Here’s a beautiful bit of interface work: the “Titan Descent Data Movie with Bells and Whistles” (Link) showing NASA’s UI work for the Cassini-Huygen’s project.

via ISHUSH

{Image source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory Cassini-Huygens website}

Excellent back-and-forth piece over on the Wall Street Journal (Link). I’m struck by the number of points Ms. Dyson makes that seem to echo what I often say on this blog (or the other way around). She even almost gets into kirkyan territory with this comment:

Rather than being a separate virtual world, the Internet will encompass the physical world as well; most things will have Internet identities available remotely as well as a physical presence available only if you are nearby.

Lots of good stuff in this one. Be sure to read it.

via the 3pointD blog

There are some amazing stories out right now. And even though I expected something like this, the announcement is still exciting. From the Desktop Engineering website comes the press announcement on UGS (Link):

Microsoft Corp. and UGS Corp., a leading global provider of product life-cycle management (PLM) software and services, today announced a multiyear, global strategic alliance to “change the game” of how companies create innovative products by delivering the full suite of UGS® software solutions on the Microsoft® platform.
Continue reading →

This was right in front of my eyes. I was looking at all the pieces.

– The development and convergence of real and virtual reputation systems (and the importance of each).
– The increasingly thin barrier between the real and the virtual in all other aspects.
– The global social implications of these technologies.
– Maybe even a potential “missing link” in the development of an artificial intelligence*.
– And more…

But I didn’t put them together the way Dave Chiu and Didier Hillhorst assembled them (read about them and their project over on We Make Money Not Art – Link). Or see until now how executing it in the way Jane Siberry is doing (reminder courtesy of an entry on Boing Boing – Link) fits into the mix.

Wow. A big section of the puzzle was just completed. This is going to be very helpful.

* I’ll get back to how this works with kirkyans later.

Well, the “kirkyan” entry that was submitted to Wikipedia (not by me, btw) has been deleted. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, you might want to first read this post (reLink), and perhaps surf over to WorldChanging where the issue came up on an entry regarding the Metaverse Roadmap Conference (Link).

After you’ve done that, take a look at the Wikipedia page that was deleted (I saved it – Link). After you’ve read it, I should mention that the director of a simulation company, Stirling Reid Ltd, considered the idea entirely plausible and the concept worthy of its own entry. Unfortunately that comment was lost with the deletion. However, what’s nice is that if you test the links I still have, you’ll find that my saved Wikipedia page takes you to the original site and the people who sat in judgement over a concept that didn’t benefit from having a famous science fiction author give it a name … like “spime” (Link).

Here’s a list of the judges (Link) calling for deletion:

RHaworth (Link)
Porge (Link)
Blnguyen (Link)
JIP (Link)
Richardcavell (Link)
Dunstan (Link)
Andrew Lanahan (Link)
PJM (Link)
SorryGuy (Link)
Deville (Link)

If you do a little research on these individuals as I did last night, you’ll find some interesting things. Continue reading →