Snow Crash

I title this blog as 'Snow Crash' because its about the fictional world in Snow Crash and how it will come to be reality. Now this isn't so far fetched as sci-fi is often a precursor to real world change. Most of the Internet and its issues were predicted by William Gibson in his novels. I read most of those in the early 90s when the Internet was just really taking off and it was strange how many things he had predicted correctly.

Back to the title book, Snow Crash, in which there is a 3D world created in the Internet that everyone uses as a location to do business, play or just do plain crazy stuff. This 3D world isn't far from the universes created by Second Life or World of Warcraft, though the former is patterned more from the Snow Crash world. Because the Linden currency can be traded to US dollars, its an extension of the real world, though the goods and services traded within are often strange and oft have to do with porn. Well, maybe that's not so different from the real world after all.

However, I think the Second Life world is not the only attempt out there. The guys at Google have also read the book Snow Crash and are trying to create the same thing with their Google Earth project. Personally, I think both of these attempts are interesting, but not quite there yet. Eventually there will be a convergence of technologies and ideas that will allow for a world like this to function as a Metaverse (term used in a few different sci-fi books to describe this virtual world).

First there has to be a world in which business can be conducted. Meetings should be more efficient here. Real world goods can be viewed, bought and sold (then shipped to your house in the real world). There would be service businesses to meet the needs of those in the Metaverse (there are some of these in Second Life and even in other games such as World of Warcraft).

Second, there should fun things to do in this world, beyond just a glorified visual chat room for sex. Virtual casinos, amusement parks, sporting events and other virtual games from the real world and maybe some that could never be done in the real world draw people to come to the Metaverse. Imagine suiting up on a virtual horse to ride joists at a medival tourney, or racing pods through canyons ala Star Wars.

Third, there has to be a minimum level of technologies to make this seamless and at least hyper real. Broadband will probably need another boost, though the base speeds are there, its just improving the efficiencies. Video cards and computers will need a few more jumps to handle the visuals at a price that everyone can afford.

The fourth is that the software and information needs to be stored on the Internet and scattered among individual users so its a robust system. So it pretty much has to be an open source software system. If one individual company stores the information, then that can create issues if it all falls apart. Diversifying the structure gives it robustness for both technological and legal reasons.

The last reason, and I'm not sure if this is a must, but its my gut feeling. Is that the display must go beyond just a screen. No matter how big you make the screen it still has that 'game' feeling. A true Metaverse would be immersive and give weight to its existence. My gut feeling comes from a game I played at a mall back in the early 90s. It was a virtual reality 3D game that required a headset to be put on. The graphics were super blocky and the colors very bland, but I was absolutely blown away by the feeling of realness that the headset gave me. When a teradatyl picked me up and dropped me from about 100 feet, my arms were flailing as if I truly were falling and hitting the ground was a jolt that no other game has ever given me since. It was quite an experience that left a lasting memory. Its that kind of experience that would allow entertainment beyond sex chats, would allow for real meetings and would create a weightiness to the Metaverse that would help people believe it was a real place.

Signed,

Hiro Protagonist