IBM and Linden Lab Team Up for Avatar Open Standards

Last night IBM hosted a meeting of companies and researchers in San Jose to  discuss open standards for transporting avatars across virtual worlds. With representatives from Cisco, Google, Linden Lab, Sony, Intel, Multiverse, Microsoft, Motorola, and Philips, among others, they discussed plans to establish an organization to promote a truly interoperable 3D Internet. Meanwhile, the IBM and Linden Lab are set to announce their own plans for avatar open standards at the Virtual Worlds Fall Conference and Expo, today and tomorrow in San Jose. “Now, for every world I touch I have to build an avatar. It’s an obstacle to the development and spread of virtual worlds, both in the consumer and corporate space," ”  Colin Parris, the I.B.M. vice president in charge of virtual world technology, told the New York Times. The Financial Times is reporting via NBC that more than 20 companies were present at the meeting.

Comments

[Geoff]

There already *is* an open standard: ISO/IEC 19774 Humanoid Animation

http://www.web3d.org/x3d/specifications/ISO-IEC-19774-HumanoidAnimation/

[Treff]

“Now, for every world I touch I have to build an avatar. It’s an obstacle to the development and spread of virtual worlds, both in the consumer and corporate space,"

What a totally baseless comment! How is 20 seconds spent typing in my name and picking a few random image templates any kind of obstacle to entering a world? How does my Level 70 WoW Mage translate into a shop-front seller in SecondLife, or a chat avatar in Habbo Hotel? Has Colin Parris spent a lot of time or developing virtual worlds himself?

[Gav]

I don't see this as practical. It's a nice idea but how is having an Avatar in Habbo Hotel going to translate well into SecondLife? Can users bring over their attachable genitals into NeoPets or Webkins? Jokes aside, I get the feeling no company is going to want to open a gate allowing their hard-earned userbase to just slip on out into another world. Also there's the chance of security breaches in one world effecting the other. I don't know, it all sounds too hoaky to me. Both on a platform/software standpoint and also business. It's not going to make anyone money except for the poor saps that get dragged into the whole mess by the major corporations. Do they think they can bring it all together to have some sort of central control over all worlds? Sounds monopolistic to me.

That or everyone is drinking the coolaid served up over at "the labs".