Cheap laptops
So what does the Asus announcement about cheap laptops have to do with Virtually Real? Nothing and everything.
The introduction of the $299 laptop with 256MB of RAM, and 2 GB of storage is just the next step in development. I know when I saw my first USB flash memory stick I instantly thought “when is this going to replace the hard drive?” Well, here we are.
Let’s apply that tangible change to other aspects of technology (tangible in both the physical size of these new laptops, and virtually tangible in how few dollars one needs to spend on one). Of course this exercise is nothing new — just think of Moore’s law.
A few of the folks I have interviewed for Virtually Real have gone so far to say that 3D immersive spaces are going to be a passing fad, just as was VRML 90s, and other 3D technological attempts. Speak with a futurist like Jamais Cascio and you start to get a different sense of where things may go.
But here’s the trippy part for me: Jamais eloquently stitches together multiple cultural and technological elements to come to his conclusions. Technology is NOT the tail wagging the cultural dog, which is an easy trap to fall in. Everything is related. And overriding all of this, while steeped in our Western democracy, is that we have choices in all of this. That’s one of the most fascinating elements of Jamais’ conclusions — the reminder that we have distinct choices in front of us.
So, as Virtually Real continues to plod along I’ve found myself influenced more and more by characters like Sibley Verbeck, Reuben Steiger, Jamais, and projects like the Metaverse Roadmap Project.
These influences, coming on the heels of my freak-out at the Virtual Worlds Conference, have lead my calmly back to my initial interest in this project: how will culture conform / change / manage with this rapidly developing new communication medium.
After all, 3D immersive space, Virtual World, mobile web, whatever perspective you want to take on all of this Web 3.0, or whatever it nom-de-plume it has in the media today, it’s all about human interaction through communication. And since none of us lives in a vacuum, how is all of this new connectivity going to play out in cutltural confluences in this new place where communication is going to truly become interactive communication?
We have just crossed the threshold from where the web was a space with even more of a time-lag than trans-continental telephone calls had in the early 70s — a lag that allowed for communication, but definitely limited the spirit of that communication. The web has been very static up until this time, and now, in a very real way, communication with multiple people can occur “face-to-face” as quickly as you can type, and if you choose to use the Beta-versions, you can communicate with your voice while your avatar stands “face-to-face” with your companion’s avatar — all with little lag, unless you’re in a SIM already loaded with a ton of other avatars, but that hang-up will soon go the way of the expensive, large laptop and be replaced by its own version of the $299 Asus.