Category Archives: Hursley

Hursley, site and location.

Anarkik eightbar

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Ann Marie Shillito from Anarkik 3D visited the eightbar crowd in Hursley (thanks to epred for inviting a bunch of us hangers-on along!).

Anarkik are involved with haptic input devices and have developed some really nice software which enables users to interact with virtual worlds and 3D modelling tools using a consumer-priced haptic controller which can be connected to a PC via USB.

The demo blew us away. First we had a look at how the controller could be used to drive an avatar in a virtual world (in this case, OpenSim). It’s a considerably more natural way to navigate than the keyboard and mouse setup that is provided with most 3D worlds and should lead to a lot more accessibility into these environments. The part that really impressed us was the capability of driving a CAD-like tool called Cre8 – a free download from Anarkik, for people who have the controller – to easily create three-dimensional objects by physical manipulation… both inside and out. I remember hacking around with an old 3D package called Euclid on my RISC OS machine back in the early 90s and it was a nightmare – this was sheer joy. Watch the video to see various people playing around with the haptic controller :-)

Just to explain what is going on in the video, as it may not be entirely clear! The demos use a Novint Falcon gaming controller. To quote Anarkik, it is “like a small grounded ‘robot’ and provides the ‘force feedback’ that gives the uncanny sense of touching a virtual object. This device replaces the mouse and also provides more natural and coherent movement in 3 dimensions.” At the start, several of us have a go with the controller to drive an avatar around an OpenSim island running on the local machine, using Anarkik’s software. Around the middle of the video, we switch to using the Cre8 tool to do some simple modelling. In particular, we change the surface hardness of a sphere (where it becomes more or less soft to the touch); and then go inside the sphere and extrude the shape by pulling the controller around. Finally, there’s a brief look at some fabricated items modelled using the same software.

Anarkik also have a community called Anarkik Angels where they are looking for supporters to help crowdsource and develop the project.

[the one minor disappointment for me personally was the current lack of Mac OS X support - Windows-only at the moment - and the websites aren't terribly Mac-friendly either. Guess it's time to buy a Windows box just for this stuff, it's awesome!]

All of this haptic craziness hit a lot of our interest areas – 3d printing, new ways of interacting with technology, the application of these kinds of controls to education, manufacturing, science, craft, modelling… we had some very exciting and interesting discussions and I think several of us are looking forward to playing with this technology a lot more in the future. There are a bunch of additional videos on the Anarkik website.

Just thinking out loud – Metaverse snapshot

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I moved offices today and having a bright new whiteboard I could not leave it clean for long.
Its not really a mindmap, just some association of thoughts and bits of linkages. I am sure it will alter, but right now this is what was in my head in a mad flurry. The underlying red part is really the substrate of the whole thing. Just my personal thoughts linked to some of the things I have seen and been involved with one way and another.

Thoughts on the metaverse
Note: edited to show smaller version of the board as it was cropping the right hand important side for those that did not click through to flickr. 3d printing FTW and high value professional social networks one there too !

Dogear-nation podcast takeover

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It may sometimes seem as if eightbar is taking over dogear nation, but the founding two Michaels(Martine and Rowe) are honoury eightbars anyway, so Andy Piper doing the recording and editing for the show is not quite so bizarre.
Anyway this weeks show features your truly as a guest. I almost missed out the podcast in my web evolution, but I am circling back around and finding it a very good way to explain my passion for all things. The only fly in the ointment being my broad Norfolk accent, but the other guys sound great :)
Yes I did do a Clarkson impression, and I did mention my disdane for Vista so it was not all virtual worlds!
So thankyou Dogear-nation for having me guest. Enjoy the programme let us know what you think its on itunes and everything :) .
For those that don’t know tag things of interest on delicious.com with dogear-nation and it can become part of the running order for discussion on the show.

Business week predicts a resurgence in 3d this year

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A colleague Bill Chamberlin(*updated with full name and link to his external blog :) ) had spotted this article in business week and shared it with us. (Business Week provided great coverage back in 2006 when our CEO Sam Palmisano entered Second Life )The stand out line is of course “3D returns in a big way” not that it ever went away of course.
The prediction refers to the increase in 3d capability from Nvidia, and also James Cameron’s Avatar project (film, game, world etc). I am waving at Corey Bridges at Multiverse of course as he has very close ties with this project and the production team from what we heard in LA this year
If you tie this to my epredictions around companies needing to do something to engage and communicate across organizations strapped for cash and not travelling it really is an obvious step isnt it?
Still as I saw a quote used on twitter by Kathy Sierra “You can’t reason people out of a position they didn’t use reason to get into” I am sure there is still some convincing to do.
So if you are out there and wavering, not knowing why your business can benefit from virtual worlds, even it if is just for the sake of an argument give us a call here at eightbar :)

2009 eprediction, wishlist, speculation.

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Looking back on what has happened the last few years, both here on eightbar and for me personally I can still see we have a long way to go to get to a point where we can sit back and say, yes virtual worlds/metaverses/3d web done!
Of course that is never actually going to happen, we are talking here about cultural change aswell as technical evolution. There will not be one product, one offering, one service, one answer. Everytime you catch yourself thinking that thats when disruptive innovation comes along and does something you never could expect.
So, what should happen next year? eprediction time.
1. I expect to be asked to share the war stories and consulting experience with people about how eightbar evolved and how we got our large corporation to sit up and take notice. Its a matter of record the journey is documented here, in books, articles, anecdotes. Its a story of traditional enterprise having to adjust to the 2.0 of all things. Virtual worlds are a subject, a rich one, but the journey has been one of a different form or organization, growing out of necessity and passion and with good intent. I have enough chapters for the book now!
2. I would like the progress to continue, all the platforms getting better and stronger, but the reason some have worked up to now is the initial free approach. I could not have got anyone to follow inot any virtual worlds really that cost money to set up and run. The very nature of public and free to sample dropped a huge barrier, as with blogs, all the major web2.0 sites. Being able to say, whats stopping you then? and the answer being either IT policy or apathy/fear is a great lever to help people.
3. Cloud will grow hugely. This really is a no brainer and relates to 2 above. People, normal people, do not want to run servers, patch things, have kit sitting around. Us techies might love it, but a service that does stuff, somewhere else. Well thats the obvious solution. We have been around this before too, but as with all these things, we now have everything aligned and utility computing/grid computing/network computing, on-demand etc is a reality. It will improve, it will get better and more user friendly. You can see the start of a VW trend and cloud with Simondemand on Amazon EC2
4. Financial doom and gloom will spark some very strong entreprenarial activity. Yes startups, not all silicon valley. Its times like this entrepreneurs take risks, dive in and get on with it. Things will either pick up, or we end up back in the stoneage, either way sitting not doing anything is not an answer. Fear, like failure is not an option. Fortune favours the brave and all that :)
5. Business use of virtual worlds will get so easy, so pervasive, people wont even question the point any more. Wishful thinking, but richer human communication that costs less that the current options, phone, plane, real estate in a world that is seeking to find better ways to do things. Whats the problem, get on with it already!
6&7. These intentionally left blank, there are a few very exciting things going on that I cant blog about yet, but I predict these will be rather huge and massively revolutionary*, when I can say I will retrofit into this post and say a hindsight told you so.
8. 3d printing a.k.a rapid fabrication the rise of the fabricaneur in manufacturing, just have to add that in as its so important for the evolution of products.
There that’s it. Now, as it says on my Xbox 360 profile “can we get on with it?”
Lets rock 2009!
*updated to masssively revolutionary after complaints from those who know about it that evolutionary is too soft :)

Wishing you all a very merry christmas

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From all of us here at eightbar, a very merry christmas and happy new year. We all know 2009 is going to rock, so eat drink and be merry.
Its been one heck of a year for us here, Roo moving on, Rob becoming a dad, the odd role change here and there. The one consistent thing is having the eigthbar flag to rally around, whether in virtual worlds or out fixing the planet with homecamp.
What will we see next year? More VW’s and toolkits coming to life? more corporate take up to improve communication in a nervous world? rise of mirror worlds and instrumentation for a smarter planet? fabricaneurs making the virtual real with 3d printers? Some of this will happen, either that or we all sit scared in a hole waiting for the clouds to pass. I somehow think the entreprenaurial spirit of many of us, sparked by virtual worlds, wont let that happen will it ?
Anyway, time will tell. Enjoy the holidays whatever you are doing. May all your presents rez correctly.
Merry Christmas

Paved paradise put up a parking lot

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Over at Ugotrade once again Tish has done a fantastic post about Homecamp which includes a stack of my fellow eightbars. There is also a great interview with Andy SC about all things Current Cost meter, Second Life visualizations of his automated house and Smart Planet in general.
Many threads are coming together now, a more eco minded but technology driven approach to things. Much of this has been bubbling around for ages and lots of us take it for granted people know this stuff. However, read the post and get the full vision from the leaders in this field of eco automation.
Andy’s house is currently seeking a new more official home as it was demolished from Hursley island this weekend and replaced by a Seigmancer Nino Empress Condo which is actually the same sort of thing by the same creator that was there before I cleared the space for Andy’s house.
The house becomes a condo
The house will be missed on Hursley island, a great (first!) build by eightbar alumni Laronzo Fiztgerald/Mark Alexander of Uproar Design, but look for a public place to view it very soon.
As you know I like the flow of linkages between things, back in the early days of the internal metaverse the project leader that Roo and I worked with was David Currier, he left to go and start a… Home automation company homespace integrators :)
There is also of course our good friends and collegues over at Eolus where mirror worlds and real world instrumentation are making huge savings on running properties and facilities.
Whilst showing the linkages here I also have to say thanks to James Governor/Monkchips for tweeting “my Team of 2008 award goes to IBM’s Eight Bar at Hursley Labs. RedMonk celebrates makers and doers – these guys exemplify getting on with”
****Update James has written a whole blogpost on us, and very nice it is too. It’s brilliant to have had this sort of impact. We dont do this for fame and glory, but to start a conversation, to engage with people as IBMers in ways that they may not be used to, and then to be thanked for it. Brilliant :)
Things coming to fruition, linkages flowing and people saying thanks do mean a great to to this humble little band in Hursley and also the wider band of eightbars across the company. One heck of a tribe I reckon :)

Eightbar, an emotional hello

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We had a bit of a gathering today on my Hursley island in Second Life. Since mid 2006 I have been providing us as eightbar with a bit of a haven. A place for IBMers and now some exIBMers and guests to call home in the crazy world that is Second Life. As this has always been an unofficial space, just as this is an unofficial blog the island(s) have existed out of a need for community but not in anyway paid for by the community. I viewed it as a duty upon myself to grow the community and provide the islands. I thought we had reached a point where we no longer needed them, and that maybe it was time to free up the hundreds of pounds a month that had been such an important investment.
So, a core bunch gathered to hear me tell the story of Hursley, some of the oldest eightbars and some of the newest. I should not have been suprised, but I was moved, by the waves of support from the gathering and agreeing that we all still wanted this place of history and future to exist. It is something that any of the masses of eightbars woudl have been proud to have been at.
I am not sure we worked out exactly how to pay for this all, but we have so many people that its really a no brainer to cover the costs of 2 islands. There was certainly a willingness and some fabulous donations to get that going.
Eightbar reborn
Hursley and eigthbar the rebirth
So why has Hursley and IQ remained so long as our personal island? Well because it was the right thing to do, and now by mass concensus and action, sharing the message with our fellow eightbars it still is the right thing.
Its not a server, its a place, and its our place. We started our tribe in that space and the tribe has even more heart than ever and is quite a force to be reckoned with.
Go eightbar and thank you all who atteneded, who wanted to attend and who will hear the message for the support! :)

Irving and Obama – Fantastic Innovation News

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Some fantastic news is zooming around the internet right now. A former IBM Vice President and now MIT visiting professor Dr Irving Wladawsky-Berger is now on President Elect Obama’s Technology and Innovation Panel.
This is significant because Irving is a great visionary and for us here at eightbar has been a very key supporter from the very early days of virtual worlds. Sandy Kearney was working closely with Irving when we first met and serendipty kicked in.
Irving has been trying things out and blogging for many years too. So we can all rest assured that he “gets it”.
Quite a day given our CEO Sam Palmisano has joined in on an exciting discussion around social media inside IBM today.
(Thanks aneel for tweeting this news in the first place )