Metaverse Guide – Know where to go in Second Life

You may be asking yourself – What is Peek360º ?  I know I was asking this after a friend informed me about an interesting new application that allows one to view a location in Second Life without even having to enter it.  I decided to take my avatar and check it out.

I first went to the website http://www.avatrian.com/Peek360/ to get started.  I then entered a location in SL that I wanted to view.  I chose Las Arenas Rosadas by the creator Naiman Broome – a master creator as you shall see.  I then chose a location I wanted the 360º view from.  I chose X-94  Y-64  Z-20.

Once I entered the info on the website, including my email address which is needed for confirmation and for receiving the video, I took some steps back from the location to give the robot room to work.  Yes, a bot, computer controlled, lands on that exact location and takes several pics in a 360º pivot on that very spot. She’s a cute avatar named Paparazzi Artful.   She’s dressed in a denim mini-skirt, black fedora hat, gray turtle-neck sweater, and Maitreya Bloom boots.  In fact,  she’s wearing the same boots as I am, so I gotta give the bot some style points!  She also has a press card around her neck with her name on it.  She has an empty profile with no explanation for her purpose on the sim.

Face to face with the Peek360º bot Paparazzi Artful

The above pic is a previous test run with Paparazzi.  At Las Arenas Rosadas I actually placed her below ground level because I found it gives a better view of the sim.

Paparazzi work can be very difficult

The result is this:   http://www.avatrian.com/Peek360/viewer.php?id=1787

What do you think?  Not flawless…I can see the seams of the pics pasted together.  But overall, it really does give a great view of the sim.  So in that respect, for getting a 360º peek at a sim without entering Second Life, Peek360º works quite well.  One would need to know the coordinates to take the pics from for the best results which defeats the purpose of the program, or one could just guess at coordinates or go by posted coordinates.  I imagine that it can be very handy to view real estate eliminating the need for teleporting to multiple locations.

However, while this application was created for good, can it be used for evil?

The first thought of many is that it may be used for spying.  I must say it crossed my mind too, and after trying it out, I really can’t say whether its a threat or not.  There are, as you can imagine, robust debates on other sites such as Wagner James Au’s blog,  http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2010/02/peek360.html, which I’d encourage you to read.  It includes comments by Chenin Anabuki of Avatrian, the creators of Peek 360º.

I should mention that the bot’s first arrival to a sim is often not at the coordinates entered.  In fact, in my first attempt I found her half a sim away from the coordinates.  I assumed it didn’t work but I soon recieved the video from the point of view with the correct coordinates.  This implies that the bot was able to cam to the coordinates.  Usually, on the second attempt, she lands squarely on the spot.  If you want to be in the shot, you need to take several steps back and smile.  So, should one be concerned about spying?

In the video I posted above, you can see the results and the quality of the pics.  (I use a Dell 2407WFP (Digital) on NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS, just for a reference to the quality.)  I was first startled and creeped out by the image of the male avi behind me.  I did NOT know he was there when I was testing this.  He did, however, introduce himself after I viewed the video and we had a polite and short conversation.  But the point is, I cannot see his features very well.  He was standing only a few steps behind me and I find it hard to distinguish his avatar from a million others that I see in SL.  Good for spying?  Hmmmm.

There certainly are some interesting advantages to using Peek360º, I can imagine there are great uses for educators and businesses.  However, there are some questions to be answered and more experimentation to be done and possibly room for improvements.  It’s encouraging to read Chenin Anabuki’s response on the New World Notes blog that they are very open to comments and welcome feedback.

So why don’t you do just that?  Try it out and answer some of your own anxious questions.  In the meantime, if you are worried about spying…set up your privacy settings for your land and ban Paparazzi Artful from your sim as it is reported that she is the only bot working for the company.

~ I”m your biggest fan, I’ll follow you until you love me.  Paparazzi.

Update: I found more info from one of the head honchos at Avatrian at Snickers’ Doodles blog:

“The app will not work on sims that are: a) non-accessible to the public, b) have “no-scripts allowed” set, and c) sims that have specifically banned our bot, named “Paparazzi Artful”

Rodion Resistance
Creative Director, Avatrian LLC, creators of Peek360