Meanwhile, Across The Street At High Fidelity......

[Perrie Juran]

 

Living In A Modem World

[Cathy Foil]

I don't know a whole lot about High Fidelity but my understanding is that they want to basically do away with a central server and use the users own computers as sort of a giant spread out server to store the data that makes up the grid.

My biggest concern with this approach would be three things.

1. What about computer viruses?  With tens of thousands perhaps millions of individual PCs all storing bits and pieces of the grid there are bound to be a good percentage who's computers have viruses on them.  Other users PCs would download those viruses as they access the data off hundreds or thousands of other users hard drives.

2. Most peoples upload speeds are nowhere near their download speeds.  Wouldn't this be a huge problem causing lag?

3. With data spread out all over the world and a single sims data being split onto many many individual computers how will that affect download times when one texture may be from a computer next door and another texture or asset from a computer half way around the world?  Data would have to be duplicated multiple times so when one computer is shut off there would be a good chance that several others will be online.  Will High Fidelity be storing data on my hard drive and accessing it when I am not logged into the grid?  If so how much will that affect my computers performance and Internet speed?

[Teagan Tobias]

Cathy asked:

Will High Fidelity be storing data on my hard drive and accessing it when I am not logged into the grid?

 

That would be interesting but would not work for me, my network cable goes from the back of my computer to a connector in front of my keyboard. From that connector another network cable goes to my switch. When I am off-line I unplug my network cable from the connector and plug it in again when “I” want my PC to be on-line. I have a fast enough connection that it has never slowed me down.

[Medhue Simoni]

It's interesting from an avatar creators standpoint. They need to open up a little more and let more people in. It's obviously ready for that from the videos, and the documentation. I thought I signed up for it awhile ago, but I don't think they have sent me comfirmation of acceptance yet. I signed up again today tho. Maybe I didn't sign up before tho. The sign up doesn't even ask what I do. Don't you think that would be important to ask, or know? Like having animators and avatar specialist in there when they are building the rig.

From my limited understanding of how they get the character to work, it's not going to be mainstream for quite a long time, or even really usable for most people. They could make this more mainstream, but I'm not sure they are focused on that. The faceshift implementation is wrong headed, if you ask me. It adds cost to the whole process. It's a cost HF has no control over, and I don't see why faceshift is needed at all. In an hour, I can set up a face expression tracking system in Blender, using a basic webcam. Why would a Blender user ever use faceshift? The whole process is just a complex coding job. Everything HF is using could be done with a depth camera, like kinect, and a head sensor, to accurately reflect the angle and rotations of the head. Maybe with Leap Motion, for better hands tracking. The head sensor could simply be in a hat. Faceshift is cool and all, but I'm not gonna pay that much for something like that. It's just code, and using the depth camera. HF could make their own, or acquire Faceshift. Or make a deal with Faceshift for HF to pay them for everyone in HF to be able to use it.

As a creator, it will be interesting to see the market evolve for these avatars. The reason I even bring up Faceshift, is because, in order to create the avatars, you need it. This is why the issue is kind of a big problem. Outside of that issue, it's just a basic avatar, with some expressional morphs built in. Again tho, without having access to the platform, it's impossible to really know how well their progress is going. The grouping meshes too close bug doesn't sound like a tiny problem.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

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Cathy Foil wrote:

I don't know a whole lot about High Fidelity but my understanding is that they want to basically do away with a central server and use the users own computers as sort of a giant spread out server to store the data that makes up the grid.

My biggest concern with this approach would be three things.

1. What about computer viruses?  With tens of thousands perhaps millions of individual PCs all storing bits and pieces of the grid there are bound to be a good percentage who's computers have viruses on them.  Other users PCs would download those viruses as they access the data off hundreds or thousands of other users hard drives.

2. Most peoples upload speeds are nowhere near their download speeds.  Wouldn't this be a huge problem causing lag?

3. With data spread out all over the world and a single sims data being split onto many many individual computers how will that affect download times when one texture may be from a computer next door and another texture or asset from a computer half way around the world?  Data would have to be duplicated multiple times so when one computer is shut off there would be a good chance that several others will be online.  Will High Fidelity be storing data on my hard drive and accessing it when I am not logged into the grid?  If so how much will that affect my computers performance and Internet speed?

---

Rosedale addresses these questions, to the degree they can be at this point, here:

[Cathy Foil]

Thanks for the link Amethyst.  I watched the whole video.  It was very informative.

The video didn't really address viruses though it appears that all data retrieved from users hard drives or CPUs, what Philip calls "Contributed Devices" will be processed through centralized servers.  That at least two sets of data from two separate "Contributed Devices" will be compared to see if they match before it is sent to the end user.  I can see how this would cut down on viruses and also hackers trying to break into the system.

The problem arises though this screening process would have to wait till both sets of data are downloaded onto the central server so there may be a delay if one of the "Contributed Devices" has a slower upload speed.  Then there is the time it takes the server to compare the two sets of data and what happens if they don't match?

They could instead of using 2 sets of data they could use 3 or 4 and only send the data that is a perfect match from any two sets of data.  Though now you have compounded the upload speed problem and now the server is comparing even more sets of data.

Philip sees "Contributed Devices" being paid in virtual currency for computational time sort of like how campers in SL were paid for just sitting in a sim while they slept in real life.  I have a feeling that the amount of money people will make being a "Contributed Devices" provider will probably be less than the cost of the electricity it takes to run their computer.

Now I can see third party professional servers offering services to the virtual worlds and grids that use High Fidelity to enhance their worlds.  Say a third party server company that specializes in skies or clouds or water simulation or wind or rain or shadows or physics.  These would be a great asset as "Contributed Devices".

There is definitely some big hurdles for High Fidelity to overcome.  I hope Philip succeeds.  It sounds like it be awesome if he does.

 

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Yes, I have some reservations or at least questions on about the security and economics of it all too.  However it is still early days and it might be worked out. 

Your point about the cost of leaving your computer on vs. what you get paid to do is well taken.  If it's going to work the amount you can earn would have to cover your costs, associated risks plus at least a small profit or it wouldn't be worth doing for most people.  However he did say that you would be able to control when your computer is available and how much bandwidth they can use etc. and when the limit is reached your computer would be taken out of the pool.  Also, if the tasks given to your computer could be run in the background while you were using it too (provided your machine was cabable of this) it could make sense though.  It will be interesting to see how it all pans out.

It also makes me wonder if something similar would be used on the new grid LL is developing since Ebbe said they were hoping to build a virtual world capable of having millions of concurrent users. 

 

[Nova Convair]

If you want to store data that way you usually chop the files and encrypt the chunks then you scatter them over the network (in a way you can find 'em of course)
For that you need ALOT more that 2 places for redundancy. But you can compare the 1st two answers if they are equal as a safety measure if someone breaks the encryption. The files on someones harddisk are a pile of encrypted chaos - so not too much you can do with it.

I don't know if HiFi works that way but this idea isn't new.

Leaving your computer work for the network is a kind of currency here. But for me that will surely not pay out since it's an american company. (the americans have ultra low priced energy) So I'm surely out of that - and there are some other reasons not to participate.

 

[Feldspar Millgrove]

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Cathy Foil wrote:

2. Most peoples upload speeds are nowhere near their download speeds.  Wouldn't this be a huge problem causing lag?

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I think all the high speed providers very recently started upgrading everyone's upload speed to match their download speed, so the above is no longer going to be a concern.

I have Verizon FIOS and actually my upload speed is sometimes faster than my download speed, nowadays. Either way is between 75 and 89 Mbps.