1. Connecting First and Second Life
matt biddulph <matt@hackdiary.com>
www.hackdiary.com
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2. DOPPLR
DOPPLR
DOPPLR
Where next? 2
Where next?
Iâm Matt Biddulph, CTO of Dopplr - the social network for frequent travellers. But Iâm not here to talk
about that today.
Where next?
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quote: âThe computing revolution was about digitising information. The wireless-communications
revolution is about making digital information about anything, available anywhere, at almost no cost.â
quote: âHuge amounts of data that were once impossible or too expensive to collect will become the
backbone of entirely new services.â
A disruptive change is occurring in the physical environment thanks to physical computing, pervasive
networks and abundant digital storage
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Bruce Sterling wrote about The Internet of Things in his book âMaking Thingsâ. In it, he invents the
work âSpimeâ to describe the new kinds of active objects that are entering the world.
5. âA Spime is a location-aware,
environment-aware, self-logging,
self-documenting,
uniquely identified object that
flings off data about itself and its
environment in great quantities.â
Cory Doctorow, reviewing âShaping Thingsâ by Bruce Sterling
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Bruce Sterling wrote about The Internet of Things in his book âMaking Thingsâ. In it, he invents the
work âSpimeâ to describe the new kinds of active objects that are entering the world.
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Spimes have a sense of place: eg, GPS
A Spime senses other things too. It records, logs, broadcasts.
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An Internet of Things requires data mining and search
quot;I have an Internet-of-Things with a search engine of things. So I no longer hunt anxiously for my
missing shoes in the morning. I just Google them.â
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Mature CAD/CAM tools point to the way to easy personal fabrication of objects. They will enable a Ctrl
+P - Print for the real world.
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3D printers, enabling production on command.
The physical worldâs closest thing to the internet concept of âfree, inïŹnite copiesâ
Works well with open source - send a cellphone design to Africa and let them modify it for local needs
11. âA universe of Spimes is an
informational universe.â
Cory Doctorow, reviewing âShaping Thingsâ by Bruce Sterling
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Second Life is entirely UGC - itâs the myspace/youtube of 3D
6 million registered, 1.7million active users. 37,000 at midnight last night.
Seocnd Life objects can: move, listen, speak, change appearance, record data
As with âView Sourceâ on the web, objects are âright-click to modifyâ
We can use this to prototype the future of physical computing.
13. âSecond Life is like a dog's
walking on his hind legs. It is
not done well, but you are
surprised to find it done at all.â
with fond apologies to Samuel Johnson and Linden Lab
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Second Life is entirely UGC - itâs the myspace/youtube of 3D
6 million registered, 1.7million active users. 37,000 at midnight last night.
Seocnd Life objects can: move, listen, speak, change appearance, record data
As with âView Sourceâ on the web, objects are âright-click to modifyâ
We can use this to prototype the future of physical computing.
14. XMLHttpRequest
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llHTTPRequest is the XHR of Second Life - for bringing in data from the web, and hence from the real
world
15. llHTTPRequest
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llHTTPRequest is the XHR of Second Life - for bringing in data from the web, and hence from the real
world
16. llHTTPRequest
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This is a Flickr mashup - pictures on the screen pulled in from the Flickr API
18. 15
nature.com bring web 2.0 to scientists, in the form of:
Blogs
Podcasts
Connotea
Nature Network
19. 16
This science visualisation was produced with expensive software that is not collaborative.
Nature commissioned me to bring the workstation graphics into the Second Life world to open up
access to it.
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How to make a 3D Printer in Second Life?
Start with this carpenterâs helper - like a t-square and spirit level that broadcasts its own location. My ïŹrst spime.
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A video of the cell being printed. People are sitting on it!
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Second Life client released as open source. I modiïŹed it to say âmattbâ whenever I pressed a key, to
prove I could easily change its functionality. Coming back to this later.
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âIPv6 wants to transform everything in the world, even every part of every thing, into a node.â
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Atmel AVR microcontroller
Disruptive technology: cheap and scriptable
Compared to tiny Linux computers, itâs underpowered and has no OS. This is a good thing! Embed
them in anything, ïŹt for purpose, low power.
Fingertip-sized
Chip costs 3 Euros
33. void setup()
{
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
}
void loop()
{
digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH); // sets the LED on
delay(1000); // waits for a second
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW); // sets the LED off
delay(1000); // waits for a second
}
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Hello World - almost as easy as scripting
Documented online
Half an hourâs work from unpacking the arduino
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âIf You Canât Open It, You Donât Own Itâ
We modiïŹed a simple toy remote control car...
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... to have bluetooth control. Itâs a mess, but so was my ïŹrst CGI and now look at me. This is software
people making things happen in the physical world - âRight-click to modify the worldâ
Now back to Second Life
39. âItâs getting to the point
where itâs as easy to
get involved in this
world as it would be for
you to go home, open
Notepad, and start
writing HTMLâ
Matt Webb, http://schulzeandwebb.com/2007/hills/slides/?p=47
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Matt Webb is wise.