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(un)Wise Adventures in Virtual Worlds
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Philips Design will re-launch its presence in SL today, starting with an Ideation Quest with the residents. The Ideation Quest is an "innovative and playful way to engage people in the creation of ideas and concepts, and a logical continuation of Philips Design’s ongoing exploration into virtual worlds as a platform for co-creation and innovation".
"In this version of Ideation Quest, people will explore the topic of sustainable living in the future. They will follow a route of five playful and creative steps, inspired by the design concept Off the Grid: Sustainable Habitat 2020. This concept looks at possible solutions for energy and housing issues predicted in the year 2020. Off the Grid is part of the Philips Design Probe program and is a continuation of the SKIN Probe which was listed as one of "the best inventions of 2007" by TIME magazine".
"The Quest will begin at the new Philips Design Co-creation island in SL on Monday June 16th at SLT 12 PM (CEST 21:00) and will continue for 4 weeks (Philips Design). The Ideation Quest is a collaboration between the University of Innsbruck, Avaty and Philips Design."
See also the livejournal of Philips Design. | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment   |
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I was rather silent lately, not because I lost an interest in SL (I didn't), but mostly because I would rather write here about something 'fresh', that is, something new and original happening with me (and not just merely rebroadcast somebody else's stories.
Looks like there is a good reason to re-start writing again :) Philips Design, which start working in SL last year, has also announced a fresh re-launch of their presence, this time on their own island in SL (Philips Design).
There are great plans, to my knowledge - to continue to work with the residents, to show various visionary projects (most from RL so far, but hey, the time will come). For starter, Philips Design decided to launch an IQ, stands for Ideation Quest.
That's how the endeavor is presented at the official livejournal of the company:
We will start with the ‘Ideation Quest’ in Second Life. This is, we believe, is an innovative and playful way to engage people in the creation of ideas and concepts. We see at as the logical continuation of Philips Design’s ongoing exploration into virtual worlds as a platform for co-creation and innovation.
In this Ideation Quest, Philips Design invites people to participate exploring the topic of sustainable living in the future. Participants at the Philips Island will follow a route of five playful and creative steps, inspired by the design concept - Off the Grid: Sustainable Habitat 2020. This concept looks at possible solutions for energy and housing issues predicted in the year 2020. Off the Grid is part of the Philips Design Probe program and is a continuation of the SKIN Probe which was listed as "best inventions of 2007" by TIME magazine.
The Quest will begin at the new Philips Design Co-creation island in SL on Monday June 16th at SLT 12 PM (CEST 21:00) and will continue for 4 weeks (Philips Design). The Ideation Quest is a collaboration between the University of Innsbruck, Avaty and Philips Design.
Sounds quite exciting, and I am eager to see what will be created by people (and how everything will evolve with such initiatives to use playfulness of virtual worlds (the topic I explored last year).
I am sure more pictures will follow :) | | comments: Leave a comment |
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As expected, this was a start presentation; Castronova is smart, is witty, and is refreshing, even if you know the main points of his talk by heart. It was a pleasure to listen to him, and to the people who were listening to him and asking 'right' questions.
The announcement presented it as "the provocative thesis that a continual migration is now happening between physical reality and the alternative realities offered by open virtual worlds and massive online games, and that the two modes of existence will henceforth co-adapt, competing for the attention, time, and money of users".
But more specifically, he was talking about fun, and how important to consider fun in decision making, and how - and why - the governments and firms should do it, and how they don't do it, and how badly it can all end up because of that. Or, rather, he was saying that he still hopes that the governments (as well as other bodies) will eventually learn to take into account the 'fun factor' (i.e., they will learn how to play). Ok, let's hope. | | comments: Leave a comment |
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Nicole Yankelovich, from Sun Microsystems, was presenting yesterday their Project Wonderland - a "3D Toolkit for Building Virtual Worlds". In reality, it was less about a toolkit, but more about Sun's own 3D Intranet (MPK20) and its new functionalities. And in fact, there was not so much new in this talk, I have a feeling that I've see all this stuff before. I am sure they added lot of geeky things, like directional sound, 'innovative telephony' and what not. But, as Shania Twain sings, 'that doesn't impresses me much'.
The only really coll thing (besides the fact that Sun does endorse these experiments) is its name, Wonderland. However, this very name points to source of my mild disappointment: while referring to this magical, experiential and deeply transformative space, they 'just' extend the existing practices into virtual worlds, merely replicating the 'reality' in 'virtually', without much efforts to sense what are the new dimensions and opportunities these wonderlands reveal (or can reveal).
PS: Ok, not fully true - I did notice their new musical browser; may be it is also old, but I don't remember seeing it before. Below are a few pictures that give some impression on how it looks/works:
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Oh, I know now what they mean when talking about 'social networks'... | | comments: Leave a comment |
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But what was the real treasure is to meet Soph (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=91.6) sophrosyne_sl) at this conference! During my drop-out from Second Life their sim Extropia (or should I write sin?) was one of the very few places I tried to visit from time-time. They are amazing, and I plant to write more about this community.
Soph was sweet enough to offer a Grand Tour through the place (accompanied from time to time by Vidal (vidaltripsa) and dandellion).
The space 'space' they created is really fantastic, I will surely will come back to play 'Yuri Gagarin'; speaking of who, I need to remember to gather some pictures of Baikonour for the Soph's party at April 12.
And few other fantastic views:
Finally, we tried to do underwater racing; truly entertaining, I even managed to take one turn without crushing into the walls!
Thank you, Soph! It was a real (sic!) pleasure! | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
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The second presentation was by Nick Yee (mostly known as Deadalus man) who recently started studying social interactions of avatars; I missed most of it, unfortunately, and returned closer to the closure. But it was all his too familiar talk about how avatars 'gaze' at each other, and how much can we learn from studying it.
I was always quite skeptical this twist; of course, behavior of avatars does reflect behavior of the person driving them, but... first, the 'behavioral reactions' of the former are medicated by so many factors outside the scope of science, but most importantly, I am less interested to see how these avatars behave similarly to the people behind; in is much more interesting to see what are the differences created by the medium, and how, and what these differences can tell us about the 'drivers'.
The only real news was that Nick has apparently moved to PARC and is now affiliated with Xerox' PlayOn group (see their blog); before he was all Stanford man (Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab).
PS: The picture has not much in common with Nick Yee and his virtual research; it portrays two other virtual researchers I met last year in Vancouver - Sarah "Intellagirl" Robbins and Mark "Typewriter" Bell; it was nice to hook up with these two 'For Dummies' .
Some other 'gazes':
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I nearly abandoned SL, and definitely this blog was not a 'very' lively one since last October. Speaking about living, and life, it's interesting that the last postings were from the previous Life 2.0 conference in SL. And it was the next Life 2.0 that my reunion with SL so serendipitously coincided with.
A lot of things changed there (here?) in the virtual world, and everything stayed the same; surely, the problems with lags and rez-ing are those 'staying' with us, as the above pictures vividly demonstrates.
My first visited lecture was (symbolically) about the 'Future of Immersion', and given by Mitch Kapor, chairman of Linden Research (aka MitchK Linden inworld).
Semi-naked-rezzed Mike talking...
... to the audience of more than 100 people, quite impressive, in fact.
I was very pleased, and disappointed at the same time, to see all the same old buddies there; disappointed because it seems that the world is still a very tiny village where everyone knows everybody.
Below is how the Mike's talk was announced:
"Deeper, more satisfying immersion hangs fire on the emergence of a new generation of interfaces, which harness gesture both to project identity and assist communication, and to enable simpler, more vivid means of interacting with objects and people. Continuing the thread begun at Davos and Metaverse U., at Stanford, Mr. Kapor will describe and chart the implications of one such device, nearing introduction."
I was somehow disappointed with talk too, in fact. It was all about 3D cameras, and photo-realistic avatars, and more 'intuitive' interfaces, the usual technocratic bla-bla-bla. I don't think that the 'future of immersion' is about that. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
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Trying new SL viewer, from OnRez. Perhaps, nothing stunningly new, but the movement and navigation seem to be quicker and smoother. I also like few interface improvement, and button placement make more sense compared to the default one from LL.
As a bundle record, just came back from a week-long trip to Canada, where I attended a conference by the Association of Internet Researchers this years called Let's Play, including a pre-conference workshop entirely on Second Life. The workshop, and many other presentations and conversations, including with Pathfinder Linden who was also one of the keynote speakers, triggered lots of thoughts and ideas, which I do hope to put in writing here, well, one day. | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
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To learn the answer in the subject, please come to the Philips Design's site - guess where? - in Second Life, the least smelly place on Earth!
James Auger from RCA will be presenting his ideas about smell, design and life (the presentation is modestly titled 'The sense of smell in the 21st century')
The very first round is today, October 3rd, 11 am -1 pm SL time (an hour from now). The talk will be repeated this Friday(5th October 3.00 AM - 5.00 AM SL time) | | comments: Leave a comment |
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(un)Wise Adventures in Virtual Worlds
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