Philip Rosedale & Team Developing Avatar Controllable with Google Glass App

This open job posted to Worklist by Philip Rosedale and Ryan Karpf of High Fidelity reveals a very interesting thing (as MIT's Technology Review first pointed out): The founders of Second Life have developed "an app for Google glass and Android phones that lets you animate your avatar by sending UDP packets to the interface client over wifi, which uses the received gyro/accelerometer data to move the avatar head and/or joints." Emphasis mine. (Because dude, whoa.) We already knew Philip and team were working on this technology for smartphones (as you can see right here), but that this is also an app for Glass opens up even more possibilities. For instance:

From Rosedale's Worklist ad

How about an augmented reality avatar that exists in your periphery when you are wearing Glass? Too early to say, though I hope to ask Philip about all this and more directly soon. But once again I feel, as I did with recent developments with the Oculus Rift and Second Life, seismic, underground shifts about to make virtual worlds once again relevant to the technology of today.

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Comments

[Iggy]

I'll bite, since no one else has commented. Glass--if it ever finds a niche--might have more appeal to affluent Millennials like the ones I teach. To those kids, the Rift would be "creepy."

I suspect that the Rift will find its niche among serious gamers.

You can socialize in an augmented manner with Glass, however. Make it less geeky-looking and the cool kids with the cash will want them. Their smart phones are already glued to their hands, and one of them just told me that on campus you get abuse if you don't have the latest iPhone.

I still have a stupid phone but I'm an old geezer and past caring.

[Adeon Writer]

Thankfully, the Oculus Rift supports eyeglasses, so I'll be able to use Google Glass and check out High fedelity while inside Second Life.

[Maxwell Graf]

Phil is definitely smoking on the dream pipe again. By the time I finished reading the sentence "...animate your avatar by sending UDP packets to the interface client over wifi," I was swallowing the rising techno-bile which was coming up. Its so catchy! So full of technohip! Its going to work! NOT. Firstly, dont expect me to power your grid by allowing you to use my device. You aren't SETI, Phil, and even if you were I still couldn't run your application WHILE im trying to also enjoy a full-spectrum virtual world. Let's not even start on about the security vulnerabilities and the thousand ways in which I dont want to move my head to move my fucking avatar.

1990 called, they want their vision of the future back. No amount of coffee and power spindoctoring is going to make this work any better than the mesh fucking deformer does, and if you believe otherwise I have a liquid mesh pantsuit I want to sell you.

[Ole]

I especially like their website's http://highfidelity.io/ Slogan "If it doesn't hurt to think about it, we're not going to try it." That Received an exzellent Parody too here -> http://www.flickr.com/photos/13539895@N06/8762804284/

[Hitomi Tiponi]

I've seen a few of Phil's demos now. His High Fidelity projects reminds me of a lot of college projects - interesting, but unless you develop them they are just academic exercises.

[A.J.]

Maxwell Graf is right.

Besides, with Philip it's "yea right, whatever".

[Graham Mills]

The demo is at 15:23 of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPethpwuYEk from io13 as well as on their blog. Glass looks a lot more interesting than I thought.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

I'm intrigued by the concept, but as far as I know Google Glass won't work with my trifocals. Occulus Rift is more what I've been waiting for in terms of mass-market immersive VR.

[Metacam Oh]

Seems like Philip is developing tools for a virtual world that doesn't exist. I mean SL has no intention of being anything more than virtual farmville so I'm not sure exactly the connection.