More on that 'cause I know you're interested ...

This is kind of interesting on that same subject (see original post below on avatar-creation technology). I'll preface it with info from the University of Southern California Interactive Media Lab, but you can skip down to the conversation on avatars from a USC Interactive Media Seminar.

Speakers: Jonathan Strietzel and John Snoddy, Big Stage Entertainment
Time: Wednesday, April 2, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Big Stage is a media company whose breakthrough technology allows users to easily create and integrate a life-like 3-D avatar of themselves into everything from famous movie scenes, TV shows and video games, to music videos, short video clips, virtual worlds, still images, user-generated content, instant messages, e-mails, social networks and more – instantly. All Big Stage content can then be shared across social networks,mobile phones, and more.

The privately held, Pasadena, Calif.-based company was founded by three tech entrepreneurs who shared a vision for a new media paradigm in which users themselves inhabited the very content which they consumed, and in which the digital fidelity of 3-D animated people -- created and controlled by average consumers -- would soon render virtual performances almost indistinguishable from original performances captured in high-resolution media.

Big Stage’s life-like avatar creation system stems from advanced stereo reconstruction technology funded by multiple government grants, including the CIA, as part of a nineyear cumulative research project at USC. Company Co-Founder Jonathan Strietzel first saw the potential for this technology while meeting with the project’s chief scientist, Doug Fidaleo, Ph.D., at USC. He then assembled Co-Founders Jon Kraft and Jon Snoddy, who each brought unique skills and perspectives to the table, and were able to craft a powerful business vision, secure funding, obtain the core technology license from USC, and hire Fidaleo to officially help bring their vision to life.

Building on the USC research, Chief Technology Officer Snoddy, Chief Scientist Fidaleo and their team were able to take the quality and accuracy of complex, expensive 3-D scanning technology previously only available to production houses and animation companies and offer it to any consumer with a digital camera through a free, fun and easy to use Internet-based platform, for wide-spread entertainment immersion.

Here's the Backchannel log -- I took out the comings and goings and changed the names to Commenters:

Commenter 1 (6:16:33 PM): hello

Commenter 2 (6:26:07 PM): that's real talent right there!

Commenter 1 (6:26:49 PM): Ala - what's it like to see your self up there? does it feel like you?

Commenter 2 (6:27:27 PM): it's an interesting simulacrum!

Commenter 3 (6:27:58 PM): here

Commenter 4 (6:27:58 PM): Thought the last Pirates clip compositing looked really nice.

Commenter 1 (6:28:38 PM): I would like to see Ala and Perry Hoberman's models side by side, to see how nuanced it can get

Commenter 5 (6:29:15 PM): exactly what are you implying?

Commenter 4 (6:29:21 PM): Hahaha.

Commenter 2 (6:29:23 PM): :)

Commenter 5 (6:30:53 PM): they'll make us smarter & more attractive!!!

Commenter 2 (6:31:05 PM): looking forward to it

Commenter 4 (6:32:39 PM): I think I am not totally convinced ... I thought part of the appeal of the internet was, maybe not the anonymity, but being something you can't be in real life.

Commenter 2 (6:34:23 PM): Exactly. I'm not an undead pirate!

Commenter 6 (6:34:34 PM): That is just what I was thinking.

Commenter 4 (6:34:45 PM): Are you sure?

Commenter 7 (6:34:47 PM): I would argue that being able to be something else and relative anonymity are very well-connected concepts

Commenter 2 (6:35:35 PM): something interesting was happening to me when I was watching a not so accurate copy of myself

Commenter 5 (6:36:11 PM): your slightly defective clone...

Commenter 2 (6:36:24 PM): It's like when the 'villagers' saw themselves in photos for the first time

Commenter 2 (6:36:36 PM): Give me my soul back!

Commenter 4 (6:36:37 PM): Well I just think of a simpler version, like avatars. I never use real photos of myself for avatars or userpics or what have you... would rather use something ridiculous.

Commenter 6 (6:37:11 PM): what if someone who doesn't like you and has a picture of you does bad things online with an avatar having your face ?

Commenter 4 (6:37:35 PM): That too.

Commenter 2 (6:37:43 PM): define bad

Commenter 2 (6:37:59 PM): there ethical issues of course

Commenter 6 (6:38:01 PM): true

Commenter 6 (6:38:28 PM): you could star in a ben afleck movie

Commenter 5 (6:38:55 PM): and improve the movie

Commenter 3 (6:39:53 PM): so paparazzi will have a new assignment, not just a flashy photo, but three accurate photos

Commenter 2 (6:40:09 PM): indeed!

Commenter 3 (6:41:04 PM): not just the gov

Commenter 2 (6:41:34 PM): but Britney in a Ben Afleck movie is something the world can do without

Commenter 4 (6:44:09 PM): Which game is that? >_>

Commenter 8 (6:47:13 PM): Another approach:

Commenter 8 (6:47:15 PM): http://www.pulse3d.com/

Commenter 4 (6:47:33 PM): I see a puppy. I'm sold.

Commenter 8 (6:48:42 PM): and another:

Commenter 8 (6:48:43 PM): http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=358

Commenter 8 (6:52:22 PM): http://www.bigstage.com/

Commenter 8 (7:02:11 PM): http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=358

Commenter 1 (7:07:41 PM): everyone's ten pounds thinner and three inches taller online

Commenter 4 (7:08:06 PM): Ten sounds conservative.

Commenter 2 (7:08:07 PM): not in second life

Commenter 4 (7:11:21 PM): That's pretty much the only application I can safely see myself using my own image for, seriously.

Commenter 1 (7:11:43 PM): an internment camp?

Commenter 4 (7:12:00 PM): Um, not necessarily. :X Just like, me retelling life stories.

Commenter 4 (7:12:46 PM): But just like... using your real life image for real life things, and using a non-real image for non-real things. I don't want to see myself running around in World of Warcraft, healing people or getting the stuffing kicked out of

Commenter 4 (7:12:48 PM): me. :(

Commenter 8 (7:14:58 PM): isn't videoconferenceing an obvious app?

Commenter 4 (7:15:10 PM): I don't actually like video conferencing. Haha.

Commenter 3 (7:15:33 PM): there are a lot of (not always successful) conferences in SL

Commenter 3 (7:15:49 PM): but small meetings (3-5 people) are extremely effective with avatars

Commenter 6 (7:16:13 PM): I think in a 2nd life virtual conference (like the virtual guantonamo stuff) this would be great.

Commenter 4 (7:16:19 PM): But do you think those small meetings would be even more enhanced by people using avatars that looked like themselves?

Commenter 3 (7:16:30 PM): what about the media mainstays of gambling and porn

Commenter 6 (7:16:46 PM): then you wouldn't want your avatar to look like you.

Commenter 6 (7:17:41 PM): i guess it's if you want to be recognized. In SL at a conference you would want to be recognized, otherwise probably no.

Commenter 3 (7:18:17 PM): buying and selling

Commenter 4 (7:18:18 PM): Usernames seem like they would work just as well for recognition, most of the time. I have an easier time remembering a person's username than someone's face for the first time.

Commenter 6 (7:19:01 PM): I am absolutely opposite. If I didn't have everyone's AIM name translate to their real names, i'd have no idea who I was talking to.

Commenter 3 (7:20:38 PM): won't people want to make more than one self?

Commenter 4 (7:20:41 PM): I went through a Sims 2 phase where I got all my girlfriends to make Sims of themselves and I put them all in a house and let them go.

Commenter 6 (7:22:53 PM): http://www.metaverseroadmap.org/

Commenter 1 (7:39:56 PM): like 'simpsonize me' or the south park character thing

Commenter 1 (7:40:34 PM): a stylized, but faithful representation can be just as compelling as a photo-real one

Commenter 2 (7:40:53 PM): my face would be easy to 'Simpsonize'

Commenter 6 (7:41:09 PM): My Mii is great, looks just like a cartoon version of me.

Commenter 3 (7:41:37 PM): put another face on it

Commenter 1 (7:41:38 PM): mine too! and how fun is that...

Commenter 6 (7:44:31 PM): I think we need a digital face version of all the Professors in the IMD for the interactive main page :)