Metaverse Meetup

"Culture maven and USC think tank director Johanna Blakley continues her interview on virtual fashion with New World Notes' Iris Ophelia. (Part one is here, and Johanna's insights on Second Life fashion here.) Iris talks about cultural influences on Second Life fashion (such as Mad Men, as she demonstrates at right with her Joan Holloway avatar) and makes this intriguing analogy:" - A. T. from Bookmarklet

"Officials at one discussion session here at the Educause conference yesterday spent an hour debating whether or not they should relocate their campuses—taking all the buildings, quads, and people and carefully moving them elsewhere." - A. T. from Bookmarklet

"From October 14-15 2010, Åbo Akademi University in Turku, Finland will be hosting a conference on “The Prospects of Learning in Second Life.“ ... John “Pathfinder” Lester will be giving a keynote " - A. T. from Bookmarklet

"Within a single generation, digital media and the World Wide Web have transformed virtually every aspect of modern culture, from the way we learn and work to the ways in which we socialize and even conduct war. But is the technology moving faster than we can adapt to it? And is our 24/7 wired world causing us to lose as much as we've gained? In Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier, FRONTLINE presents an in-depth exploration of what it means to be human in a 21st-century digital world." - Annie Ok from Bookmarklet

"Sodium can best be described as a Facebook game. No, seriously – any of you who've played Mafia Wars or any of the "freemium" games where microtransactions drive gameplay will know exactly what they're getting into when they discover that only the first five out of 50 levels of Sodium are free. Sodium features a futuristic sci-fi setting where players pilot tanks to shoot up other tanks in an arena setting. There are other quests, too, such as stomping neon colored scorpions or a drinking game called Desert Quench – you'll have to check with the cyborg non-playable character Vicky to get them. Some quests are isolated experiences where you blow up NPC tanks; others are social games where you work cooperatively with other players to, say, squash a certain number of scorpions. Also, the developer said there were tower defense missions and proper boss fights at the end of each level." - Annie Ok from Bookmarklet

"The BiDi Screen is an example of a new type of I/O device that possesses the ability to both capture images and display them. This thin, bidirectional screen extends the latest trend in LCD devices, which has seen the incorporation of photo-diodes into every display pixel. Using a novel optical masking technique developed at the Media Lab, the BiDi Screen can capture lightfield-like quantities, unlocking a wide array of applications from 3-D gesture interaction with CE devices, to seamless video communication." - Annie Ok from Bookmarklet

"To mark the 40th anniversary of the Internet, DARPA has announced the DARPA Network Challenge, a competition that will explore the roles the Internet and social networking play in the timely communication, wide-area team-building, and urgent mobilization required to solve broad-scope, time-critical problems. The challenge is to be the first to submit the locations of 10 moored, 8-foot, red, weather balloons at 10 fixed locations in the continental United States. The balloons will be in readily accessible locations and visible from nearby roads." - Annie Ok from Bookmarklet

uau - gosmanioana

Ramona Pringle, Interactive Media Producer of PBS Frontline's "Your Digital Nation", has asked me to pass on info about their open call looking for Second Life residents: - This is an open call for submissions to all Second Life users worldwide. - People can send in videos and machinima talking about their experiences in Second Life via the "Your Stories" page of their site (instructions are included): http://www.pbs.org/wgbh... - Anyone can also email Ramona directly at YourDigitalNation[at]gmail.com or just send a message on Twitter by tweeting to @dig_nat or @ramonapringle. She will do searches and will respond/follow. - Annie Ok

"Google has just unveiled Building Maker, an incredibly easy-to-use tool that will help them quickly expand their collection of 3D buildings" - Opensource Obscure from Bookmarklet

I can't try it as there is no Linux version but it looks easy and satisfying to use. - Opensource Obscure

"Life aboard the International Space Station is hard work. Crewmembers have a multiplicity of complex tasks, potentially involving thousands of tools, components and other items. But ESA astronaut Frank De Winne has begun testing the prototype of an unusual helper designed to make astronaut life easier. The ESA-designed Wearable Augmented Reality (WEAR) is a wearable computer system that incorporates a head-mounted display over one eye to superimpose 3D graphics and data onto its wearer’s field of view. Controlled by voice for hands-free operation, WEAR includes onboard location and object identification to show astronauts precise information about what they are looking at, as well as providing step-by-step instructions to guide them through difficult, lengthy procedures." - Annie Ok from Bookmarklet

Like the microwave, it starts by actually being useful in space and lands as as mainstream technology later on (please be sooner pretty please) - Dani Radu

"Cyclopedia uses the iPhone camera, compass and GPS together to create an augmented reality of the world by overlaying Wikipedia information over the viewfinder. By moving the iPhone around you will see articles pop up according to the direction you are pointing, You can then click on the title to get a quick overview article and, if you want to know more, you can then dive deeper into the full article." - Annie Ok from Bookmarklet

"Metro Paris Subway Your New Eye. This new update features a unique augmented reality functionality (only available to Apple iPhone 3GS users) that enables you to see the nearest stations and POI! Elements located at a distance less than 1km (0,621miles) only will be displayed." - Annie Ok from Bookmarklet

"In Q2 2009, Second Life Residents enjoyed the sixth consecutive quarter of record growth and activity in the in-world economy. At nearly USD 50M per month in user-to-user transactions, the Second Life economy is now on a annual run rate north of half a billion US dollars, making Second Life the largest virtual economy in the industry." - Annie Ok from Bookmarklet

"At the Defcon security conference in Las Vegas on Friday, a pair of hackers showed they could create automated robot characters who could walk around the game world doing the bidding of their masters. Such characters are usually considered unfair violations of the terms of service for the game and accounts are deleted whenever they are discovered. It remains to be seen if the hackers built their automated characters in a way that is legally protected. James Luedke and Christopher Mooney, working in their spare time, said they coded the “enhancement API,” or an applications programming interface that lets people change the user interface of World of Warcraft. You can use the API to change the look and feel of the client. By itself, that isn’t a violation of service rules, as game publisher Blizzard Entertainment makes it easy to do this." - Annie Ok from Bookmarklet

Did you get a consulting fee from the producers of Gamer? - Kevin Russell

"Twinity, the world’s first mirror world, is launching virtual Singapore – Twinity’s first city in Asia – on August 9th." - Annie Ok

"Virtual Fairground (http://www.virtualfairground.com) announces today that it is developing Wonderland MMO (http://www.wonderlandmmo.com), a virtual world and MMO game for teenage girls based on the famous story Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll." - Annie Ok from Bookmarklet

"Starting today, PlayStation®Home residents will be able to download four G.I. JOE costumes for free, exclusively from Threads Store. Available for a limited time only, Home residents will be able to download the iconic costumes worn by stars Channing Tatum (Duke) and Sienna Miller (The Baroness), or become rival G.I. JOE or COBRA ninjas, Snake Eyes or Storm Shadow. From tomorrow, visitors to Home Theatre will get to see an exclusive video welcome from stars Sienna Miller and Rachel Nichols as well as a trailer introduction from director Stephen Sommers. For two weeks, residents will also be able to watch a number of clips, trailers and featurettes from the new movie during a G.I JOE cinema takeover. For those who fancy becoming a G.I. JOE themselves, visit Home Theatre and walk up to one of the ‘JOIN G.I. JOE’ posters and follow the link to play a training game to see if they have what it takes. Successful recruits will also win a couple of pieces of exclusive merchandise along the way." - Annie Ok from Bookmarklet

"HD Trailer for Tron Legacy (aka Tron 2, Tr2n). Coming in Disney 3D in 2010. Starring Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wild, Bruce Boxleitner. Directed by Joseph Kosinski." - Annie Ok from Bookmarklet

"It appears that some time over the weekend, YouTube began experimenting with 3D videos. I spotted a thread at the YouTube Help forum about this, where Googler Pete said he developed this in his 20% time. He said he is the "developer working on the stereoscopic player as a 20% project." He added that "it's currently very early, hence the silly bugs like swapping the eyes for the anaglyph modes." Peter also shared the various ways to view such videos" - Annie Ok from Bookmarklet

"Mattel, Inc. (NYSE: MAT) will preview at San Diego Comic-Con 2009 a new line of action figures based on Twentieth Century Fox's upcoming epic action-adventure film, "Avatar," that will incorporate augmented reality technology, marking the first time this technology will ever appear in a retail toy product. The toy line, developed in partnership with Twentieth Century Fox Licensing & Merchandising (Fox Licensing) will feature heroes, creatures and vehicles straight from James Cameron's much-anticipated film, which is set for release in December 2009." - Annie Ok from Bookmarklet