User:Benjamin Linden/Office Hours/2007 May 17

Transcript of Benjamin Linden's office hours:

[10:02]	Benjamin Linden:	hey guys
[10:02]	Marc0 Korobase:	Hello
[10:03]	Benjamin Linden:	I almost didn't see you up there Khamon
[10:03]	Khamon Fate:	Hallo
[10:04]	Benjamin Linden:	let's give people a couple more minutes to show up
[10:04]	Benjamin Linden:	in the meantime, why don't you all tell me a little bit about yourself.
[10:04]	Benjamin Linden:	some new faces here today...
[10:04]	Benjamin Linden:	How about you Drewan?
[10:05]	Drewan Keats:	Actually, I was here for your first hour. Software developer.
[10:05]	Benjamin Linden:	oh that's right. sorry about that!
[10:05]	Benjamin Linden:	great to see you again
[10:05]	Christian Colville:	Hi guys
[10:05]	Benjamin Linden:	hey Christian
[10:05]	Benjamin Linden:	we were just doing a quick round of intros
[10:06]	Benjamin Linden:	what about you Squirrel
[10:06]	Khamon Fate:	Onei had to log but said he'd try to make it back for part of the meeeeeting
[10:06]	Christian Colville:	k well my thing is a website which lets residents do advanced land search
[10:06]	Benjamin Linden:	ah right, you showed me that before, right Christian?
[10:07]	Benjamin Linden:	hi Betsy
[10:07]	Benjamin Linden:	welcome!
[10:07]	Squirrel Wood:	Meep
[10:07]	Christian Colville:	yeah I was wondering if you could help me with a little problem Ben?
[10:07]	Alvargi Daniels:	Hello Benjamin
[10:07]	Betsy Paravane:	Hi Benjamin!
[10:07]	Benjamin Linden:	let's save questions not related to today's topic to the end
[10:07]	Squirrel Wood gave you Fortune Cookie.
[10:07]	Christian Colville:	oh ok
[10:07]	Benjamin Linden:	alright well we have a lot of folks here already
[10:08]	Benjamin Linden:	you guys can take a seat if you want
[10:08]	Benjamin Linden:	there's not a ton of chairs but...
[10:08]	Christian Colville:	grins
[10:09]	Benjamin Linden:	so in case you missed the announcement on SLdev (the open source developer's list) today I wanted to talk a little bit about what it might be like to build a version of the viewer for platforms other than the standard PC desktop app
[10:09]	Benjamin Linden:	things like cellphones, PDAs, low-cost computers, game consoles, etc.
[10:09]	Benjamin Linden:	obviously these devices wouldn't have the raw processing power that a traditional PC would.
[10:10]	Benjamin Linden:	so we wanted to do some brainstorming around what the experience might be using a "lightweight" viewer
[10:10]	Benjamin Linden:	first I'll give you a little background around how this came up
[10:10]	Benjamin Linden:	there were really two things
[10:11]	Benjamin Linden:	first, the One Laptop Per Child project is getting ready to launch their low-cost PC for children in developing countries
[10:11]	Benjamin Linden:	we think this is an interesting opportunity to get Second Life in front of a much broader audience
[10:11]	Benjamin Linden:	but the hardware is obviously extremely limited in terms of its graphics capabilities
[10:11]	Khamon Fate:	very Microsoft
[10:12]	Jarod Godel:	OLPCities isn't good enough?
[10:12]	Benjamin Linden:	second, there's been some discussion of what it would be like to run Second Life inside a web browser, as a plugin
[10:12]	Jarod Godel:	The OLPC model doesn't have a video card.
[10:12]	Khamon Fate claps for plugin
[10:13]	Jarod Godel:	By reduced, you mean Doom.
[10:13]	Benjamin Linden:	so the projects are somewhat related, in the sense that we would need to think about ways to pull apart various aspects of the Viewer
[10:13]	Benjamin Linden:	and present the appropriate pieces depending on the platform its running on
[10:13]	Khamon Fate:	Which was trying to not talk about this at Zero's office hours earlier
[10:14]	Benjamin Linden:	so OLPC for example, doesn't have a graphics card (same for cell-phones, etc). how might we still make a useful SL experience for these devices?
[10:14]	Jarod Godel:	You'd have to switch to an SVG system, I guess.
[10:15]	Jarod Godel:	Very, very reduced range of viewing.
[10:15]	Nounouch Hapmouche:	Screen size is one of the killers for cell phones and a like
[10:15]	Christian Colville:	I guess the issues are bandwidth and processing power
[10:15]	Khamon Fate:	You'll have to really limit their LOD and the number of textures they must download and retain
[10:15]	Nounouch Hapmouche:	Storage is another massive killer. It takes ever bandwith or storage.
[10:15]	Jarod Godel:	err, SVG or, maybe, Flash. I think Flash Lite is built to run anywhere.
[10:15]	Christian Colville:	I wonder if you could more or less show SL without using textures
[10:15]	Squirrel Wood:	approximate colors?
[10:16]	Benjamin Linden:	maybe like a very simple shaded 3d view
[10:16]	Jarod Godel:	You need to expose LLSD better, so we can write out own graphics engines.
[10:16]	Khamon Fate:	Yeah it seems like the miniviewer would need to connect to sims that were equipped to preprocess a good chunk of the rendering and essentially stream the view to the client
[10:16]	Christian Colville:	I don't think Flash would work it doesn't animate fast enough
[10:16]	Jarod Godel:	Java?
[10:16]	Khamon Fate:	ha ha ha
[10:16]	Jarod Godel:	well, here too...
[10:16]	Benjamin Linden:	but maybe we don't need super-fast framerates to be useful in all cases
[10:16]	Jarod Godel:	Do you even want the 3D experience on your phone?
[10:16]	Nounouch Hapmouche:	Shaded 3D view will be better than official current client in a way ;)
[10:17]	Alvargi Daniels:	Are you thinking of a way to gracefully degrade based on devcaps or bandwidth/storage critera?
[10:17]	Christian Colville:	well I'm running SL on 2fps my PC is old its quite usable
[10:17]	Khamon Fate:	No but even prerendered streams are not going to offer very high frame rate on a cell phone
[10:17]	Jarod Godel:	Or would 2D representations of an avatar suppose, ala Gaia Online, Neopets, or the old AvChat.
[10:17]	Benjamin Linden:	that's definitely one part of it Alvaargi
[10:17]	Jarod Godel:	At which point, it comes back to exposing more LLSD so we can parse the data however we want.
[10:17]	Alvargi Daniels:	A rendering engine with heueristics?
[10:17]	Benjamin Linden:	I think we could come up with use cases where you don't need the 3d view at all. looking at SLeek for example
[10:18]	Alvargi Daniels:	exactly
[10:18]	Benjamin Linden:	you can do basic IM and inventory management without a world view
[10:18]	Alvargi Daniels:	especially if you want to reach the broadest possible audience
[10:18]	Alvargi Daniels:	have you thought of a J2ME version?
[10:18]	Nounouch Hapmouche:	That's is about extending your usage on another support, for specific purposes, not opening the doors wider
[10:18]	Drewan Keats:	You would have to move the avatar baking out of the client or you end up with a world of Ruths
[10:18]	Jarod Godel:	At which point, you might as well just ignore the OLPC "market"
[10:18]	Christian Colville:	I see what you mean
[10:18]	Khamon Fate:	It's more than that Jarod. The current simulator implementation won't accomodate the type of data transfer a miniviewer would need.
[10:18]	Wyn Galbraith:	That's a scary thought.
[10:19]	Jarod Godel:	They're going to be building OLPCities or using MySpace, where their systems can give them the full experience, not just a sharded view
[10:19]	Khamon Fate:	This will require quite an overhaul of the sim code.
[10:19]	Benjamin Linden:	we don't need to focus too much on OLPC specifically, that was just one example of someplace where this type of work might make sense
[10:19]	Khamon Fate:	LLSD will accomodate the messaging; but the current state of the grid simply won't server a cell phone or such
[10:19]	Benjamin Linden:	Khamon, even if we didn't show a 3d view?
[10:19]	Khamon Fate:	serve I mean
[10:20]	Khamon Fate:	Well maybe, transfer data as is but have the client render it in 2D
[10:20]	Alvargi Daniels:	The decision of what to render needs to be with the device, however the server-side needs to be aware of device capabilities so it doesnt send data that wont be consumed
[10:20]	Khamon Fate:	or mock 3D ?
[10:20]	Nounouch Hapmouche:	If your don't offer a 3D view of a 3D platform, what's the opening ? Gives you another interface for specific purpose, not a widest audience.
[10:20]	Squirrel Wood:	2d isometric view?
[10:20]	Christian Colville:	IM could easily be integrate with SMS systems
[10:20]	Squirrel Wood:	or 2.5d actually
[10:20]	Benjamin Linden:	that's a great point Alvargi
[10:20]	Jarod Godel:	Build a Jabber gateway.
[10:20]	Jarod Godel:	there. problem solved.
[10:21]	Jarod Godel:	again: exposing more LLSD.
[10:21]	Benjamin Linden:	lol, interesting idea Jarod
[10:21]	Benjamin Linden:	that would be specifically for IM of course
[10:21]	Benjamin Linden:	what about other things people do, like managing inventory
[10:21]	Khamon Fate:	I think giving people access to the world via existing Internet services might a better first step, such as the ability to link chat clients to IM sessions
[10:21]	Alvargi Daniels:	there is also high-latency issues with mobile device networks
[10:21]	Jarod Godel:	expose more llsd, Benjamin
[10:21]	Nounouch Hapmouche:	Web interface for inventory stuff ;)
[10:22]	Jarod Godel:	All that sgtuff is handled internally. We just need a way to get access to it.
[10:22]	Christian Colville:	Inventory could run through and independent app easily enough
[10:22]	Khamon Fate:	Managing inventory and such will be a website feature won't it?
[10:22]	Alvargi Daniels:	and cases where network drop outs will need to be handled
[10:22]	Benjamin Linden:	I believe there are plans to expose all of that (inventory, etc) via web services
[10:22]	Benjamin Linden:	not sure about the llsd stuff specifically, Jarod
[10:22]	Jarod Godel:	it has to be eventually.
[10:23]	Squirrel Wood:	bandwidth for mobile internet is quite expensive. might keep that in mind, too. Over here the typical bandwidth packages are 100mb to 1.5GB a month
[10:23]	Benjamin Linden:	could you elaborate on that a little more? what specific things need to be exposed for you to be able to work on a project like thist?
[10:23]	Khamon Fate:	So we won't really need to be able to render anything if we can manage our inworld resources and communicate via web and other Internet tools
[10:23]	Jarod Godel:	Maybe not directly, but through various API's.
[10:23]	Jarod Godel:	Ben, ok....
[10:23]	Khamon Fate:	Hi Tao
[10:23]	Tao Takashi:	Hi there
[10:23]	Benjamin Linden:	hey Tao
[10:23]	Jarod Godel:	If you want to manage inventory, chat, be in-world, etc. you do that through LLSD. Right now the client talks to the sim in LLSD.
[10:24]	Jarod Godel:	If you want to make more clients for more platforms, we're going to need to be able to talk to the systems like the client does.
[10:24]	Jarod Godel:	As I understand it, every funtion at SL comes down to llsd.
[10:25]	Jarod Godel:	So to do anything like you're discussing (much like Amazon S3 or Twitter's API), we need to be able to talk to the system.
[10:25]	Tao Takashi sets up the stream again :)
[10:25]	Benjamin Linden:	ok this is great feedback to take back to the guys working on the web services stuff.
[10:25]	Alvargi Daniels:	Benjamin, have you thought about SDP or a variant?
[10:25]	Jarod Godel:	Web services for inventory are nice, but that's just one more layer of abstraction we have to go through.
[10:26]	Jarod Godel:	I'd love webservices, but...
[10:26]	Benjamin Linden:	I'm not familiar with SDP, Alvargi. can you tell me more?
[10:26]	Alvargi Daniels:	Session Description Protocol, like used by remote desktops
[10:26]	Jarod Godel:	But if you do it that way, you're making a very narrow service window.
[10:26]	Christian Colville:	If I think of the absolutely minimal way of viewing SL it would be to request a pre-rendered image of a specific location
[10:26]	Alvargi Daniels:	rendering is done at the server
[10:26]	Nounouch Hapmouche:	I thought the goal was to reach new people, not to enlarge grid access to current users...
[10:26]	Christian Colville:	anything could show that
[10:27]	Benjamin Linden:	I think both are good goals, Nounouch
[10:27]	Jarod Godel:	(With the understanding that "web service" translates into something like "inventory API," because I know everything done via LLSD is a web service.)
[10:27]	Benjamin Linden:	and they play together
[10:27]	Khamon Fate:	But Jarod, if I can manage inventory, drop things and payments into profiles, change land settings, manage group stuff and communicate with people inworld through web services, I don't need a seperate client to 'get inworld' when I'm using a cell phone or PDA or such
[10:27]	Benjamin Linden:	more platforms makes SL more useful to more people at more times
[10:27]	Jarod Godel:	yes you do, Khamon
[10:27]	Nounouch Hapmouche:	That's just a csotly IRC
[10:27]	Jarod Godel:	You just need a specialized client.
[10:27]	Squirrel Wood:	pre-rendered image... could be a panorama image where you can turn around and look up/down
[10:27]	Benjamin Linden:	that's an interesting idea Squirrel
[10:28]	Squirrel Wood:	It would give more of a 3d impression than a flat image
[10:28]	Jarod Godel:	You can chat on IRC in Mozilla, but you don't want to load all of Mozilla on your phone just to chat.
[10:28]	Tao Takashi:	http://ustream.tv/channel/tao-takashis-second-life-building once again :)
[10:28]	Benjamin Linden:	great, thanks Tao :-)
[10:28]	Nounouch Hapmouche:	Nor you do want a whole SL without 3D loaded just to chat
[10:28]	Jarod Godel:	You get a specialized client that exists because IRC protocols are open and accessible to anyone.
[10:28]	Khamon Fate:	Oh I see what you mean. I thought you were just being dense.
[10:28]	Jarod Godel:	heh.
[10:29]	Benjamin Linden:	so basically what you're saying Jarod is that if we expose all the individual pieces of how the client and server communicate, then you can pick and choose which part to include in your specific app
[10:29]	Christian Colville:	you could have a 2D overhead view of a sim like an early computer game that would allow you to geographically interact with other users
[10:29]	Jarod Godel:	I'm just saying, Linden Lab can blow it's time building a bunch of specialized APIs for essentially one service, or they can turn SL into one big service.
[10:29]	Jarod Godel:	Benjamin, right.
[10:29]	Benjamin Linden:	right, I'd thought about that Christian. almost like a closer-in mini-map
[10:29]	Khamon Fate claps for maps
[10:29]	Benjamin Linden:	Jarod, I'm not sure I understand the difference.
[10:29]	Christian Colville:	yep
[10:29]	Jarod Godel:	I mean, SL is like HTTP, IRC, POP, etc. all mashed together. Why expose one at a time, just expose it all.
[10:30]	Christian Colville:	it would be useful for many purposes
[10:30]	Jarod Godel:	Don't offer an "inventory API" and a "chat API," just offer an "SLAPI"
[10:30]	Tao Takashi:	aren't these just logical groupings anyway?
[10:30]	Benjamin Linden:	I admit to not having a complete understanding of how the web services team is architecting their project but aren't they basically building a SL API, just in individual pieces?
[10:31]	Wyn Galbraith fondly calls that SLapi.
[10:31]	Khamon Fate:	and a financial API and a map API (ha ha) and an appearance API and a regisration API
[10:31]	Jarod Godel:	I'm afraid "for the sake of the one true grid" people will be inclined to offer small API's, and in doing so forget that SL is just software (and not a magickal land of unicorn bunnies.)
[10:31]	Benjamin Linden:	I mean as long as all the pieces are being exposed, that's the main goal right?
[10:31]	Khamon Fate:	turtles Jarod, Magical Kingdom of Unicorn Turtles
[10:31]	Benjamin Linden:	:-)
[10:32]	Jarod Godel:	I have no idea what web service team is doing...I'm just speaking out of concern from previous times I've seen them expose SL's infrastructure.
[10:32]	Wyn Galbraith hasn't see turtles yet.
[10:32]	Alvargi Daniels:	For mobility, loosely coupled systems are important. Graphcis (at least today) implies a much tighter understanding between client and server.
[10:32]	Khamon Fate:	So Jarod can we write a rendering browser plugin using your SLAPI?
[10:33]	Benjamin Linden:	for everyone just joining us via Tao's webcast, we're discussing different platforms for SL (cell-phones, low-cost computers such as the One Laptop Per Child) and what it would take to build viewers for these platforms
[10:33]	Christian Colville:	I mean THE api is the viewer, the other things are just isolation and wrapping of parts of this api
[10:33]	Jarod Godel:	Khamon, my ideal SLAPI would let you, because your rendering engine would just be a series of calls to the inventory (prims, textures, etc.) server.
[10:33]	Tao Takashi:	I need to create some webpage for the stream actually which I can control from whereever
[10:33]	Jarod Godel:	You could render the world as an SVG web page at that point.
[10:33]	Tao Takashi:	btw, for that streaming it would be nice if those IM messages wouldn't show up in the normal chat overlay
[10:34]	Christian Colville:	the trouble with using the rendering api that exists is that it would kill low bandwidth devices
[10:34]	Alvargi Daniels:	agreed Tao - compression would be better
[10:34]	Christian Colville:	the rendering would have to be simplified at the server
[10:34]	Tao Takashi:	I'd like to have some switch to be IM-wise busy ;_)
[10:34]	Nounouch Hapmouche:	A proxy
[10:34]	Jarod Godel:	Yes, but by exposing the inventory server, we could cache textures.
[10:34]	Jarod Godel:	If the person you're chatting with has a cached key, you can load their stuff locally.
[10:34]	Alvargi Daniels:	textures are interesting...
[10:35]	Christian Colville:	the viewer already caches textures
[10:35]	Jarod Godel:	not very well
[10:35]	Alvargi Daniels:	can you re-render textures to fit the resolution of the device?
[10:35]	Benjamin Linden:	is that a question for me, Alvargi?
[10:35]	Tao Takashi:	for me a very simplified rendering would be ok, not maybe top down but more 2d without animations etc.
[10:35]	Alvargi Daniels:	no to the group
[10:35]	Tao Takashi:	just to be able to communicate
[10:36]	Tao Takashi:	http://ustream.tv/channel/tao-takashis-second-life-building is the livecast for those who did not ge it
[10:36]	Benjamin Linden:	right Tao, we talked about that a little earlier, different ways of showing a stripped-down version of the world
[10:36]	Benjamin Linden:	for devices with less graphics power
[10:36]	Tao Takashi:	oh, also for my laptop to save cpu lifetime ;-)
[10:37]	Alvargi Daniels:	a huge texture cache on QVGA devices would be a waste I think.
[10:37]	Patchouli Woollahra:	Eh, in pinch I could do with a representation of SL that was little symbols floating around in faux 3D.
[10:37]	Benjamin Linden:	lol, SL really gets the fan going on my laptop. :-)
[10:37]	Benjamin Linden:	but let's refocus the conversation for a little bit on this idea of a web-browser plug-in
[10:37]	Tao Takashi:	even the idea of starting SL get the fan going already ;-)
[10:37]	Patchouli Woollahra claps her paws.
[10:37]	Patchouli Woollahra:	what sort of plugin functionality are we talking about here?
[10:37]	Benjamin Linden:	we get a lot of feature requests for things like back buttons, history, bookmarks, etc, things that web browsers already do really well.
[10:38]	Benjamin Linden:	can you think about a way that a simple downloadable browser plug-in (like the flash player) could be built for SL?
[10:38]	Christian Colville:	hmm what would a back button do in SL
[10:38]	Alvargi Daniels:	using SDP yes
[10:38]	Benjamin Linden:	Back could take you to the last place you teleported from.
[10:38]	Alvargi Daniels:	or undelete the prim(s) you just deleted
[10:39]	Benjamin Linden:	there are some HUDs that do that today
[10:39]	Patchouli Woollahra:	within reason, Alvaragi.
[10:39]	Tao Takashi:	set the whole world one step back :)
[10:39]	Alvargi Daniels:	lol
[10:39]	Patchouli Woollahra:	Sometimes prims delete themselves for a reason.
[10:39]	Benjamin Linden:	hmm, that sounds more like Undo
[10:39]	Khamon Fate:	This is so cool. I'm watching us talk in my browser.
[10:39]	Patchouli Woollahra:	let's keep back and undo separate.
[10:39]	Alvargi Daniels:	I was being coy
[10:39]	Benjamin Linden:	ok :-)
[10:39]	Patchouli Woollahra:	anyone can go bck to another place if they're cleared and allowed to TP back to it.
[10:39]	Patchouli Woollahra:	but undoing stuff in SL is a bit trickier.
[10:40]	Tao Takashi:	not sure about the back=teleport back idea, teleporting usually takes abit longer than going back webpages
[10:40]	Squirrel Wood:	For some people prims already are possessed by an undo feature. They always revert to a previous state after changing them ^^
[10:40]	Jarod Godel:	Ben, why not just log sims we've been in?
[10:40]	Tao Takashi:	a history would be sifficient for me
[10:40]	Patchouli Woollahra:	Squirrel: that's not a feature, that's a bug.
[10:40]	Nounouch Hapmouche:	A web plug-in showing SL will just be a single page... No back or anything, I must be missing something...
[10:40]	Squirrel Wood:	for some it is a feature :p
[10:40]	Patchouli Woollahra:	rubberbanding happens a lot in online constructs.
[10:40]	Jarod Godel:	or log teleports? that's not something so complex you'd need a browser for?
[10:40]	Benjamin Linden:	well let's think about what this plug-in might look like
[10:41]	Khamon Fate:	If I could type into this ustream, I'd be attending themeeting from the web
[10:41]	Jarod Godel:	Ben, ever play ActiveWorlds?
[10:41]	Benjamin Linden:	if you had a frame showing the world
[10:41]	Patchouli Woollahra:	within a browser...
[10:41]	Benjamin Linden:	right
[10:41]	Jarod Godel:	I'd love to be able to do that.
[10:41]	Benjamin Linden:	then you'd have your bookmarks, which would be slurls for your favorite places
[10:41]	Jarod Godel:	And be able to send text to my browser, via llDialog.
[10:42]	Benjamin Linden:	and you'd have history, which are the last few places you've been in-world
[10:42]	Tao Takashi:	you could actually build parts of the UI by HTML parts
[10:42]	Benjamin Linden:	and the back and forward button could bounce you through those
[10:42]	Patchouli Woollahra:	options to message or email your friends about interesting builds or places?
[10:42]	Khamon Fate:	Y'all are gonna have to call him Benji so Khamon doesn't keep nearly typing things he means to say to Ben
[10:42]	Benjamin Linden:	right Tao, this is what I'm thinking
[10:42]	Khamon Fate:	Please
[10:42]	Nounouch Hapmouche:	That's what the main cleint should do, not an encapsulating webpage...
[10:42]	Patchouli Woollahra:	I'm not going to ask Bejamin Linden for LOLcubes.
[10:42]	Benjamin Linden:	maybe you just have a separate frame for inventory management, which accesses the inventory web API
[10:42]	Jarod Godel:	How are you going to log locations, Benjamin? Back doesn't do much good if it just moves me back a stp.
[10:42]	Benjamin Linden:	but could you drag and drop between these frames?
[10:42]	Tao Takashi:	frame?!? we live in a web2.0 world, you mean AJAX widget :-)
[10:43]	Benjamin Linden:	yes yes, of course it's all AJAX :-)
[10:43]	Benjamin Linden:	I'm trying to speak abstractly :-)
[10:43]	Nounouch Hapmouche:	That's redesigning SL interface as a whole webpage, throwing away current client style ?
[10:43]	Benjamin Linden:	that's right, Nounouch
[10:44]	Benjamin Linden:	this would be a completely separate experience
[10:44]	Tao Takashi:	then people could actually build teir own clients e.g. with webkit
[10:44]	Jarod Godel:	Well, if you made it a plug-in, then you could run SL in Mozilla, and the client would become totally skinable
[10:44]	Tao Takashi:	which would look like a real OSX application
[10:44]	Benjamin Linden:	good point Jarod
[10:44]	Benjamin Linden:	and Tao :-)
[10:44]	Benjamin Linden:	I think what you see with this model is a lot of flexibility
[10:45]	Multi Gadget v1.52.0 by Timeless Prototype
[10:45]	Couples MultiAnimator v2d whispers: * Abranimations Couples Animator Ready...
[10:45]	Benjamin Linden:	building on the existing browser framework
[10:45]	Jarod Godel:	well, beware of what happened to Flock
[10:45]	Benjamin Linden:	what's that Jarod?
[10:45]	Tao Takashi:	so you'd need some plugin then with quite a lot of functionality exposed
[10:46]	Alvargi Daniels:	I reallly like the idea of expanding the UI outside of the rendered image.
[10:46]	Tao Takashi:	and some JS interface
[10:46]	Opensource Obscure:	uhm not sure SL has same risks than Flock . they really lacked a coherent vision, i'd say
[10:46]	Jarod Godel:	They were building a p2p social software atop Mozilla, and then Mozilla decided to build a P2P social software plug-in for firefox
[10:46]	Benjamin Linden:	ah I see, Jarod
[10:46]	Squirrel Wood:	I guess SL in a web 2.0 framework would be more than just one plugin...
[10:46]	Patchouli Woollahra:	Flock is a open source mozilla browser that added direct web editing capabilities.
[10:46]	Tao Takashi:	well, Mozilla also said that they want to build some 3d in there
[10:47]	Tao Takashi:	but in 10 years ;-)
[10:47]	Christian Colville:	Personally I don't see what is gained by putting SL inside a browser, a browser is designe for displaying text
[10:47]	Benjamin Linden:	well the good news is that if Mozilla decided to build an SL plug-in, we'd all be very happy :-)
[10:47]	Patchouli Woollahra:	in fact, early initial Internet browsers had such capabilities.
[10:47]	Tao Takashi:	somebody once was talking about the Mozilla vision
[10:47]	Tao Takashi:	need to find the URL again
[10:47]	Benjamin Linden:	Christian, one advantage of the browser is its ubiquity
[10:47]	Patchouli Woollahra:	http://www.flock.com/
[10:47]	Khamon Fate:	How come that Joshua's lurking in the corner?
[10:47]	Benjamin Linden:	if you think about how easy it is to watch a YouTube video
[10:48]	Benjamin Linden:	wouldn't it be great if you could just go to a web page and be in-world
[10:48]	Wyn Galbraith:	Browsers are meant for more than text.
[10:48]	Khamon Fate:	Benjamin have y'all proposed an SL plugin to the Mozilla community?
[10:48]	Benjamin Linden:	without all the overhead of downloading the client
[10:48]	Patchouli Woollahra:	agreed... any computer built in the past few years will invariably have some form of web browsig as part of its install.
[10:48]	Tao Takashi:	or nowadays how to stream from your browser ;-)
[10:48]	Benjamin Linden:	no, we haven't Khamon, but that's a good idea
[10:48]	Christian Colville:	yeah but you would have to download something to run SL so why not make it the client/
[10:48]	Benjamin Linden:	do you think we'd get some traction with that community?
[10:48]	Jarod Godel:	Benjamin, you mean like Runescape/
[10:48]	Jarod Godel:	?
[10:48]	Patchouli Woollahra:	I don't imagine that any such plugin to provide SL access within a browser rather than a full-blown cient will provide the same extent of abilities that the full viewer provides.
[10:49]	Khamon Fate:	Well you'd still have to download the plugin and hey, would a plugin client contain a rendering engine or require that the PC have one preinstalled?
[10:49]	Nounouch Hapmouche think of VRML plug-ins
[10:49]	Tao Takashi:	Here is the statement of Window Snyder: http://notizen.typepad.com/aus_der_provinz/2007/04/die_zukunft_des.html
[10:49]	Christian Colville:	Wyn browsers were designed for text and some 2D graphics they're being pushed way beyond that these days and you get a lot of conflicts between waht people want to use them for and the original design intention
[10:49]	Benjamin Linden:	you're right Patchouli, it probably would be a subset of the client's full features
[10:49]	Tao Takashi:	about Mozilla and 3d
[10:49]	Benjamin Linden:	maybe for example you wouldn't have build tools
[10:50]	Jarod Godel:	...
[10:50]	Khamon Fate:	No Patchouli but it would afford some access to the world. People now operate the client on old computers with Intel graphics cards and see a very dumbed down version of the wora'uld; but it works for them.
[10:50]	Javiercuatro Robledo:	and when will you put voice chat here, as i experience yesterday in the beta gird?
[10:50]	Alvargi Daniels:	Or maybe you would have better build tools Benjamin
[10:50]	Patchouli Woollahra:	maybe it wouldn't have the same teleport capabilities - you could walka around in the sim the plugin definined you to start in, but no further.
[10:50]	Benjamin Linden:	Javiercuatro, I can answer off-topic questions at the end of the hour
[10:50]	Tao Takashi:	yesterday wasn't the best voice chat experiences I'd say ;-)
[10:50]	Jarod Godel:	May I suggest "you wouldn't have anything but the world view" instead of something stupid like that?
[10:51]	Patchouli Woollahra:	one could imagine such a setup being used to give people a crash course on the use of the actual viewer.
[10:51]	Jarod Godel:	Let people build the chat and inventory into the browser.
[10:51]	Benjamin Linden:	well another way to think about this is what happened with Netscape and Mozilla
[10:51]	Tao Takashi:	I would simply open up the API and see what people build ;-)
[10:51]	Benjamin Linden:	Mozilla made a clean start and it was so good that the community moved to that new experience
[10:51]	Tao Takashi:	I think most of the stuff might need some experimentation
[10:51]	Nounouch Hapmouche:	Having so much a flexibility also destroy the "we all have same tools" philosophy.
[10:52]	Benjamin Linden:	but you might not need to start with the complete set of tools to get there
[10:52]	Jarod Godel:	we already have a SL browser plug-in without build tools...
[10:52]	Tao Takashi:	somebody might come up with a completely different idea of how to approach it
[10:52]	Jarod Godel:	it's called There
[10:52]	Christian Colville:	yeah that's an argument for building a 3D browser that has nothing to do with the old 2D paradigm
[10:52]	Patchouli Woollahra:	nounouch: you make that sound like that MUST be a bad thing.
[10:52]	Benjamin Linden:	I'm not sure that everyone who uses SL needs the same tools
[10:52]	Benjamin Linden:	Not everyone's a builder, for example
[10:52]	Khamon Fate:	Absolutley. Thank Heaven for Lindens that don't expect every user to need a full blown world experience everytime we interact with SL.
[10:52]	Alvargi Daniels:	I agree with that completely
[10:53]	Patchouli Woollahra:	I don't need a hammer in my toolbox if all I'm doing is screwing and unscrewing hardware from places.
[10:53]	Tao Takashi:	I thought 85% are builders ;-)
[10:53]	Khamon Fate:	ha ha ha Tao more like 5%
[10:53]	Benjamin Linden:	and that number will probably drop as mainstream adoption picks up
[10:53]	Tao Takashi:	or was it more like 85% have built something already? :)
[10:53]	Jarod Godel:	Not according to what Cory told Microsoft.
[10:53]	Benjamin Linden:	that's not to say we should abandon building tools
[10:53]	Khamon Fate:	He only said that many people had built something.
[10:54]	Jarod Godel:	touche
[10:54]	Khamon Fate:	But only a few hundred people build and sell enough to take any cash out of the system.
[10:54]	Patchouli Woollahra:	I'd endorse the abandoning of building tools in SL only if a alternative was available that provided the same inworld connectivity, featureset and quality.
[10:54]	Alvargi Daniels:	Building apis should be considered in the same vein as any other interaction with the SIM
[10:54]	Christian Colville:	the inworld tools deomcraise content cration
[10:54]	Benjamin Linden:	so let's do a hypothetical. how hard would it be to build a simple world-view browser plug-in? let's say it just showed a simplified 3d view of the world that you can move around in, TP to other regions (with browser history), talk to other residents
[10:55]	Tao Takashi:	the in-world tools are the web2 component of SL ;-)
[10:55]	Alvargi Daniels:	:)
[10:55]	Khamon Fate:	The point Patchouli is that if we want to build, we have to log in with the client. If we just want to check our sales and process refunds and inventory drops, we can do that from the web without the burden of dealing with building tools.
[10:55]	Tao Takashi:	in the videoblogging sector also only very few do actually produce video
[10:55]	Tao Takashi:	but they could if they want to
[10:55]	Patchouli Woollahra:	ah, that makes pretty good sense.
[10:55]	Jarod Godel:	I don't know how hard it'd be.
[10:55]	Nounouch Hapmouche:	Khamon : you can do that without the burden of any 3D too
[10:55]	Khamon Fate:	Ask Tao, he seems to be 1/2 way there already
[10:56]	Benjamin Linden:	Tao
[10:56]	Benjamin Linden:	Tao?
[10:56]	Tao Takashi:	halfway where?
[10:56]	Khamon Fate:	Youre' ruining my immersion Nonesuch.
[10:56]	Patchouli Woollahra has seen peopel use SLeek to provide such a pared down view of SL for limited interaction when they don't need SL's full bilities.
[10:56]	Christian Colville:	I guess it would just involve stripping out viewer functionality and adding wiring to browser controls
[10:56]	Tao Takashi:	what was the question for me? :)
[10:56]	Khamon Fate:	1/2 way toward a Second Life plugin
[10:56]	Khamon Fate:	How hard will it be to implement a plugin viewer
[10:56]	Benjamin Linden:	Khamon said you're halfway toward having a SL plugin
[10:57]	Squirrel Wood:	I'd guess the most difficult part will be to find out which platform we are running on (windows? linux? something other?) and then loading the proper api and 3d render unit
[10:57]	Tao Takashi:	me? err. no, why do you think that?
[10:57]	Khamon Fate:	Cause I'm watching this meeting through your ustream. That seems to be rendering okay
[10:57]	Benjamin Linden:	lol
[10:57]	Khamon Fate:	or prerendering okay
[10:57]	Tao Takashi:	unfortunately I never did much more than to look at the source code
[10:57]	Benjamin Linden:	too bad it's not interactive!
[10:57]	Tao Takashi:	well, this is just a desktop capturing program, streamed via flash to ustream
[10:58]	Tao Takashi:	so it's just video
[10:58]	Patchouli Woollahra:	I gotta go, someone's rezzing /b/targ griefgear in my lands.
[10:58]	Patchouli Woollahra:	sorry about tht.
[10:58]	Benjamin Linden:	ok thanks for coming Patchouli
[10:58]	Tao Takashi:	ya Patchouli, take care
[10:59]	Benjamin Linden:	we are close to the end of our time. I wonder if anyone would be interested in working on a simple proof-of-concept of some of the ideas we discussed.
[10:59]	Wyn Galbraith:	Thanks for the meeting.
[10:59]	Benjamin Linden:	are there any big show-stoppers that would prevent that?
[10:59]	Alvargi Daniels:	"Just Video" is a crawl before you walk step though Tao, and can help vet some of the other issues we discussed here today.
[10:59]	Tao Takashi:	yes, thanks for the meeting! :)
[10:59]	Squirrel Wood:	humm.
[10:59]	Tao Takashi:	well, the real client is still running
[10:59]	Alvargi Daniels:	I would like to assist Benjamin
[10:59]	Javiercuatro Robledo:	really thanks
[11:00]	Benjamin Linden:	that's great, Alvargi, maybe we could brainstorm a little more offline about what might be a good, easy first step
[11:00]	Alvargi Daniels:	Ok cool
[11:00]	Jarod Godel:	Just video is a waste of a good idea.
[11:00]	Khamon Fate:	True and come to think of it, I'm seeing more of the rendering on the web page than I am in the client because I have the chat and IM windows stretched out over the screen.
[11:01]	Christian Colville:	lol Khamon
[11:01]	Jarod Godel:	if i'm going to attend Ben's office hours on my phone, I just want text. I don't need to see where people are sitting.
[11:01]	Squirrel Wood:	video... that reminds me of something...
[11:01]	Benjamin Linden:	also, Khamon, I liked your idea of approaching the Mozilla folks
[11:01]	Khamon Fate:	Where are y'all going to brainstorm? Can we participate?
[11:01]	Wyn Galbraith:	Or see what they are wearing or not wearing, Jarod.
[11:01]	Jarod Godel:	(I maximize my chat history when i come to these things, so people standing around twiddling thumbs is totally lost on me.)
[11:01]	Alvargi Daniels:	I have RL biz to attend to right after this
[11:01]	Benjamin Linden:	we could continue the conversation at my office hours next Tuesday.
[11:02]	Khamon Fate:	I'm asked Icehouse about forming a group inworld to make proposals we could chat about.
[11:02]	Khamon Fate:	Maybe that'd work for this too.
[11:02]	Benjamin Linden:	a Resident group or a Linden group, Khamon?
[11:02]	Khamon Fate:	Or is there some inworld dev group I don't know about?
[11:02]	Wyn Galbraith flies.
[11:02]	Jarod Godel:	Wyn, or flopping hiair. :)
[11:02]	hatamoto Tomsen:	??????
[11:02]	hatamoto's Interpreter:	It is comfortable here
[11:02]	Squirrel Wood:	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdUIqvkzfdQ *shameless plug* XD
[11:03]	Khamon Fate:	Linden groups are resident groups. They just happen to have Linden owners.
[11:03]	Benjamin Linden:	but you meant a group for residents to get together and chat about feature proposals?
[11:04]	Khamon Fate:	Yes with interested Lindens as members as well, else they wouldn't see the chats.
[11:04]	Jarod Godel:	He wants a closed door ofice hours, so he can push his evil, tree selling agenda on the world! I've seen hiss flowcharts. His EVIL flowcharts.
[11:04]	Opensource Obscure:	ben: we all know how Search is (not) working right now , but i'd really appreciate if all Linden office hours were present in Events. I love the in-world, "notify" feature, which every other event-tool lacks .
[11:04]	Khamon Fate:	But maybe it is better to restrict ourselves to published office times to talk about these things
[11:05]	Benjamin Linden:	thanks for the suggestion Opensource. we would like to add our office hours to events as well, but without a recurring event system it's kind of a pain :-)
[11:05]	Khamon Fate:	Jarod wanted to put repeaters in my trees so he could address the grid all at once.
[11:05]	Tao Takashi:	I'd like to see results at least in a central place such as a wiki
[11:05]	Tao Takashi:	a persistent place that is :)
[11:05]	Khamon Fate:	Yes Benjamin post your transcripts to your wiki page
[11:05]	Jarod Godel:	In fairness, my message was just going to be, "Buy more trees."
[11:05]	Tao Takashi bought a tree today
[11:05]	Tao Takashi:	for the rainforest
[11:05]	Khamon Fate:	That's important for us to link to when we're talking about this stuff on the forums
[11:05]	Khamon Fate:	Rainforests are your friends
[11:06]	Tao Takashi:	also important if you miss a meeting
[11:06]	Opensource Obscure:	thanks, this meeting was very interesting for me- bye all :)
[11:06]	Khamon Fate:	Bye Open
[11:06]	Christian Colville:	bye opensource
[11:06]	Khamon Fate:	Thanks for hosting Benjamin. This is an exciting time.
[11:06]	Benjamin Linden:	sorry I got behind in the log
[11:07]	Benjamin Linden:	I do post these transcripts on my wiki page
[11:07]	Marc0 Korobase:	bye
[11:07]	Alvargi Daniels:	Agreed. Mobility and the move to lower-end platforms is a great step here.
[11:07]	Benjamin Linden:	thanks for coming everyone!
[11:07]	Jarod Godel:	If we do make a browser plug-in, I hope llDialog would be accessible through HTML DOM.
[11:07]	Jarod Godel:	AJASL.
[11:07]	Benjamin Linden:	let's plan to continue this discussion next Tuesday
[11:07]	Drewan Keats:	Interesting conversation, Benjamin. I will have to think some about a browser plugin, we certainly have everything we need in the source.
[11:07]	Alvargi Daniels:	Ok excelent.
[11:07]	Khamon Fate pencils
[11:07]	Benjamin Linden:	if cool, thanks Drewan
[11:07]	Squirrel Wood:	Ben.. quick question: Do you like roller coasters?
[11:08]	Benjamin Linden:	sure, Squirrel!
[11:08]	Squirrel Wood:	heee
[11:08]	Benjamin Linden:	Christian did you have a question you wanted to ask?
[11:08]	Christian Colville:	yeah I did.. the alt I use to gather land info
[11:08]	Benjamin Linden:	Javiercuatro I believe you had a question about voice chat too
[11:09]	Christian Colville:	has been banned for doing too many land searches
[11:09]	Javiercuatro Robledo:	and when will you put voice chat here, as i experience yesterday in the beta gird?
[11:09]	Javiercuatro Robledo:	please
[11:09]	Christian Colville:	who do I talk to?
[11:09]	Benjamin Linden:	I believe you'll need to file a support request for that Christian.
[11:09]	Jarod Godel:	Ben, may I ask a question?
[11:09]	Benjamin Linden:	Javier, voice chat will be rolled out as a First Look viewer for the main grid sometime in the next couple weeks
[11:09]	Benjamin Linden:	I don't have specific dates yet.
[11:09]	Benjamin Linden:	but it's very exciting!
[11:10]	Squirrel Wood:	Yum. FirstLook ^^
[11:10]	Benjamin Linden:	Lindens are already using Voice on the main grid
[11:10]	Javiercuatro Robledo:	yes! :)
[11:10]	Benjamin Linden:	what's your question Jarod?
[11:10]	Christian Colville:	point is it is effectively taking down a facility used by 100s of residents now, when obviously it was intended to stop antisocial behaviour
[11:10]	Jarod Godel:	Would a SL plug-in be more beneficial to SL than plugging a browser into SL?
[11:11]	Benjamin Linden:	that's a good philiosphical question, Jarod
[11:11]	Khamon Fate:	Yes Jarod for two reasons
[11:11]	Jarod Godel:	I ask, because I'm just curious if we should be thinking about making SL easier to get into or making it harder to want to leave.
[11:11]	Benjamin Linden:	personally I feel that the more we can integrate SL with the Web, the more relevant we make SL
[11:11]	Christian Colville:	lol that's a good point Jarod
[11:11]	Khamon Fate:	One, it still solves the problem of existing users being unable to operate the SL client and a web browser at the same time on their machines.
[11:12]	Christian Colville:	I think it a 2D browser in a 3D world makes perfect sense
[11:12]	Tao Takashi:	hopefully that problem goes away with a plugin ;-)
[11:12]	Jarod Godel:	Well, I do love the browser plug-in idea, if for no other reason that I love the Active World's client.
[11:12]	Khamon Fate:	Second, it offers an SL experience to people who will browse to it, create an account, and participate in the wora'uld as a web service.
[11:12]	Khamon Fate:	Granted it won't be the full blown client experience; but it *will* garner millions of users just looking for a cool website.
[11:13]	Jarod Godel nods
[11:13]	Benjamin Linden:	good points Khamon
[11:13]	Alvargi Daniels:	A portable experience is more aligned with platform growth.
[11:13]	Tao Takashi:	it will make it easier to get a community in here
[11:13]	Tao Takashi:	just put the plugin on their webpage
[11:13]	Benjamin Linden:	right, Tao
[11:13]	Khamon Fate:	And those people still need trees
[11:13]	Khamon Fate:	ahem
[11:13]	Benjamin Linden:	imagine if we could get the same penetration as the Flash viewer
[11:13]	Jarod Godel:	EVIL FLOWCHARTS!
[11:13]	Benjamin Linden:	lol
[11:14]	Squirrel Wood:	Oh My ^^
[11:14]	Benjamin Linden:	ok guys I have to run
[11:14]	Khamon Fate:	imagine if the SL plugin worked in a 64-bit environment
[11:14]	Squirrel Wood:	aww
[11:14]	Alvargi Daniels:	Folks I need to head to my RL work, Benjamin thanks and nice to meet everyone.
[11:14]	Khamon Fate:	Thanks again Benjamin
[11:14]	Benjamin Linden:	thanks Alvargi
[11:14]	Christian Colville:	ok Ben see you later
[11:14]	Christian Colville:	thanks
[11:14]	Benjamin Linden:	thanks everybody for coming!
[11:14]	Benjamin Linden:	hope to see you again next week.
[11:14]	Benjamin Linden:	I'll post the transcripts later today
[11:15]	Tao Takashi:	thanks for hosting :)
[11:15]	Benjamin Linden:	my pleasure!
[11:15]	Squirrel Wood:	Mark my words: I dare you to ride my roller coaster :p
[11:15]	Tao Takashi:	always nice meetings :)
[11:15]	Benjamin Linden:	great to see you again Tao
[11:15]	Tao Takashi:	hope to see you at SLCC :)