Category Archives: virtual life

When Daddy Is Off at War: A Hologram Home?

APLINK – thinks its gotta be more real to engage children – it is nothing more than a video with AI – somone should push the envelope on real time hologram technology – itsReal

Read on – plus see the full story at the link below…

Catherine Caldwell-Harris, a psychology professor at Boston University, says humans have always sought more realistic images of loved ones far away. “It used to be artist sketches, then photos, then video,” she says, “and this may just be the next step to facilitate our memories.” While she applauds the research that will be required to develop the application, she’s unsure about kids’ reactions. “How would a young child understand an artificial-intelligence program that is a simulacrum of their parent?” she asks.

Blogs have been asking similar questions, calling the idea “creepy” and wondering what the impact would be on a military kid whose parent is killed in action but continues to “live on” in cyberspace. Shilling says if the military discovers the idea is too challenging or won’t benefit the troops and their families, the project won’t go forward. “Part of the research is to look at its safety and efficacy,” he says. “We’d never put anything out until we are certain that it is good for the family.”

Spouses left on the home front also might have mixed feelings. “Would the AI spouse be a nice stimulant to my own memories?” Caldwell-Harris wonders. “Or would I even get more angry at the Army and think, ‘They’re just trying to fob off this fancy technology on me so they can send my husband out on his next tour’?” It’s obvious that the real breakthrough will come when the military can deploy parental holograms and let Mom and Dad stay at home.

via When Daddy Is Off at War: A Hologram Home? – Telepresence Options.

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Pilot: Life On Life

Life On Line is about Social networks, games, shopping, dating, music, news and much more. Life On Line, a TV show about internet living.

Life On Line is a team effort by these talented people:
Host – Steve Cropper
Music – Space Junky
News – Sigmund Leominster
Social Networks – Andrew Peters
‘Shrink’ – Dr Roman Candle
Voice – Kayden O’Connell

Check the pilot out here: http://life-on-line.ning.com/video/pilot-ep-0109# or http://blip.tv/file/1701093/


When launched in February, Life On Line will be viewed on dozens of quality websites across the internet including:
www.metaverse-tv.com
www.my-metaverse.com
www.spacejunky.com/home.html
www.lifeonline.blip.tv
associationofvirtualworlds.com
sigmundleominster.wordpress.com
sigmundleominster.blogspot.com
www.entropiaforum.com
www.JamhotTelevision.com
aplink.wordpress.com

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Top 10 predictions for virtual worlds 2009 -itsReal

From: The Metaverse Journal – Australia’s Leading Virtual World News Service

Now that we’ve reviewed our 2008 predictions, it’s on to 2009. For the coming year, we’re going to get a little bit more specific in our predictions. It may lower our chances of success but will be more fun. So here we go:

1. OpenSim grids will bleed Second Life users – this may seem a very obvious prediction given the growth of OpenSim grids, but what I mean here is that the exodus will be obvious. It won’t be a migration that will affect Second Life’s viability (other issues may achieve that), but there will be a solid, committed population of OpenSim users choosing those grids over Second Life’s one. Put another way, new users will see OpenSim grids as an equal option to signing up to Second Life.

2. Virtual worlds will appear as normal daily life in TV / Movies – To date, most appearances of virtual worlds in TV and film are either documentaries or as a central part of an action / geek film. US comedy The Office and CSI have both featured Second Life but essentially in a sensationalistic way. 2009 will see more insertions of virtual worlds into daily life scenes in shows. A disclosure here: I’m particularly confident on this one as I’ve had the pleasure of helping out on a film project that features a virtual world in a day-to-day context. More on that in the first few months of next year.

3. There will be a net increase in Australian business in virtual worlds – Second Life won’t see any significant growth in Australian businesses entering Second Life and there may actually be a decrease. The gains will come in worlds like Twinity, customised worlds created on platforms like VastPark and possibly even some entry into enterprise worlds offered by entities like IBM and Forterra. Any increase will be driven by the increasing awareness of virtual worlds as a cost-effective business collaboration tool.

click to join twinity - powered by real life

click to join twinity - powered by real life

4. Virtual worlds will remain a political no-go zone – Australian political parties have had zero presence to date and it’s extremely unlikely to change in 2009. Any planning being done by the major parties for the 2010 Federal Election is unlikely to extend beyond services like YouTube and Twitter. Things may stretch to sites like Barack Obama’s Change site, but forget anything 3D.

5. Metaplace will be a game-changer – Metaplace’s simple, web-based interface combined with some impressive content creation tools will ensure a launch with impact and significant growth. There’ll be some obvious poaching of users from services like Habbo Hotel but also from content-creation havens like Second Life.

6. Virtual sex will lead to legislation – Linden Lab’s gambling, ageplay and banking clamp-downs were an early start to the reality of increased regulation and governments worldwide are increasingly scrutinising virtual world activities. Sexual exploits (aside from ageplay) have remained unregulated. For better or worse, this won’t remain.

Read the remaining predictions at Metaverse Journal

via Ten virtual worlds predictions for 2009 : The Metaverse Journal – Australia’s Virtual World News Service.

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Minding My Own Business : The Metaverse Journal – Australia’s Virtual World News Service

Minding My Own Business

December 16, 2008

Today, a guest post from an Australian business owner in Second Life, Seshat Czeret. One of her major goals is to run a sustainable business in SL – one which she can continue to run, and which sustains itself financially. Anyone looking to run a small business in SL for pleasure, rather than for mega bucks, should check out what Seshat has to say about building and running a business.

seshat

I’m Seshat Czeret, and I run a business in Second Life. It’s a small business, just me handling it, but it’s bringing in the Lindenbucks.

It started almost by accident. I was in SL to help my friend Tateru Nino with her columns, doing some of the groundwork. I ran into a role-playing environment that I thought I’d enjoy, and made myself a couple of things to help myself with that. Some clothing, and a curtsey animation. Friends suggested I put them up for sale, and Tateru offered me a bit of space at her shop. So I did.

Read more: PS: All this will be possible in Twinity soon

via Minding My Own Business : The Metaverse Journal – Australia’s Virtual World News Service.

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Review – Virtual Dating Tourism & You – twinity

An introduction & in-depth review of twinity by Dan Simmons of the BBC program CLICK

Virtual Dating, Virtual Friends, Virtual Tourism, Virtual Collaboration, Virtual Shopping, Virtual Families & Virtual YOU – all in twinity

Video Courtesy of CLICK – BBC

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David Pollard’s Second Life affair leads to divorce from Amy Taylor | NEWS.com.au

One day, Ms Taylor, 28, found Mr Pollard at the computer watching his avatar having sex with a prostitute in Second Life.

"I went mad, I was so hurt. I just couldn't believe what he'd done. I looked at the computer screen and could see his character with a female character. It's cheating as far as I'm concerned. But he didn't see it as a problem, and couldn't see why I was so upset," she said.

Using the virtual world's own special currency, she hired an online private detective to investigate his adultery. However, back in their real lives, the Pollards managed to patch things up.

Then in April this year Ms Taylor caught her husband's avatar in another compromising position.

She claims he was having "cybersex" with a female player in the US.

via David Pollard’s Second Life affair leads to divorce from Amy Taylor | NEWS.com.au

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MAN Manpower Inc. Celebrates First Anniversary in Second Life

Manpower Inc. announces the worldwide celebration of the company’s one-year anniversary in Second Life. The celebration kicked-off with a multi-media convening of virtual world gurus on Manpower Island to reflect on the ways leading brands can attract a creative and diverse pool of talent and leverage virtual worlds to further real-world social responsibility programs.

MAN Manpower Inc. Celebrates First Anniversary in Second Life

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dusan writer’s small worlds small minds Ouch – itsReal

This morning I awoke and as usual after grabbing my first coffee (of many) for the day i checked into my mail to see what was happening – and my rss feed from metaverse journal sent to me dusan’s latest lenghty post about the emerging virtual worlds business sparked by the Google Lively media hype I assume, but has in fact been around for quite some time like second life. (see Interview with CEO GoGoFrog)

Mr Blue Haired dusan, managers to conjure up images of old, that are a distant memory in my mind on how limited we were in reaching consumers in the “OLD days”

Life was so much easier back in the day when there were three stations, and a few radio networks, and the major choice was whether to plop down coin for a spot on the Superbowl, the Academy Awards, or to keep sucking up all the airtime on the Gong Show.

…and what we all know is a reality with early adopters is that they want to travel to mars, but only have a budget to get out of the earth’s atmosphere…

“We have a vision, but you don’t have the code”
OK. So like I say. I sell stuff too. You get paid for things and sometimes you flop – you promise something you can’t deliver. You paint a picture of an IMAX movie and it turns out your client has a budget for black and white TV, or your target audience all lives on farms and can’t get to a theatre even if they wanted to.

And then a nice link to ESC’s roadmap…. thanks

Sibley came out with his roadmap, reminding us that Second Life isn’t ready for prime time – not without access to the server-side stuff anyways. So instead of pitch in (unless I missed that post) with the servers over on RealXtend or OpenSim they’ve gone Flashy with the rest of them. White label it – build your own virtual world for under $100k, throw whatever logos on the wall you like, embed some games, and you’re off and running!

…and then an ad for some place called Loco Pocos some kind of furry land which i will check out for curiosity only later…

In the meantime, when I want a place where you can chat, be cute, solve puzzles, socialize, make stuff, customize my appearance, I’ll head to Loco Pocos to see what Millions of Us and ESC and all those other gurus of virtual worlds SHOULD have built instead of the stumbling ruins that were CSI with their 100 signs and their obvious clues.

..obviously I have just cut and diced his blog post – but from where I sit if Google wants to have virtual rooms with its globally launched platform Lively, and developers, who have been hit in their pockets with a slow down in virtual world spending buy corporate early adopters, want to and get the skill sets to support virtual rooms, it has to be good for the entire Virtual Worlds marketplace.

How does dusan expect developers to stay in business if for now, and i repeat for NOW – fully immersive worlds like second life require a greater commitment and understanding by consumers and evangelist corporate marketing heads with few new marketing dollars to spend.

from my perspective (and it is solely MINE) I welcome the Small Worlds, as these worlds will drive new immediate revenue’s to companies on both sides of the business, bring consumers in with minimal fuss and OPEN everyone’s eyes to the bigger ultimate picture which is the fully immersive 3D worlds, we are all passionate about it.

In this case small size is important as a gateway to BIG.

APLINK – itsReal

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media interview: Twinity makes Singapore Asian Hub – itsReal

As reported in Today Newspaper, Lead Technology story page 54, May 9 2008 – Metaversum the creators of a new virtual world called Twinity – plan to make Singapore its’ Asian Regional Hub

Mirko Caspar, CMO MetaversumDr Mirko Caspar – co founder & cmo, Metaversum talks to Hedirman Supian of the Today Newspaper

Text Version: Today Online

PDF Version: Today Online

Jump to Twinity

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First Look: APLINK’s new Home Office in Twinity – itsReal

Anna, my Interior Designer takes you on a video virtual tour of my new Home Office in Twinity – Check out the Mirror Action – The mirrors Reflect what is happening as Anna walks up to them – I have it on good advice that this is not  possible in Second Life.

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