Use Microsoft Kinect to control your SecondLife avatar?
May be coming to a machine near you …. Check it out over at IM Roadmap, my other blog on technology-mediate communications.
Cheers,
Eric
Ray Kurzweill on SecondLife and Immortality
http://emagazine.credit-suisse.com/app/article/index.cfm?fuseaction=OpenArticle&aoid=277909&lang=EN
SL & eLearning
some recent book purchases that are promising will get posted up here soon too. in the meantime, some good examples, if a bit dated, at this blog:
http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2008/06/second-life-learning-videos.html
SecondLife Viewer v2 available
http://secondlife.com/support/downloads/?lang=en-US
Lego to add a virtual world
Lego joins the ranks of WebKinz, Bratz and other toy brands with an online counterpart to their real-world toys. I am firmly in the camp that believes Lego bricks are one of the Great Joys of Life, so this is all good.
Cheers,
Eric
Accountability better in SL than in RL
According to Philip Rosedale, today, SecondLife is potentially better able to police activities and maintain law and order than real life. Really? Hmm. Regardless of the venue or subject matter, remarks like that always seem a bit reckless to me. SL is intrinsically gameable (no pun intended) – switch avatars, create a new account, use someone else’s login, etc. It is subject to the same categories of fundamental weaknesses as any online, connected system. I would suggest that any superiority SL may have in this “policeability” is primarily due to lack of scale compared to real life.
With that said, however, SecondLife does present fantastic and interesting opportunities to conduct behavioral experiments, codify exhibited player behaviors into patterns that can be monitored and tracked (for things like in-world crime or terrorism), and much more. Lessons from those kinds of activities could be highly valuable in modeling real-world events.
Cheers,
Eric
Open Crochet (& QWAG)
A friend recently sent a pointer to me about Open Croquet …. a highly immersive VR environment built with an open source ethic. http://www.opencroquet.org/index.php/About_the_Technology. Apparently there is also a commercial version that’s recently been launched, at http://www.qwaq.com. Looks pretty slick.
Cheers,
Eric
FT.com / Home UK / UK – Gamers hone hypercapitalist skills online
FT.com / Home UK / UK – Gamers hone hypercapitalist skills online
One group, the Guiding Hand Social Club, infiltrated a corporation, assassinated its chief executive and carried out a heist. Another staged a successful IPO to raise money to build space stations. Investors lost everything when the outposts were attacked and taken over by a rival.
I want to join Eve Online!
