This article by Wade Roush discussing the technological advances made by Linden Lab with their creation of Second Life. Second Life is like a virtual world where users have virtual representations of themselves as avatars and then explore a real like virtual representation of the world. It’s mentioned how Second Life is not without its flaws and how it accurately it represents matters depends on the capability of it’s hardware and software. The pros of Second Life mentioned in the article details how its well adapt for basic representation and data modeling. A large majority of the article discusses how many many professional are predicting a integration of Second Life with virtual globe programs such as Google Earth. Which then in 10 to 20 years their is a prediction that a metaverse will emerge which is basically like a virtual planet. Virtual tourism, education and training are common place facets in Second Life and Google Earth. Will this Metaverse be overkill? is a question that is stated to the reader towards the end of the article.
I personally find Google Earth interesting and fun especially when I was able to find my home and other building in the vicinity. So I was more caught off guard by metaverse that is discussed in the article. A virtual planet might be hard to imagine but when I considered just how advanced Second Life and Google Earth are it didn’t seem as far fetched of an idea. I could see the advances of this, for example say for a history course in college we took a trip to the Grand Canyon from just the computers in the classroom! I don’t find a future Metaverse to be intimidating at all.
