The Metaverse called "Second Life" is full of surprises, and it just keeps getting more and more interesting. Partly because of the chaotic creativity of everyone who gets the SL bug, and partly because of the huge range of possibilities.
In the past few days I have heard about the live webcast of a real total solar eclipse of the moon, filmed from Turkey and broadcast live to an ancient amphitheater in SL. I have heard about prototyping a flashlight with a GPS system that can lead you to your destination in the dark. The prototype hardware and software are being developed and tested in SL. If successful with focus groups, the product may actually be commercialized!
So this gets me thinking, what about building the Turrell Roden Crater, or Skyspace in SL. Turrell builds art work with light. http://www.henryart.org/skyspace.htm. I could learn more about this marvelous art work while playing in SL and sharing it with friends either in SL or at our group dinner gatherings.
This is the addictive part of SL, it gets you wanting to do things... when you think of all the possibilities...
In short, Henry Musil describes 2 types of people: those who see possibilities in everything, and those that are realist. The Man Without Qualities is the first type and I am sure he would have loved SL.
Also check these Podcasts: Interview with Philip Rosedale, CEO/Founder of Linden Labs. This includes a discussion with 2 women for a Women's point of view.
Tags: Second Life, Turrell, Musil, Linden Labs
This is a great example of high quality 3D modelling with great execution to bring the interactivity to the user in a simple and compelling manner. Viewpoint technology.
From my colleague Miguel: "I discovered this fun 3D application from Honda. Try this link and click the "3D View" button. You will have to install an ActiveX plug-in from Viewpoint.You can rotate the car in 3D and even open the doors, hatch and trunk. Pretty cool and it does not seem to be using a sequence of 2D photos but using a 3D model of the car."
This has been a long standing debate at My Virtual Model. Do we enter the 3D avatar space with human believable models or leave it to the more cartoon or sci-fi world? This article, called "online dating - IMVU Lands $9M" talks about some of the challenges facing companies like IMVU in terms of making a sustainable business. The comment that I find particularly interesting is that users are not willing to "download yet another instant messaging client". If MVM could find a way to enable users to export their VM into existing IM clients, that would be cool.
Also check out CrazyTalk, by Reallision a 3D chat company.
Tags: CrazyTalk, MVM, IMVU, Virtual Model
Thanks to my colleague Andrew, I have witnessed the impressive world of EVE. It looks fabulously sci-fi. Not being a gamer, I find it very interesting to see the impressive range of technologies at work in an MMORPG. Can the face morphing technologies and face design engines of EVE and games like it be used by My Virtual Model? The Eve world looks promising. Over 100,000 members as of February 7th, 2006 and capacity for 25,000 simultaneous users in a continuous world without shards and instances. But do I want my Virtual Model to look like a space traveler?
Tags: MMORPG
My Colleague Mathieu showed me this trend setting site where you can experience YouOS, a new operating system that runs everywhere you can load a web browser. Its obvious benefits are a transportable desktop environment and application suite. Pop open a browser and your desktop is excatly the way you left it along with the playlist of your YouOS MP3 player. The catch is that the OS is programmed exclusively in JavaScipt. This trend shows an increasing interest in "fat" clients that seems to have exploded when AJAX became a household name, and not because the powder cleans well!
Tags: YouOS
