Pack Avatar for Shared Inventory in Virtual Universe
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current virtual universe systems face challenges in managing inventories, as users must manually manage their own items, leading to storage and maintenance issues due to duplicated software code for each user, and the cost of acquiring items can be prohibitive, limiting sharing and increasing storage requirements.
Innovation Solution
A pack avatar system that allows users to create, render, and borrow shared inventory items within a virtual universe, reducing storage needs by maintaining shared items in a single location and enabling efficient access through a pack avatar that can move and be associated with users, with options for borrowing terms and conditions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If each user maintains their own inventory items with separate software code, then users have full control and access to their items, but storage requirements and maintenance costs increase significantly due to code duplication
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple users' inventory items into a shared inventory system where items are stored once centrally rather than duplicated across each user's local storage. The pack avatar serves as a shared container that multiple users can access, combining their inventory needs into a single storage location that reduces overall system storage requirements while maintaining user access rights.
Solution Approach 2:
The pack avatar is designed as a universal inventory container that can be shared across multiple users and serves multiple functions: storing items, enabling user access, and reducing storage duplication. This multi-functional approach allows a single inventory structure to serve many users simultaneously, eliminating the need for separate inventory copies for each user.
2Ease of operation
If users manually manage their own inventories, then individual user control is maintained, but the complexity of inventory management increases and sharing capabilities are limited
Solution Approach 1:
The pack avatar acts as an intermediary between multiple users and the shared inventory system. It provides a unified interface that simplifies inventory management while enabling sharing capabilities. Users can access and manage items through the pack avatar without directly handling the underlying complexity of shared storage mechanisms, thus reducing management complexity while maintaining control.
3Quantity of substance
If inventory items are stored in a shared location, then storage efficiency improves and duplicative storage is reduced, but access management and user borrowing mechanisms become more complex
Solution Approach 1:
The pack avatar system enables self-service inventory management where users can autonomously access, borrow, and manage items from the shared inventory without requiring complex centralized approval mechanisms. The system automatically handles item allocation and tracking, reducing the need for manual access management while maintaining storage efficiency through centralized sharing.
Data Source
AI summary
Generally speaking, systems, methods and media for providing a pack avatar for sharing inventory in a virtual universe are disclosed. Embodiments of a method may include receiving a request to create a pack avatar carrying one or more shared inventory items in a virtual universe and creating a pack avatar based on the received requests. Embodiments may include rendering the pack avatar in the virtual universe. Embodiments may also include, in response to receiving a request from a virtual universe user to borrow one or more shared inventory items carried by the pack avatar, accessing the one or more requested shared inventory items and rendering the one or more requested shared inventory items in the virtual universe. Further embodiments may include associating the pack avatar with a user and moving the pack avatar within the virtual universe.