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POPSOne Avatar, Many Worlds One of the new questions that arise with the advent of many virtual worlds; one avatar or many? What do you think?
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POPSVirtual worlds carve out new path "The first step is to have virtual worlds as a common medium for ordinary people. It has to become far more ubiquitous, more like a toaster than a DVR," What virtual worlds do well is contextualise social encounters in a way that social networking cannot do, he thinks. "Without places it is hard to have activities. The bowling alley or the alcohol does not matter as much as the people but if you do not have the bowling alley or the alcohol it's just an empty room and no-one comes,"
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POPSWe'll all be citizens of virtual worlds What is the point of all this? It is quite likely that it will be a natural thing for future generations to meet their friends in worlds such as these, where they can watch the same music or videos while chatting to each other. And if that is where youngsters will be hanging out, then brands and media, including newspapers, will have to be there. Other life-mimicking worlds about to be released include shopping malls such as themall.tv, which aims to emulate an entire shopping mall with scores of high street shops. It claims to have signed up 500 brands.
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POPSGames and reality, Which affects which? on the other hand, "some biologists think the game could have educational value just by making users think about science, like an entertaining hook into evolutionary biology." "Ultimately, games are made to engage the people who play them. Provoking wonderment or debate is a good thing. Wright abstracts grandiose topics, and he does it well. Not enough game designers have the stones or the vision to try the same, which is why we get battered with endless versions of Madden NFL (also put out by Electronic Arts). In the end, that's also why Spore leaves such an impression. It's more than just fun. It's worth arguing about."
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POPS“Facing There” - A Virtual World Threat to Facebook? clipped from: www.allfacebook.com All Facebook sat down with Michael Wilson, CEO of There.com at the Virtual Worlds Expo in Los Angeles. Michael is a tech savvy visionary who was the 4th employee at eBay and an early employee of Oracle. There.com is a popular 3D social virtual world that allows users to build avatars that 1) express themselves in a graphically rich, online environment, 2) communicate with other users in real time via chatting and voice chat and 3) build social networks with other members via their avatars. There.com also creates a thriving virtual goods economy, where users can create, buy and sell virtual goods through an in-game auction platform.
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POPSFrom Snapshots, a 3-D View - Amazing New Technology In a Photosynth demonstration at the annual TED conference last year, the presenter blew the crowd’s mind with a photosynth of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, made up of photos mined from Flickr.com. In other words, Microsoft had created a seamless, successful photosynth using hundreds of existing photos, taken by different people at different times using all kinds of cameras.
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POPSLaw and Order in the virtual universes i think it is interesting the way a community is being built. from the article: "In 2006, Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life, canceled Marc Bragg's account for violating the world's policies on real estate deals. Bragg sued Linden, saying he legally owned the content he created in Second Life, including land and businesses. The suit was eventually settled, and Bragg's avatar was restored. Authorities also have intervened in crimes committed in online worlds. In the Netherlands, for example, a teenager was arrested for stealing more than $5,000 worth of virtual furniture in a world called Habbo. "This is such a nascent area when it comes to the law," said Sean F. Kane, a partner in the law firm Drakeford & Kane. "If a certain world allows you to be a thief, is it a crime or just an aspect of the game? Should real-world law apply?" there is much thinking to do, involved...
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POPSIntelligence and Empathy He stresses that the human mind does not qualify as a completely ‘General Intelligence’ but lies somewhere on the spectrum between AGI on one end and ‘Narrow AI’ on the other. This is one of several reasons why he does not expect AGI to be achieved by mimicking the workings of the human brain. He describes how our brains fool us into believing that we understand our actions and decisions when we don’t. And why modeling an AI too closely on the human brain might make it too, vulnerable to false notions. He also says, ‘I think virtual worlds are going to be absolutely critical to the development of Artificial General Intelligence.’ As well as ‘Right now connecting AI’s to virtual worlds is probably the best way to get an AI to have a general human-like embodied experience.’
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POPSBuilding 'The Matrix' Feynman envisioned, a general purpose, programmable quantum computer could itself carry out quantum simulations. But such machines are still decades away, most researchers say, while machines designed only for quantum simulations may become available sooner.
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POPSVirtual Worlds by Sector This chart made by KZERO Research shows where the dominant age ranges fall for each 3D virtual world. Oldest residents are in the center of the circle, where you see Second Life.
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POPSKeep the marketing out... A professional organization I belong to had an impromtu meetup in Lively. Yes, unexpected guests arrived and my cartoon was kissed without permission. My cartoon was also invited to watch streaming web content of a "too polite to repeat here" subject. I had participated in the meetup with high hopes that Lively might be the place to hang out with professionals in a virtually social setting. Guess What? I like hanging out in virtual worlds because it is an escape from the barrage of marketing at me. I have to endure advertising and marketing messages on the radio, on TV, cable, satelite...the Internet is one huge bombardment of marketing messages. I want virtual worlds to be a respite from marketing. I want a place to have a 3d representation of myself where I can collaborate with others. My advice: KEEP YOUR MARKETING OUT OF VIRTUAL WORLDS.
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POPSNinety Percent of Virtual Worlds Projects Fail I did an MBA video project on virtual worlds (See my first clip). My assessment a year ago on this was that companies hadn't figured out how to make those worlds useful to the consumer. Instead they rushed head first into staking their virtual claim in the 3D world only to find out nobody cared or noticed except the typical hype mongers of the IT press that can't wait to be first to predict the next "BIG" thing. Maybe they were a little quick to judge.
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POPSAnother Second Life resource... I am wondering where the market is for these services. If you have spent any amount of time in Second Life you will quickly realize everyone and their cousin is a consultant for Second Life. If you ask a consultant who their target is, they always want to bring in Big Corporate. My question is: Why? Are these consultants truly listening to their market? From what I am seeing, those interested in Second Life are there because they enjoy the environment. That is the fun of Second Life-getting in there and doing it yourself. My advice to Big Corporate: be very aware of intellectual property laws. Read Linden Research Labs fine print.
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POPSBusiness presence in Virtual Worlds It appears to me virtual world inhabitants expect everything to be free. I have yet to see profit from direct sales as a result of a business' existence in a virtual world.
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POPSVirtual Unreality (Part 2) Looking from the perspective of a futuristic, perfect virtual reality, we are forced to question the very essence of our existence. What is the point of living if a utopia is provided for us? Once the superficial shell of reality is peeled from us, what is left of the human soul? What are the common denominators of our existence? The virtual world paradigm opens up our eyes to the limitations of reality, and shows us the true essence of what it means to be human.
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POPSVirtual Unreality (Part 1) This speculation about virtual worlds, besides being fun, reflects on the very deep question of Freedom, freedom of the mind, that is. What is freedom? How much freedom can we really take? How are we going to be if and when we become free. Continue to the second part of this clip...
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POPSClasses in Second Life for Educators Some of the topics include "working with at class in Second LIfe" by Bryan Carter (Bryan Mnemonic) "Setting up an educational presence in Second Life" by Rhonda Trueman (Abbey Zenith)
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