About Metaverses, mixed reality events and hybrid collaboration
Milan, Italy | 2005-2008 // San Francisco, CA | 2020-2022
I grew up on video games and SCI-FI and when SecondLife emerged, I dedicated three years to doing research and experiments, and designing awarded virtual projects.
After 2020, with Quest 2 and NTT, I had the opportunity to re-boot everything about VR designing immersive experiences, playing with collaborative VR, doing quick prototyping with Roblox, and running immersive / hybrid workshops.
A GATE to the METAVERSEs
Current VR went further The Lawnmower Man rollercoaster HCI device. I love to be free to play with a stand-alone device like the Oculus, but you know what might be even better? Physically walk inside a metaverse and be free to move around without any wearable, avoid "local" blindness, and merge the remote VR presence with the local co-presence. #hybrid_inclusivity
SecondLife: The first METAVERSE that make it. (almost)
About Idearium
Idearium island was an extended SecondLife community. I founded and led the project.
Idearium Island was the basecamp for most of my projects, including the dozens of mixed realty events.
Why SecondLife?
The strange case of ZeeLee Kindley vs. Leandro Agro.
While SecondLife was a thing, my day job as Director of a LAB researching Virtual Assistants. Various companies hired our K-Humans product to make first-level call routing and troubleshooting.
SecondLife was the sandbox were we experimented and tested some of our approaches.
Impact
Born as side of professional activities on Virtual Assistants, my research on SL resonated with the Media interest.
In this sense, the side project pushed the main one, and the learning I had on SecondLife interacting with thousands of users were as well relevant as the data we were collecting from our product.
MIXED REALITY EVENT PRODUCTION
METAVERSE Stories
Experiments and Lesson learned
For years Idearium.ORG was a multi-authored vibrant web magazine. When SecondLife emerged, I turned the webzine into a place to meet and discuss. The first Idearium's place was small and remote.
Because it's heritage, strong community and the momentum around SecondLife, Idearium quickly grew, and became an entire "island". | More photos.
Idearium Island was an enormous resource. As owner and absolute king of this virtual land, I opened the project to a series of contributors: artists, librarian, educators and common residents.
Idearium Island was a magnet and other projects decided to join the forces, locating their Islands side by side. This activity was a topic for a series of VR conferences.
An Italian underground publisher decided to organize an exhibition for Prof. Bad Trip and asked me to design the place. I had a "vision" of post-industrial black sand island, and I asked to a friend to help to build it.
Decoder Island was an awarded project and one of the most complex architetures I saw on SecondLife. | More photos
Claudia was the main product in the K-humans family.
She was a 3D full body animated virtual assistant able to run first level call routing and troubleshooting. With different "faces" she was hired at Gabetti (large Real Estate player) and CartaSI (Credit Card institute). Claudia was available for computer browser and selected smartphones.
Company virtual retreat. This time Claudia is not a virtual agent. She is interpreted by an actress that had full access to Claudia's Logs files.
K-Humans: this is the name of the "emotional UI" technology behind Claudia. I contributed to the patent Virtual Assistant With Real-Time Emotions, granted in 2008.
Video prototype and ideas
I edited this video to show the power of 3D engines and how they are used to create games, digital environments, and very credible mixed realities for amusement parks.
How our visual dictionary of VR took its shape? This video, created by Frontiers (me) with MGM, recalls the path of video artists and innovators igniting the early digital 3D.
Roblox fast prototyping
Creating alternative realities to quick prototype use cases.