behind the firewall collaborative 3D workplaces – itsReal

Altadyn Corp, yesterday announced the Enterprise Edition of 3DXplorer, enabling customers to use their own IT infrastructure for behind the firewall collaborative 3D workplaces.

The Dual SaaS/Enterprise model enables an efficient customer adoption and implementation model. Customers, including those in government & defense, can start with immediately available SaaS plans, and progress smoothly to an in house solution for more controlled performance and higher security, while keeping the deployment extremely easy thanks to the browser-based and plug-in-less characteristics of 3DXplorer.

The Full PR is available here:

http://www.3dxplorer.com/PR/3DX-Enterprise-20090820.pdf

About Altadyn
Altadyn leads the next generation of collaborative solutions by enabling a new type of user experience (Immersive 3D), leveraging its cutting edge web3D platform for live collaboration, accessible to all. It’s a disruptive technology which enables full 3D immersive spaces with simple browsers on any computer, with no download or installation required. Altadyn customers include NDU/FCVW (National Defense University), Saint-Gobain (NYSE Euronext: SGO), Cubic (NYSE: CBC) , Aptima, Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) and more. Altadyn operates globally with offices in Paris, France and Irvine, California. For more information, visit http://www.3DXplorer.com or contact: Altadyn Corp.

Jack Morton launches virtual event platform | Market-interactive.com

APLINK thinks this is an awesome move by Jack Morton Events – what do you say ?…. what’s also very interesting – “We felt we had a responsibility to build our own platform, one that allows for easy customization and on-brand experience design for our clients,” he added.

Excerpt from Market-interactive see link below…

Regional – While not designed as a response to the financial downturn, Jack Morton Worldwide’s virtual experience platform, which allows customised online events, has gained client interest in light of travel budget cuts.

The new offering was motivated by a study conducted by the company among 400 marketers with 82% said their organisation could increase revenue by better leveraging experiential strategies to engage employees, business audiences and consumers online.

Jack Morton’s virtual experience platform allows brands to customise and have multiple looks in 3D spaces that integrates into social media networks such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Newly hired director of technology solutions and head of digital studio for Jack Morton, Chris Haff said the marketplace is flooded with templated solutions that simply swap out images and call it customization.

“We felt we had a responsibility to build our own platform, one that allows for easy customization and on-brand experience design for our clients,” he added.

Ben Taylor, managing director Asia Pacific for Jack Morton, said in Hong Kong, the financial sector showed the most interest in its virtual experience platform due to cost freeze in the business. A technology company based in Beijing has also expressed interest to organise an internal meeting for its 10,000 staff virtually.

Taylor observed that the virtual platform is mostly used for B2B and media events in the US but in Asia, the biggest interest comes from companies wanting to use it for internal or employee communications.

He added that the cost of activation for the virtual experience platform is on average a quarter of the cost of doing a live event, although budget still has to be accounted for building video contents but not for flying people in, accomodation and loss of time travelling.

via Marketing, Jack Morton launches virtual event platform, HONG KONG, ONLINE ADVERTISING, Event marketing, Experiential marketing, | Market-interactive.com.

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.

Virtual meetings to ground two million airline seats

Airlines could be hit hard as workers ditch face-to-face meetings in favour of cheaper virtual link-ups.

The worldwide economic downturn will boost videoconferencing tech, according to analyst house Gartner that predicts virtual meetings will replace more than two million airline seats per year by 2012.

via Virtual meetings to ground two million airline seats – Retail & Leisure – Breaking Business and Technology News at silicon.com.

Join Twinity: https://aplink.wordpress.com/2009/02/03/join-twinity/

A Realer Virtual World – Forbes.com

CAMBRIDGE, MASS. –

For the large majority of Internet users, virtual worlds like Second Life remain a confusing landscape of empty buildings, failed marketing and furry strangers. But Joe Paradiso believes that virtual worlds could be more than an over-hyped gimmick. They just need a dose of reality.

Paradiso, a professor in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, is working to create what he calls X-Reality or Cross Reality, a system designed to bring virtual and real worlds into a practical sort of alignment. With funding from Second Life parent company, Linden Lab, Paradiso aims to use sensors, displays and software to bring real-world data into virtual worlds and to integrate access to virtual worlds with real-world situations.

Later in November, Paradiso's team of seven Ph.D. students plans to switch on 45 PDA-sized devices mounted on the walls of the Media Lab's building. Each is equipped with an iPhone-like touch screen, a version of Second Life's software, wireless connections, cameras and a variety of audio, motion and infrared sensors.

According to Paradiso's plan, anyone in the building wearing a small electronic badge can walk up to one of the small screens and peer into a landscape in Second Life and communicate with users. Second Life users will likewise use the screens to look into the real world through floating windows in the virtual world, watching passersby or even remotely sitting in on meetings.

via A Realer Virtual World – Forbes.com

Virtual Hype Will Lead to Immersive Internet – Direct2Dell

Awesome article on Virtual Worlds and 3D online Worlds – they report that their are now 173.6m registered users of virtual places. The increasing awareness of environmental issues will also generate greater opportunities to collaborate online in an immersive environment  – itsReal

Exert “As the users of these worlds mature, they will come to expect to interact with friends, brands, employers and coworkers in immersive 3D environments. And, even before they are old enough to purchase real goods through virtual worlds, they will have spent an enormous amount of real money on virtual goods.

The conference was not all about kid-focused worlds, however. Collaboration was a word heard over and over from panelists, speakers and in hallway conversations. With the rising costs of business travel and a desire for corporations to reduce their impact on the environment, the promise of collaboration within virtual worlds will entice more users. With a Digital Nomad workforce, successful companies will need to find new ways to motivate and coordinate their employees”

Virtual Hype Will Lead to Immersive Internet – Direct2Dell.

Expensive telepresence virtual meetings to cut air travel – Forbes.com – itsReal

How telepresence technology will connect global executives and reduce business travel.

Watch Video Forbes.com Video Network.

Virtual Worlds Platforms like the soon to open Twinity will be far more affordable, immersive and immediate.

However, if you want to and can afford a complete video solution with Microsoft Surface type technology check out…

…the offer at http://teliris.com/ – contact Mack Treece President Teliris for a demo.

APLINK – http://www.linkedin.com/in/aplink

Greening IT – Smoke & Mirrors or FACT – itsReal

As a PR practitioner with a difference I found myself last week recommending that a client come out of the closet about their corporate GREEN policies that are being implemented in Europe BUT have yet to reach the shores of Singapore – To be honest Singapore lags behind other developed countries in it’s Green Policies but signs are around that this will be remedied soon… However there are companies who have jumped onto the Green Bandwagon who have no intentions of adopting due to costs…

Well it seems a Standard that has been around for some time, ISO 14001, will help us all comply…voluntarily ?

Jose Allan Tan reports for Enterprise Innovation

No one can be quite certain about the date of the “sustainable” revolution but it can be argued that the turning point came after Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 for his work on Climate Change. Of course I am referring to the documentary film (docufilm): “An Inconvenient Truth”.

These days it is almost uncharacteristic of any company – big or small – not to have a program that addresses (or claims to) the issue of sustainable best practices or environmental friendly processes.

Within the IT community, I’ve seen my fair share of announcements among IT vendors of their “green” plans. I’ve spoken to a few senior executives who are more than happy to share their view as to what their companies are doing in terms of green. And you know what? I am still a skeptic because I’ve seen enough vaporware-type initiatives that get announced with a lot of publicity but no substance to back it up.

So it’s refreshing to know that there are a few companies that have embodied a green initiative quietly, internally, long before the Al Gore docufilm.

The Fujitsu-Way…

Read more at Enterprise Innovation

Green IT Tip: Virtual Worlds can provide an international meeting platform which reduces the need for meeting participates to travel – now that’s a COOL Green IT Tip