Metaverse the Next Big Thing?

CrashPanic writes to tell us TCS Daily has an article entitled "The Next Big Thing" which is about Multiverse. It does a good job of making the case for the evolution to a 3D web through the lens of the past history of Netscape. From the article: "Forces are coalescing that will produce a shift comparable at least to the spread of broadband. This change will have enormous financial, cultural and political repercussions, and the most interesting aspect of the coming transformation is that it will not be some new and unexpected thing. Rather, the Web for many will become the cliched 3D virtual reality that has been so overused as a literary and cinematic devise that most of us have forgotten how compelling that vision was when it first appeared."

Re:Yes but ...

[LiquidCoooled]

Isn't second life taking off now?
Embedded reporters and businesses are now entering the space.
Whilst having a fully immersive encounter suit might be the end game, currently your mouse and keyboard control your hands in the 'verse and your screen gives a window.

You are only half right

[everphilski]

The year was like, 1997 (I know, I was trying to teach myself in high school). We were all still in dialup. That was half the problem right there. The other problem is the language isn't that great. VRML proved nothing, it was before its time. Ubiquitous broadband, faster computers with hardware acceleration, we are now at the point in time where if 3D makes sense as an online platform, said platform will emerge.

Re:God damn 3D

[cr0sh]

You must be highly susceptible to simulator sickness. Most people have some experiences of it, though fewer have it using a monitor for 3D viewing than others. To combat it, there are a few things to try (they may or may not work for you) - mainly, have good lighting and sit back far enough to see the area around the monitor (basically, you are trying to minimize immersion here, instead of maximise it as most people do). As you play, move as you would (or could) for the motion being simulated on screen.

What you are running into with simulator sickness is mainly your eyes seeing one thing, and your ears telling your brain differently (balance). If you are as susceptible as you claim, you probably have a difficult time watching first-persone views of car chases, roller coaster riding, airplane stunts, etc. You probably don't have a problem with everyday walking around and tasks (and if you do, see a doctor immediately!). This is because in day-to-day life, all your senses are working together and telling your brain the same thing, and nausea/simulator-sickness doesn't kick in. There is also the effects of small field-of-views, frame-rate, sensor lag, and such - but this is only usually an issue in motion platform systems and/or full immersion systems (ie, cockpit flight trainers, full-immersion HMD systems, etc).

As I noted before, all people experience this to some extent or another (sit blindfolded in a slowly spinning chair nodding your head around, and you most likely will spew). The best way (and most expensive) to combat it is to provide accurately timed (near-zero lag) sensory responses just like you would have in the real world to the external simulated view on the monitor or in the HMD/simulator. This is very tough to do, and if the timing is off, it just makes the situation worse. Various companies have even tried vestibular stimulation as a means to combat this (and/or heighten the experience) - one company in the late 1990's even came out with a prototype and API dev kit for Windows using this system - not that it went anywhere.