kevin roebuck's blog: My Almost Daily News

My colleague and friend Art runs what I think is one of the best and coolest communities at Sun. It's called the PASIG for the Preservation and Archiving Special Interest Group. He and Mike Keller, Chief Cybrarian at Stanford, have brought together what amounts to the world's best and brightest minds in the digital library community to discuss strategies for preserving access to the world's collective digital culture. I'm jazzed to be giving a talk on Wonderland and our Immersive Education community work at the upcoming meeting this month in San Francisco. Join us if you can for what is sure to be another great event.

The good folks at Saint Paul College and the University of Oregon are now well underway on their art path project between the two sites for Merlot/Cate and Virtual Northstar in Wonderland. They are going to use a new collaborative social bookmarking service called Diigo to build of a kind of collaborative space around the Sun platform. It is a much different and far more open development path than the AOL-like lock-in of Second Life. So, check out Diigo as a service or visit the Virtual Northstar Project site to see it in action as they build out their part of the Open Content Metaverse

The archived audio transcript is now available from last friday's Immersive Education group meeting. The focus of the discussion included sections on high-resolution avatars, photo-based modeling, graphics, game engines and cinematic 3-D. The session ended with a discussion on key open file formats that will be adopted for the Education Grid including X3D and Collada making Wonderland content creation conform to the spec with the .5 release this fall. The community goal for content, "Create Once, Experience Everywhere".

High-Resolution Avatars

Cinematic 3-D 

Here's kind of cool new way to think about net access for kids. WiHood has a "virtual
laptop" that is loaded on a USB bracelet and worn on your wrist,
carried in a pocket or in a school bag. They are inserted into any internet connected PC launching the WiHood
virtual laptop service (running on a Solaris datacenter) that provides each child with their own personal
virtual desktop. WiHood's web filtering service is integrated into the
WiHood desktop that provides games and office applications, all while
protecting children online. WiHood was founded to bridge the
digital-divide amongst children while protecting them online using Web
2.0 thinking (web services and cloud computing technologies).

After a brief but enjoyable trip to Cincinatti to visit with University of Cincinnati and seminar event with Cinci Bell for the K12 community, preparation is on now for upcoming New Media Consortium Annual Conference held this year at Princeton University. With the Open Virtual Worlds Project now underway and hosted at CommonNeed, we'll be featuring a pre-conference workshop on Project Wonderland, a breakout session summary and closing session discussing OVW and getting folks started in creating and building their own playgrounds. It should be a blast so sign up and join Sun and the NMC on this exploration of open source, virtual worlds and creativity.

Everyone interested in K12 and open education should keep an eye on Stan and his team's efforts. We are going to do everything possible to see them succeed.

The video archive is now available from the US House Subcommittee meeting on Telecommunications and the Internet session on Online Virtual Worlds: Applications and Avatars in a User-Generated Medium. Thanks Larry for mentioning Wonderland in your excellent remarks to the group.

Another great Fire & Ice event today from Stace and the gang at Elluminate. This time the event focus is on kids affected by war around the world. As described, "The Machinto project is based on a Japanese picture book about a little girl who is killed in the Hiroshima bomb in 1945. The girl comes back to life as a dove who spreads peace and hope to children in the world who are affected by war. Over the past several months, students from various countries have leveraged the internet to communicate their feelings and thoughts about this topic by engaging in online forums, sharing photographs and artwork, and developing their own picture book about peace and friendship. As a token of friendship, Machinto classes will distribute these books to children who live in war-affected areas including Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan". The books and poems can be seen on the project website at www.machinto.org.

Stan and his team came down for a really enjoyable day during the Sun Labs Open House. We've kicked off the new project with Modesto City Schools and Stanislaus County . More news will be coming soon as we get the server on-line and initial test experiences underway for our first K12 pilot in Wonderland. MiRTLE will give us an ability for traditional instructional delivery which is hopefully comfortable and not a steep learning curve at all for the teachers. Plus,  the kids can take classes still in areas where the states financial woes have cut local programs, but a virtual teacher can extend their class to include other kids in the district. After seeing World Builder in action, it's hard to imagine kids not jumping in full force on collaborative building of team spaces to engage, play and learn. Thanks to the whole team from MSC, Stanislaus and Sylvan for spending the day with us. We are jazzed about the journey ahead.

The latest video update on the MiRTLE Project with Essex University and SunLabs creating an open source mixed reality classroom on top of Project Wonderland. We're showing it at the SunLabs Open House today too which is too cool to qualify. Michael presents the project next at the Sun Education Conference in Shanghai in April.

Paul over in the UK sent a note off describing the first phase of possibly the largest CAVE immersive reality environment in the world at Salford University with a very sophisticated video capture/tele-immersion system. According to Paul, "The octagonal Cave (8 to 10 pipes) will run on Scalable Visualisation Software 1.1. They are using SunFIRE X4600s as the master node and Ultra 40 M2/FX-5600 as render nodes. Eventually Salford hope to tie their research into the BBC's Tele-Immersion project. They will use the marching cube algorithm with CUDA to sculpt virtual models of real world objects, such as people, operating theatres, football matches, etc. The oCtAVE is reconfigurable into many types of CAVEs, powerwalls, etc." Cool. I sent Paul a note to see if we can arrange a public presentation on the project and it's direction and where it fits perhaps with our efforts in Project Wonderland. Here's a video demo for now. Stay tuned.

Be sure to check out the new Wonderblog for the toolkit blog from the Labs Team. Jon's got a cool first look at the new World Builder which everyone is keen to get their hands on an start building things. Especially cool is that it comes along with templates.

 And the sample World as a classroom.

Here's the abstract from last friday's session on Touch-input Devices for Immersive Education (audio archive): Abstract:  "Surface input, recently popularized by the Apple iPhone, gives users a natural way to interact with digital content through touch and gestures. Surface input devices have the potential to significantly enhance virtual learning experiences.

Special guest Rich White (Greenbush Education Service Center) will demonstrate how Edusim uses surface devices to create touch-powered 3D virtual world classrooms that students and teachers interact with directly through an interactive whiteboard that is projected onto a wall or screen".

Here are some examples done with Croquet.
 

Sun’s Wonderland platform accepted for Media Grid, by Scarlett Qi, March 28, 2008.

One of the coolest new tools out there to teach kids programming using new media is a free scripting and prototyping environment called Alice designed by the good folks at CMU. Thanks to Gary, Emil and Dan's initiative internally, we now have a technical review underway now to see how Alice may relate to current work on Wonderland, BlueJ, Greenfoot tools and the i-SIG.  Alice has been notably successful in getting young women into science and technology again which is a good thing in general and would be a great thing for here too.

"Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles." (Olympic Charter, Fundamental Principles, paragraph 1)

Here is Sun's Gerhard Hofweber on the show floor at CEBIT show showing off Wonderland.  Sprechen Sie  Deutche?

Larry Johnson is the CEO of the New Media Consortium and a good friend to Sun and all those in favor of an open source marketplace for virtual worlds which is the main goal of the Open Virtual World Project based on Project Wonderland. Now, Larry has been asked to speak to the House Subcomittee on Telecommunications and the Internet at the US Congress on April 1st. So, if you have any thoughts on where the market is heading, what we need to do to ensure a safe, secure virual space for business and education, what's important and what isn't, then help us out and post your comments and I'll aggregate them and forward them on to Larry to include in his remarks. Also, plan to join us at the NMC Annual Conference at Princeton University where Wonderland and Sun will be joining in force with the good folks in the NMC community to share our ideas about what that potential future world could look like for everyone.

My friend Phil who runs KZO networks sent over this photo of KZO techies Wes & Jeff hanging out with Bill at the Perspective on the Future of Technology Innovation session webcasted on the very cool KZO mediacast platform at the NVTC event on Thursday.  What would Bill say if he knew it was Flash running open source Red5 on a Sun server?! We've got a brief delay in the project, but will have KZO back in the Sun performance lab for the completion of the Thumper test soon. Keep up the good work guys.

My friend Raymond sent me a note the other day and mentioned his new book on Mashups was out and available on Amazon which is pretty cool. We first met while he was working on the Scholarsbox project at Cal Berkeley which is still a good idea. Do check it out if you so have the means and Go Bears!

In a boost for the Immersive Education Initiative of which Project Wonderland and Project Darkstar are accepted development platforms, the Grid Institute has entered into a
Memorandum of Understanding and Commitment with The John C. Ford Program's
Global Education Initiative to formalize a
joint collaboration to further shared objectives, including accelerating
and strengthening the acquisition of Science, Technology, Engineering and
Mathematics (STEM) skills, problem-solving and creative thinking skills in
underserved K-12 and college students, worldwide; achieving and sustaining
the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and UNESCO Education For
All goals; and using innovative technology and Internet solutions for
building healthy, sustainable communities and increased access to critical
knowledge and information, worldwide

Under the terms of the agreement, The Ford Program-GEI
Project will donate 67 STEM programs and associated learning materials and
technologies to the Immersive Education Initiative under an Open
Educational Resources (OER) Creative Commons license. The donation, valued
at $1.2 Million USD, was developed with funding by the United States
Department of Commerce, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Dallas Foundation, COMP
USA, EDS Foundation, Bank of America Foundation, Microsoft Corporation,
Chase Bank and private investors.

The donation provides the Immersive Education Initiative
with a solid base of STEM programs from which a range of next-generation
applied engineering immersive learning experiences will be developed.

The Ford Program-GEI Project is a 501(c)(3) international
NGO donor whose mission is to help build global capacity and healthy,
sustainable communities by strengthening the educational, economic, and
environmental infrastructures of underserved communities, worldwide. The
Ford Program-GEI Project has developed and is a partner in the Global
Science-Engineering TeleCenters Programme, an alliance of private-public
partnerships representing 40 developing countries and over $1.2 Billion
USD leveraged assets to deliver quality STEM programs, and teacher/student
training to all government and municipal-operated public schools in
participating developing countries. To this end, The Ford Program-GEI
Project will grant to the Grid Institute the following donations for use
by the Immersive Education Initiative:

1. 
   
   GEI STEM Programs, which includes 67
   interdisciplinary K12-College STEM problem-solving programs
   developed by leading educators and engineers with The Ford Program-GEI
   Project, including electronic audio-data [voice and visual] curricula,
   lesson plans, training materials and templates, focused on 12 areas of
   science vital to building healthy, sustainable communities: water
   purification; environmental preservation; alternative energy; prevention
   of communicable diseases, including HIV/AIDS, waterborne, childhood and
   other communicable diseases; energy flow through ecosystems;
   eco-design-eco-engineering; wastewater sanitation and treatment;
   agricultural science; irrigation; global warming and climatology;
   aerospace science and technology; and nanotechnology.
   
   
   
2. 
   
   New Interactions Applied-Learning
   Pedagogy, which connects, empowers, motivates and accelerates
   the learning of integrated STEM and problem-solving skills by
   underserved youth, K-12-College.
   
   
   
3. 
   
   Unlimited Training On The Interactions
   Applied-Learning Pedagogy.
   
   
   
4. 
   
   Global eConsultant-Mentors Program,
   with templates for connecting leading engineers, educators and
   executives to mentor disadvantaged, under-served and vulnerable youth
   worldwide, and usage of the Global Science-Engineering
   Network.
   
   
   
5. 
   
   Four Micro-Entrepreneurship
   Programs, including Business Plan Development, Marketing Plan
   Development, Customer-Relations Development, and Business-to-Business
   Sales Development Programs.
   

Online access to the donated STEM programs and materials
will be staged out over the year 2008. Through the ImmersiveEducation.org
web site, Immersive Education Initiative members will have online access
to approximately 25 of the STEM programs on May 30, 2008, with additional
STEM programs to be available online on December 30, 2008.

About Immersive
Education
Immersive Education (ImmersiveEducation.org) combines
interactive 3D graphics, commercial game and simulation technology,
virtual reality, voice chat (Voice over IP/VoIP), Web cameras (webcams)
and rich digital media with collaborative online course environments and
classrooms. Immersive Education gives participants a sense of "being
there" even when attending a class or training session in person isn't
possible, practical, or desirable, which in turn provides educators and
students with the ability to connect and communicate in a way that greatly
enhances the learning experience. Unlike traditional computer-based
learning systems, Immersive Education is designed to immerse and engage
students in the same way that today's best video games grab and keep the
attention of players. Immersive Education supports self-directed learning
as well as collaborative group-based learning environments that can be
deliv ered over the Internet or using fixed-media such as CD-ROM and DVD.
Shorter mini-games and interactive lessons can be injected into larger
bodies of course material to further heighten and enrich the Immersive
Education experience.

About the Media
Grid
The Media Grid is a public utility for digital
media. Based on new and emerging distributed computational grid
technologies, the Media Grid builds upon existing Internet and Web
standards to create a unique network optimized for digital media delivery,
storage, and processing. As an on-demand public computing utility, a range
of software programs and Web sites can use the Media Grid for delivery and
storage of rich media content, media processing, and computing power. The
Media Grid is an open and extensible platform that enables a wide range of
applications not possible with the traditional Internet alone, including:
Massive Media on Demand (MMoD); Interactive digital cinema on demand; Immersive
Education and distance learning; Truly immersive multiplayer games and
Virtual Reality (VR); Hollywood movie and film rendering, special effects,
and composition; Real-time rendering of high resolution graphics;
Real-time visualization of complex weather patterns; Real-time protein
modeling and drug design; Telepresence, telemedicine, and telesurgery;
Vehicle and aircraft design and simulation; Visualization of scientific
and medical data.

The Grid Institute leads the design and development of the
global Media Grid through the MediaGrid.org open standards organization in
collaboration with industry, academia, and governments from around the
world. To learn more about the Media Grid and Immersive Education
visit MediaGrid.org and ImmersiveEducation.org

John Markoff at the New York Times has always been one of the better journalists covering technology. He had a cool article over the weekend quoting Bill Joy and the idea of "immersion".

Today is the last editorial meeting for the whitepaper on the Million Moodle Reference Architecture. As a sampler of what's in it, we did hit 1 million concurrent user load generated using Erlang as a load-generation engine running on Coolstack and Niagara. So, anyone who says Moodle doesn't scale may be in for an education about how to scale open source php on Solaris. Meanwhile, a podcast went up on sun.com with an interview with Stuart, CTO and Chief Architect, Moodlerooms, and Mark Thacker, Solaris Product Marketing, Sun discuss Moodle's open source learning management system. Stuart describes how Moodlerooms utilizes Solaris and the virtualization capabilities in the Solaris operating system to scale, optimize and effectively manage its datacenter operations.

Organization:
Education institutions and Fortune 500 companies alike can use Moodlerooms to host course content built on Moodle software, an open source Web-based learning management system. With half a million hosted students and more than 500 customers worldwide, Moodlerooms is the largest service provider in the Moodle Partner Network. Based in Baltimore, Maryland, the rapidly growing company has 15 full-time employees and offices in several U.S. Locations.  The podcast is available at the following Sun.com locations:

1.) Customer Reference Page (bottom right: Customers Tell Their Tales of Success)

2.) Solaris Operating System Podcast Page

3.) Sun Customer Podcasts page

We'll also have the bridge to Wonderland done this year in the i-SIG.

The Uncanny Valley is not a place, but a feeling. A discomforting feeling of experiencing something human-like, but not human, scary. The effect was first introduced by a Japanese roboticist named Masahiro Mori in  the 1970's and ranges from positive to negative to positive again.

From Wikipedia
Mori's hypothesis states that as a robot is made more humanlike in
its appearance and motion, the emotional response from a human being to
the robot will become increasingly positive and empathic,
until a point is reached beyond which the response quickly becomes that
of strong repulsion. However, as the appearance and motion continue to
become less distinguishable from a human being, the emotional response
becomes positive once more and approaches human-to-human empathy
levels. This area of repulsive response aroused by a robot with appearance
and motion between a "barely-human" and "fully human" entity is called
the uncanny valley. The name captures the idea that a robot which is
"almost human" will seem overly "strange" to a human being and thus
will fail to evoke the empathetic response required for productive interaction.

Here's just how fast it's getting real from this year's Game Developer Conference and the Avatar technology from Mova

After hearing Prof. Lessig give probably the best talk I've seen at a Sun event, ever. The news hits home as the IPR battle at the heart of traditional course management systems took an ominous turn as Blackboard wins round against Desire2Learn (Slashdot Article). Our panel added open soure software and generational changes in attitudes to the discussion. It was streamed live and should be available soon for review. Here's Prof Lessig in action.

Sun and the New Media Consortium are proud to announce our Open Virtual Worlds Project

The
Award Ceremony:

On
behalf of Elluminate and our partners, Promethean, Positivo, Oi
Futuro and the University of Sao Paulo (Escola do Futuro), I am
pleased to invite you to join us, in person or online via Elluminate
Live!,
for a very special Ceremony to present a remote Brazilian school with
the Fire and Ice Leadership Award, in recognition of their efforts to
help combat the effects of Climate Change.

Elluminate
is donating to
the school its “Classroom-in-a-Box” computer hardware kit, and
Promethean and Positivo are kindly donating an electronic whiteboard.
The equipment will enable the Massambará
school with a “window to the world” to continue collaborating on
special projects, live and online, with other schools from around the
world.

To
congratulate the Massambará
school on their achievements, our friends at iEARN USA will attempt
to invite one teacher/student to join the event online from all
seven continents
(or as many as continents represented, as possible).

Project
Background:

In
2007, a school in a small village 2 hours from Rio de Janeiro
participated in an international project called Fire
and Ice: Climate Change.
Escola Estadual Municipalizada Abel José Machado created
a unique and inspiring project to help combat the effects of climate
change and soil degradation in their local area.

Massambará’s
teachers and students engaged with the local community to build
an organic garden
at São Fernando farm. Through Elluminate Live!, the school
collaborated with other schools from Canada and Mozambique, and then
showcased the results of their project to a global audience in
November 2007.

Ceremony
Date:
February
22, 2008, 1:00pm Brasilia/Rio time (GMT
-3 hours)
https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=7&password=M.FE2A0E224D3804EA06F55F04DE764D

A friend sent me a note this morning reminding me again to check out the Fake Steve Jobs blog as today's entry is just plain hilarious.

Bernard sent a link over this morning with the latest video at Essex University and Shanghai Jiaotong University for the Mixed Reality Classroom project collaboration with Sunlabs.