Seoul Will Be the First City Government To Join the Metaverse (qz.com) 51
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: Seoul says it will be the first major city government to enter the metaverse. On Nov. 3, the South Korean capital announced a plan to make a variety of public services and cultural events available in the metaverse, an immersive internet that relies on virtual reality. If the plan is successful, Seoul residents can visit a virtual city hall to do everything from touring a historic site to filing a civil complaint by donning virtual reality goggles. The 3.9 billion won ($3.3 million) investment is part of mayor Oh Se-hoon's 10-year plan for the city, which aims to improve social mobility among citizens and raising the city's global competitiveness. It also taps into South Korea's Digital New Deal, a nationwide plan to embrace digital and AI tools to improve healthcare, central infrastructure, and the economy in its recovery from the economic crisis caused by covid-19.
Seoul's metropolitan government will develop its own metaverse platform by the end of 2022. By the time it is fully operational in 2026, it will host a variety of public functions including a virtual mayor's office, as well as spaces serving the business sector; a fintech incubator; and a public investment organization. The platform will kick off with a virtual new year's bell-ringing ceremony this December. In 2023, the city plans to open "Metaverse 120 Center," a place for virtual public services where avatars will handle citizen concerns that could previously only be addressed by physically going to city hall. So far the plan offers sparse details about exactly what devices citizens will use to access the metaverse platform, though city officials emphasize that the goal is to broaden access to public city services, regardless of geography or disabilities. But specialized equipment could be a barrier for many people. Virtual reality headsets still sell for $300 and $600, and are not as widely accessible as smartphones and computers.
Seoul's metropolitan government will develop its own metaverse platform by the end of 2022. By the time it is fully operational in 2026, it will host a variety of public functions including a virtual mayor's office, as well as spaces serving the business sector; a fintech incubator; and a public investment organization. The platform will kick off with a virtual new year's bell-ringing ceremony this December. In 2023, the city plans to open "Metaverse 120 Center," a place for virtual public services where avatars will handle citizen concerns that could previously only be addressed by physically going to city hall. So far the plan offers sparse details about exactly what devices citizens will use to access the metaverse platform, though city officials emphasize that the goal is to broaden access to public city services, regardless of geography or disabilities. But specialized equipment could be a barrier for many people. Virtual reality headsets still sell for $300 and $600, and are not as widely accessible as smartphones and computers.
Who stole the soul (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
2nd life (Score:5, Insightful)
Why doesn't anyone know about 2nd life?
companies tried opening buildings there to interact with public; I think IBM had (has?) a recruitment office in there somewhere?
And like 2nd life, this idea shall also fail. Although one can debate if 2nd life has failed..it is one of the current longest running *cough* games *cough* even if not super popular...and the engine is old and clunky.
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And like 2nd life, this idea shall also fail.
Technology has come a long way since 2nd Life was launched.
Some ideas are just stupid, but others are just before their time.
Offering city services through VR is ok if they are also available on the flat web.
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Offering city services through VR is ok if they are also available on the flat web.
Yeah, they can do the gimmicky stuff if they fell that's going to get them votes - but please make it available on your website so the rest of us can just get stuff done and move on.
Re: 2nd life (Score:2)
Offering city services in VR is wasteful if they are also available in the exact same form over the "flat web."
Given how VR works, you can't say it plugs an accessibility hole in the way in-person and telephone access serves people without computers/internet and the way that internet and phone access serves people unable to physically travel to the government office does.
Ergo....it's a waste of taxpayer dollars.
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The reason it's failed is because it's nonsense.
If I want to apply to ibm, then jobs.ibm.com is right there, and searching on it to find if they have something of interest is faster, more convenient, better streamlined, etc. etc. than anything VR could ever offer. Where's the VR advantage?
People tried to move things into VR that already have a perfectly good solution and where VR offers no added value.
Look at what strives in 2nd Life: Porn. That is something where people actually see a value in having it mo
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Well, Seoul could make a major move into vr porn, would probably get some attention. Or, play their smut cards right, maybe they could bring new meaning to the concept of "augmented reality".
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But not with Facebook as their partner. You know, the company that censors pictures of something we've all happily nibbled on when we were way, way underage...
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Yeah, well they better not get in bed with MetastaBook whatever they do.
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Second life came too early, before people had hardware to make it more than just a really bad MMOFPS. Which is not to say that they shouldn't have tried, but now it's primarily a haven for furries, trolls, and furry trolls.
That's not to say that the current attempt by Faceboot will succeed, of course. Still not enough people have the hardware.
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And before that, ViOS (which I only know about because I was in their hilariously bad beta).
I think the fact that Second Life is full of lots and lots of penises presages what people can expect from the metaverse both literally and figuratively.
Let's further remember that Second Life Jesse server was DELIBERATELY set up as a 'free from admin meddling' zone but that was abandoned (this was during Gulf War 1) when it was determined that only one side is really entitled to free speech.
https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn [blogs.com]
Great idea run all citizen (Score:4, Interesting)
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Isn't it supposed to be MetastaBook now?
Minitel 2 (Score:2)
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As long as citizens can still interact with their government without needing to use the metaverse - ie: plain email; telephone; letters.
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Minitel isn't exactly a good counter example. It rolled out in 1980, 13 years before anything even vaguely recognisable as the web and 3 years before what you know think of as "the internet". France tracked pretty much other western nations in internet adoption so it appears minitel did not harm it. They just had online services much earlier.
Re: Welcome to the matrix (Score:2)
A lot of people took the red pill recently. A few downed the whole bottle...which is not so good...but still. A win is a win.
We have ... (Score:4, Funny)
Not likely (Score:2)
South Korean geeks are too savvy to buy oculus grift.
Good luck with that (Score:4, Interesting)
Second Life is still here and they've extended the engine somewhat, not great, but not gone either.
And it's still closer to a pure metaverse than anyone else has gotten.
The rest have used the sanitized Disney World model, where you buy from their gift shops and stand around in PG safety,
looking for hookups with guys hitting on other guys that are avatared up like women.
I think Meta is planning on doing the same thing, combined with the added hell of zoom meetings in an outer space skybox.
Zuckerberg lacks the insight, life experience, generosity, or taste to pull it off.
If the protocol isn't open, and everyone isn't able to contribute to its creation, it's not a metaverse.
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"Zuckerberg lacks the insight, life experience, generosity, or taste to pull it off." - that right there pretty much sums it up.
Zuckerberg has made $100 billion just from raping people's personal information and privacy - I doubt he sees the need to develop any of those other characteristics.
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You can't rape the willing.
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To take this awful metaphor to a place it should never go...
Fb is the Bill Cosby of social media. But then, so are most examples of social media. G+ wasn't, they only used the userbase as beta testers and then yoinked the functionality away from 'em and reserved it for paying customers.
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I think Meta is planning on doing the same thing, combined with the added hell of zoom meetings in an outer space skybox.
Zuckerberg lacks the insight, life experience, generosity, or taste to pull it off.
You forgot the most important reason Meta will be total failure and anyone sane is quietly selling off their Facebook stock:
There will be ads everywhere, and all your movement and actions will be tracked and fed into the big targeting machine.
Unless the aggressive street vendors are your favorite part of holiday memories, I don't see how you are going to enjoy a Facebook-driven VR.
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Second Life is still here and they've extended the engine somewhat, not great, but not gone either. And it's still closer to a pure metaverse than anyone else has gotten.
Why didn't Facebook buy Second Life ?
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Yeah, I can't wait for the open source version, where there will be a dozen different competing editors for designing headwear for your avatar. Meanwhile, most normal people won't be able to join your meeting because they don't know how to recompile the drivers for their specific VR headset.
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Second Life is still here and they've extended the engine somewhat, not great, but not gone either.
I find that people who make comments about Second Life rarely have spent any time in it, or a few hours, or what they have seen in a magazine article, that is extremally bias.
First of all, my qualifications. Fifteen years in SL as creator, scripter, and builder. I've written articles in the wicki and defined the protocols, or assisted, on how some things functions. SL is truly a user created world.
SL is alive and doing very well. It has had a huge boost in online activity in the last year, but wh
A nation in a war footing.. (Score:2)
.. i am sure there's no draconian surveillance going on there because... you know... war. right?
Great (Score:5, Insightful)
Rolls eyes (Score:2)
*Rolls eyes again but harder*
misunderstanding basic principles, prefer hype (Score:3)
Nobody, absolutely nobody, wants a virtual city hall aside from the novelty value.
The advantage of having a web-interface is that everything is one click away. We don't have to navigate https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] anymore.
Why has virtual reality failed to materialize so far? Despite being pushed as "THE thing" for 30 years? Because it doesn't have a use case. Aside from games and entertainment, there's very, very little where VR is better than a well-designed UI. There's a few visualisation things, and a few "remote-this" cases, but in general...
Look, competent sysadmins still use the commandline and textfiles because that's what works best. GUIs have been around for ages, so long that even half of /. has never used a pre-GUI computer. And still, if I want to restart something, then "/etc/init.d/apache2 restart" (or for the hipster crowd: "service apache2 restart") is ten times faster than any clickity-click-through-the-menu-options-we-go - not to mention I can do it through connections and on systems that no GUI would navigate.
Same with VR. Nobody really wants to wander around in a virtual city hall in order to get permit A38. You want a search box, click on the 1st result, fill it out and be done.
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I was thinking, a city vr brothel might kind of catch on.
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For a certain demographic. For most people, once the novelty wears off, I'm quite sure they prefer actual sex with actual people.
The target audience is pretty much Incels and married people who want to go to a brothel in a way that if found out will cause a shitstorm, but not an immediate divorce.
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Sex with actual people is so 2019.
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Why has virtual reality failed to materialize so far?
It hasn't VR is here and grows every year.
Aside from games and entertainment
Well yeah, that's basically where all the growth in VR is. The only other place I can think of where it's being used is for sailors on ships to communicate with their families back home.
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It hasn't VR is here and grows every year.
As a niche entertainment product. Not as the revolution that changes everything that it's been hyped at.
The only other place I can think of where it's being used is for sailors on ships to communicate with their families back home.
You're right. There's this and probably a few other cases of "it's shit, but it's the best we can do in this situation". I don't mean that in a putting-it-down sense, more in a every-sailor-would-prefer-an-actual-hug sense.
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Think of VR like a concept car or Haute Coture.
Cutting-edge implementations with new ideas don't ALL get adopted, but parts might, and those parts do enrich what we're doing.
Just think of all the UI improvements and 'distant concept' frameworks since HTML 1.0 and UIUC Mosaic. I've got county charts/maps overlaid with GIS data, dashboard widgets in workplace apps, virtualized management interfaces for ICS/SCADA systems. Zoom is becoming a click-to-videochat function on user service portals and retail, and
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Could be useful actually (Score:2)
The article so far suggests a chatbot concierge and IoT network for traffic / environmental sensors. And kudos to the person who mentioned second life, what a blast from the past. Searched for government in the Marketplace link on their website, it is pretty humorous, no government but a shitload of porn, some office furniture models, and 95% unrelated junk. No government. But, if you just forget META and VR for a moment it could be useful if Seoul could they create open source, easily customizable and host
Definition of Naivety... (Score:1)
The user will use this interface for two reasons:
1. Novelty--to see what it's like. Of course, this is bound to fade very quickly.
2. Naivety--users are hoping for an easier way to reach the person they want to speak to, and they might try this as a means to bypass the typical channels--web, phone, in-person.
The reason I call the second reason "naivety" is because asking a civil servant to work through another layer of technology will NEVER result in a more streamlined process. Additionally, this will do no