Sun Aims New 3D Environment at Business
On the heels of IBM’s recent announcement about their new mainframe-class machines geared for 3D virtual worlds comes the news that Sun Microsystems has constructed its own 3D virtual environment for business. Currently an in-house demo project, the software could be ready for release within six months, according to a Sun engineer quoted in this InformationWeek story.
The system is currently known as MPK20, which identifies it as the 20th building at Sun’s corporate campus in Menlo Park, California — which is known as MPK and in fact houses only 19 buildings. The MPK20 environment is built atop the open-source Wonderland software and the Project Darkstar infrastructure designed to run online games.
According to Sun, the key difference between MPK20 and other 3D environments is that it is explicitly designed for business use. The Wonderland software permits the creation of live, shared applications that are ideal for a workplace environment, Sun says. And of course the virtual world lets Sun employees work together no matter their location in the real world.
One interesting thing about Sun’s vision for MPK20 is that the company seems to be looking toward a mirror world environment for business. “The next stage in the MPK20 project is to design complementary physical and virtual work spaces. If personal and team workspaces primarily exist in the virtual world, then people in physical spaces should be able to project their workspace around them no matter where in the world they are and interact seamlessly with people who are remote.” [Emphasis added.] It will definitely be interesting to see exactly what that means.
A number of tools will be provided to enable effective use of the environment, Sun says. Key among these is fully integrated stereo audio, using the Sun Labs Voice Bridge. This offers functionality that sounds like it’s similar to the new Second Life voice facility, providing a full spatial simulation. In other words, it allows you to hear people’s voices coming from the appropriate directions, as you would in the real world, fading out as a function of perceived distance. The software has been designed to deliver stereo at CD-quality. However, it will also adapt to support low-bandwidth users, supporting a much lower, telephone quality where necessary.
MKP20 is part of a series of Sun initiatives in Collaborative Environments aimed at the business community. The new wave of business-focused 3D environments will have a distinct appeal to many larger companies, where the opportunity for reducing internal travel costs and increasing collaboration can be translated directly into bottom-line savings. Without a casino or lap-dancing club furry in sight it is a more sober world, maybe, but one perhaps better suited to the business user.
Aleister Kronos appears by kind permission of Ambling in Second Life.
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[…] Source: Sun Aims New 3D Environment at Business Originally published on Tue, 01 May 2007 19:42:31 GMT by Aleister Kronos […]
[…] Clear Ink works with Sun (see 3pointD for news on Sun’s new 3D ebvironment) and Autodesk in Second Life (sim opening today). But, I was prompted to visit Clear Ink Island this week mainly because I noticed they had streamed the recent TED conference into Second Life, and were responsible for the construction of TED Island (to be publicly announced this month). […]
Well…. This looks like a nice secondlife clone… If it does ran faster on slower computers like this laptop. I still wonder if this thing would be used for more than just business use.. like just to have fun with.
[…] The idea is to bring remote workers in Sun’s worldwide offices together into a single embodied space, “where the spacial layout of the 3D world coupled with the immersive audio provides strong cognitive cues that enhance collaboration.” (Via 3pointD, where blogger Mark Wallace has worthwhile commentary.) In IBM’s case, it’s a rough-and-ready 3D environment created by their Innovate Quick team, using the Torque graphics engine from Garage Games. […]
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I’m working on an intranet project for our company, which has operations in 8 countries. Thanks for this post, Aleister.
But, seriously, does anyone believe these projects will actually reduce travel costs enough to pay for themselves or even save money? I don’t think you’ll see that kind of saving until 10 years down the track when any company can buy an off-the-shelf version of this sort of product and install it in 2 hours–like you can an open source news forum today, for example.
These projects seem to be more about generating excitement than productivity.
Thanks again.
dave
[…] The idea is to bring remote workers in Sun’s worldwide offices together into a single embodied space, “where the spacial layout of the 3D world coupled with the immersive audio provides strong cognitive cues that enhance collaboration.” (Via 3pointD, where blogger Mark Wallace has worthwhile commentary.) In IBM’s case, it’s a rough-and-ready 3D environment created by their Innovate Quick team, using the Torque graphics engine from Garage Games. […]
[…] The idea is to bring remote workers in Sun’s worldwide offices together into a single embodied space, “where the spacial layout of the 3D world coupled with the immersive audio provides strong cognitive cues that enhance collaboration.” (Via 3pointD, where blogger Mark Wallace has worthwhile commentary.) In IBM’s case, it’s a rough-and-ready 3D environment created by their Innovate Quick team, using the Torque graphics engine from Garage Games. […]
I am liking this application but not sure how really well it’s going to work. I do a lot of virtual work now and these kinds of applications are needed if they perform and are easy to use.