Introduction

As an architect I was always interested in the relationship of information to real-world spaces and building components. Designing buildings that serve people in the latter half of the 20th century has increasingly involved the specification and manipulation of large data sets that describe their every component. My own experience was in the design of hospitals which, from the specification point of view, is probably the most demanding and information-rich of the built environments. Clearly, the use of computers and now the infinitely more powerful combination of computers and the global network, allows a smooth and seamless flow of information from manufacture of components to specification and then to installation. That however, is where it stops. The profusion of data and digital attachments that follow around a PVC floor tile destined to be laid in a hospital corridor, will probably be lost on the hundreds of people who will walk on it each day. Of course we know now that with the advent of computer chips cheap enough to be attached to every human artefact, the days of dumb environments will soon become a thing of the past and our lives are poised to become even more fun and inevitably, more complicated. This new relationship with our environment and our artefacts has been a consistent theme in popular science fiction. The manic elevator in Douglas Adam's Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy and John Carpenter's novel Dark Star in which an argumentative bomb re-invents itself as God, are just two examples.

The Virtual Alternative (When a Floor Tile is not a Floor Tile)

Many years ago I impatiently left behind the world of dumb environments, preferring to plug into the information society and become involved in designing and shaping databases and their associated data flows. My first inkling that the physical world was not a prerequisite for habitable space was when I discovered Virtual Worlds technology on the Internet. For me and many others in the field of Virtual Worlds, there is the realisation that cyberspace, as well as being an information and a communication medium, is emerging into the third dimension and offering a sense of place and belonging. By modelling real-world spatial metaphors (yes, even floor tiles) and employing existing communication protocols one can share rich spatial environments with other people, regardless of their geographical distance, and do so in real-time. Virtual Worlds technology is still at the starting blocks. Previously the focus of development had been driven by the fascination for single-user 3-d navigable environments downloadable from the Internet. Some aspiring platforms have recognised the power of shared multi-user spaces but few, if any, have made the intuitive leap to intelligent environments. Anyone using these platforms must surely wonder at the fact that computers enable our virtual experiences, but their power to compute, is limited to providing the experience, rather than leveraging it.

The Evolution of Meet3D (No Mention of Floor Tiles Here)

I believe that the concept of Meet3d is both elegant and timely. The Internet is growing at an exponential rate. However, notwithstanding the few existing attempts at Virtual Worlds technology, the Internet is still seen as document-centric and two-dimensional. The information flows are still an extension of our personal computers rather than an extension of our real-world experiences. Community building on the global network is growing at a phenomenal rate and has become a buzzword. However the word 'community' is used loosely to describe a collection of like-minded web sites grouped under one heading or the inane chatter of disembodied and anonymous people in countless text-based Internet chat rooms. Meet3d is the corollary of the Internet chat room, a logical next generation technology for Internet community building. Text-based chat rooms take only one strand of possible human interaction, around which a semblance of community manages to form. By providing a personalised spatial context and gathering together the currently disparate Internet technologies under a 3-d umbrella, Meet3d will transform the Internet experience and may potentially be seen as an alternative operating system. Any idea that is looking for financial backing to enable it to get off the ground must justify itself in the face of competition and the existing market. Meet3d, being from the Virtual Worlds stable is not a revolution but an evolution of existing ideas and technologies. There is no acid test for determining whether a particular idea will take hold of the public imagination and dominate the market. It is often unclear why certain technologies gain ascendancy over others, especially when sometimes they are inferior in some way. In Europe, especially in the UK and France, a technology called Viewdata was introduced in the eighties that in many ways was ahead of its time. Viewdata however, was dogged by lack of investment and never grabbed the public imagination, only partially succeeding in France through government support. Technologies that succeed do so because of being in the right place at the right time. Being launched into a large potential market that is ripe for change is probably the most important factor. So before going back to floor tiles I would like to make a persuasive argument for meet3d. Think of meet3d as an extension to your house or office; in cyberspace. Being possible to select a space of your choice and decorate it with your art and fill it with virtual artifacts will make it truly personal. Plugging it neatly into your own web page, people (friends or others if you allow them) will be able to visit your meet3d space, just by looking at your web page, and meet with you; all in the form of avatars (your virtual humanoid persona). You will be able to navigate around the room and draw on the memory of every element or instruct each element to interact with your visitors in some way. Want to throw a birthday party? Hire a temporary meet3d hall and invite all your friends from around the world. In your personal space you will be able to show video, play music, give a slide presentation or just chat to your friends or business associates; as if you were in the same physical space. The icing on the cake will be that in this cyberspace extension you will have your own personal assistant, a bot. The bot will be at your beck and call, taking instructions for changing the space, emailing all your friends to attend a gathering, dredging the web for information and much more. Meet3d will be simple to use, quick to download and be integrated tightly into the web technologies of today. Its success will depend upon its ability to spread throughout the web unhindered by a charging structure; it will be completely free to use at the basic level. Our intention will be for meet3d to grow at an exponential rate like a benign virus. The financial model for meet3d will be built upon the value-added services that will be sold on the back of it.

Completing the Circle (Confessions of a Floor Tile)

So what of the humble floor tile? In anyone's book a floor tile is one of the more lowly examples of a structural component. But if the floor has something to say for itself, imagine the communication you could have with one of its more complex cousins, like a door or a reception desk. A small amount of intelligence in a real-world floor tile would amount to a great deal of useable intelligence if all the floor tiles of a building were able to talk to each other and appoint a spokesman (or in this case a spokestile). This could then inform the building administrator when it comes to replacing them, of the current age of the tiles, who was the manufacturer, ordering code, current price, availability and currently available colours. As mentioned earlier, in a virtual environment there is a more seamless link from computer database to virtual object or component. As computers are providing the whole experience and there is no manifestation into the physical world of atoms, it is easier to build intelligence into virtual environments. At Digitalspace we are already working on 3-d cyber conferences where the discussion rooms are programmed to re-build themselves between each session in order to reflect the personaliseation specified by the speaker. Each room will also notify attendees of imminent talks by emailing people who have shown an interest and by using signs that update themselves in the main lobby and trade show areas. This amounts to an intelligent environment that manages itself over time and provides an opportunity for a community, gathered together from across the real world, to attend an event in cyberspace. Finally, the master of ceremonies in cyber conferences and in the Meet3d platform will be the bot. The bot will communicate with and co-ordinate all the separate elements of the virtual environment to provide a coherent and useful experience. It will be a tireless super-servant that can learn your preferences and communicate with people who visit your space, while at the same time being able to conduct Internet tasks and carry out your requests when you are offline. End © 2000 DigitalSpace Commons, All Rights Reserved

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