Integration
– Instructor led
– Self-paced
• Record & Replay
• Datamart
21
Media Sharing
Sharable Content Object
Video or Flash Based Web Content
Microsoft PowerPoint
PowerPoint
Desktop Applications
22
White Board
Group Meetings & Collaboration
• Branded Rooms &
Accessories
• Identity
– Personalized avatars
– Profiles
• Media Sharing
– MS Powerpoint
– Video
– Desktop applications
• Virtual Meeting
Reservation System
(VMRS)
• Lotus Sametime Plugin
23
Events
• 3D Models
• Event Roles
– Organizer
– Moderator
– Presenter
• Optimized
Attendee
Experience
24
Team Project Management
• Persistent Room
• Screen placement
optimized for team
use
• Team Documents
25
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
26
26
© 2008 Forterra Systems, Inc.
TeleOperations
• Collaboration with
many robots and
people
• Consistent views of
the world needed
between robot and
operators
• No longer just
research
27
Predator crew in
Nevada
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
28
New Applications for Virtual
Worlds Will Force Diversity of
Requirements and Divergence of
Designs
29
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?
30
Challenges
and Research
31
Avatars
32
Source: Image Metrics
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
33
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?
34
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
35
36
When Can I Have “Call of Duty” on
an iPhone?
II
37
38
Universal Broadband
Latency, Jitter, Unreliable Nets
39
[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
40
NVIDIA GPU Pixel Shader GFLOPS
• GPU Observed GFLOPS
• CPU Theoretical peak GFLOPS
41
Battery Technologies
2X potential performance growth
Apple iPhone
Battery
4.5 Whr/.01 L=
450 Whr/L
42
43
Very Few People
Use a Mobile Phone for Work
44
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
45
Questions?
46
Backup
47
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
48
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
49
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
50
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
51
– Other applications that are running
Typical
MMOG
Network
Topology
User
Internet
Firewall
DSL Modem
Internet
Server Cluster
Cable Modem
Internet
Cloud
User
Firewall
Firewall
Internet
College Dorm LAN
Modem
User
Firewall
Internet
Fiber Optic Modem
Firewall
User
Interoperability
• Industry standards
–
–
–
–
3DMax
KMZ
XML
Collada
• Government standards
–
–
–
–
–
DIS
HLA
OneSAF
SECore
SCORM
• API’s
52
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?
53
54