Second Life

==Insights==
===Welcome To 'Mixed Reality'===
: by Majeed Saleh in E-Government Bulletin, 18 February 2008
During the 2007 French presidential campaign the extreme right-wing Front
National candidate Jean Marie Le Pen established his headquarters next to
the Matrix Mall in a shopping area know as Porcupine. Soon his glass-fronted
building was surrounded by placards and billboards demanding that he leave
town and eventually the Front's base was abandoned and destroyed when
protestors overwhelmed security and bombarded the building with exploding
pigs.
That these events actually happened is a clue to their location: Le Pen was
the first presidential candidate to set up home in the virtual world Second Life. During the course of the campaign all of the major candidates followed suit and staged events in Second Life which saw speeches, rallies, demonstrations and meetings as well as genuine engagement with voters.
France has the largest number of Second Life users after the US, so it was a
natural move for politicians to try to engage potential voters in this
medium. In Britain there have been fewer examples, although the then Environment
Secretary David Miliband did use Second Life last year to promote the
climate change debate.
The US House of Representatives does have a Second Life counterpart,
although this is not officially associated with the real McCoy; it was the idea of a
Californian Democratic Representative named George Miller, and has been used
for party promotional exercises including question and answer sessions and
speech streaming.
The Maldives (http://maldivesmission.ch/index.php?id=65) and Sweden
(http://fastlink.headstar.com/sweden1) have both opened embassies in Second Life; members of staff are on hand to dispense tourist information and
advise people on visa conditions.
These examples show that so far the main uses of Second Life have been for
promotion or information dissemination rather than interaction or service
provision. But as we saw in part one of our series last issue (see
E-Government Bulletin, 04 February 2008), the education sector is finding various
significant and valuable uses for the virtual world and other public service areas could
follow suit in the months and years to come.
The City Council of Zoetermeer in the Netherlands spent 25,000 euros on
constructing a virtual City Hall where it could hold meetings; as the first
of its kind, the opening earned the city huge amounts of publicity, not least
because of the two virtual streakers who put in an unscheduled appearance.
Virtual worlds open up speeches, seminars and lectures to wider
participation and introduce a level of interactivity impossible in conventional websites. In a
virtual world you can examine interactive working models and attend exhibitions that
would be impossible in real life.
The UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is among 20 educational and
research bodies in the US and UK that have founded SciLands
(http://www.scilands.org/), a virtual continent for science and technology
research organisations in Second Life. Some of the simulations available
there, and indeed throughout Second Life, act like an interactive documentary,
allowing users to closely examine objects and environments they would never normally
be able to observe such as an underwater cave or the centre of a hurricane.
Some of the best examples of this are provided by the [[US National Oceanographic and
Atmospheric Administration]]'s islands (http://fastlink.headstar.com/noaa1).
On December 18 2007 the first NanoShow took place in 'mixed reality' with
about 50 guests attending in real life and another 50 attending the show at
NanoLands (http://www.nanolands.org/), the NPL's nanotechnology island
within SciLands. The show was a considered a success and more have been
planned.
Also in conjunction with the NPL, Imperial College London has created Second
Health (http://secondhealth.wordpress.com), a virtual hospital based on the
principles and recommendations outlined in the strategy paper 'Healthcare
for London: a framework for action'. Second Health is described as an
"experimental, innovative and efficient means of communicating complex
healthcare messages as well as illustrating what healthcare of the future
could look like". Second Health is currently inviting feedback on its 'vision of
the future' in the hope of refining it further.
This is one of the most interesting possibilities of virtual worlds: they
provide a relatively inexpensive way of consulting concerned parties over real-world
developments through the use of life-size virtual models and simulations. An
early example of this with possible future implications for planning
authorities was set by 'Association Accomplir', a Parisian residents' association which
was disappointed with the lack of consultation regarding the redevelopment of
the Jardin Des Halles. To push the issue the group started a competition for new
designs for the gardens in Second Life (http://fastlink.headstar.com/halles1) . The winning designers were awarded a prize of 275,000 Linden Dollars (just over 1,000 US dollars at today's
exchange rate), and successful designers of other garden features such as the
playground, a sculpture, a fountain, a gate and the public toilets, received smaller
awards (see http://fastlink.headstar.com/halles2).
These examples point to the fact that Second Life is a very different medium
to the web, and organisations that are using it purely to distribute
information are failing to realise its true potential.
In fact, virtual worlds are not a good medium for information exchange. Walk
(or fly) into many virtual campuses or company offices looking for detailed
information and if nobody is there to greet you, you may find the only
information available is in the form of fuzzy text and pictures plastered
across the walls or on virtual notice boards in an otherwise empty room. Saveable
handouts, flyers and documents may be on offer, appearing as icons on screen as you
enter a building or event, but looking for information in Second Life is
relatively time consuming - by searching the web you could have found what you were looking
for in seconds.
The true potential benefits of virtual worlds to enhancing public services
are to
be found in live networking, and the ability to create and interact with
life-size
representations and models. The experience of watching video or listening to
music in Second Life is also enhanced by the ability to see and interact
with other
members of the audience.
The question remains however as to whether the time is yet right for the
public
sector beyond the educational and research spheres to invest in creating a
presence in virtual worlds that are still relatively poorly developed and
relatively
poorly used.
category:technology