“Second Earth” by Wade Roush

“Second Earth” was written by Wade Roush. This article begins to describe the virtual 3-D world of Second Life created by Linden Lab. This is a virtual world where people can perform some of the things they do in reality; such as shop, buy property, interact, build, dance, etc. They can also perform activities that are unrealistic in everyday life, such as fly and teleport to different cities in an instant. Roush talks about the virtual weather map that Jeffrey Corbin, a research assistant in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Denver, has created in Second Life. He used 3-D tools to create a real-time weather map that is updated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's network of airport weather stations.

Roush then describes a more professional oriented virtual world, dubbed “virtual globe,” such as Google Earth, Microsoft’s Virtual Earth, and NASA open-source World Wind. These programs are created by companies like Autodesk and ESRI and are accessible to both professionals and average Internet users. “Virtual globes let you plot your city's sewer system, monitor a network of environmental sensors, count up the frequent-flyer miles between New York and New Delhi, or just soar through a photorealistic 3-D model of the Grand Canyon.”

As the popularity of Second Life and Google Earth continue to grow, it becomes quite obvious to speculate what will happen if they actually merge into “Second Earth.” Roush is absolutely confident that they will meet because both Google and Linden Lab grant access to their existing 3-D platforms through tools that let outside programmers build their own auxiliary applications. Observers predict that the first step in merging the two virtual worlds will be integrating Second Life's avatars, controls, and modeling tools into the Google Earth environment. “Groups of users would then be able to walk, fly, or swim across Google's simulated landscapes and explore intricate 3-D representations of the world's most famous buildings.” A second alternative would be to expand the Second Life surface area to accommodate the topographical and surface area of the real earth. It would just consist of adding the Google world to the already existing Second Life world. Although this would be the more difficult solution, I would personally choose this one. Devoted SL users would still get to keep their assets and avatars, only now they will have additional virtual land to explore and live. Also, Google users can now begin to explore SL lands and features. It seems like a win- win situation to me.

The idea of a merge seems stimulating; however there are two main issues that need to be dealt with. Programmer and 3-D modeler Alyssa LaRoche, who created the immersive weather map for NOAA, informs Roush that there will be inevitable glitches that would definitely need to be sorted out. Such glitches might prevent real life data to correctly correlate with the virtual world. Now let’s assume that these inevitable glitches will be addressed; that still leaves a more obvious problem. It is highly unlikely that Second Life and Google will even consider a merge. Both companies have denied any interest in a merge that will combine both of their virtual worlds into one humongous Metaverse. However, there are other possibilities for us to have these worlds combined. SL and Google are not the only programs that will rule the future of virtual worlds; there will be many others. Since the idea of Second Earth is so intriguing, programmers will pursue its development, despite if there’s significant financial reward or not. Jamais Cascio, a consultant who co- founded the futurist website WorldChanging.com, says ‘As long as somebody can find some really strong personal gratification out of doing it, then there is a driver to make it happen.’

Article can be read: http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/18888/page2/