There’s a bit of carryover from my previous post regarding avatars (reLink); how they’ll be increasingly adopted by users and how they may become increasingly important information containers… with or without our consent.

The Simulation Weblog posted a related entry on avatars (Link) and the topic in comments has turned to avatars merging with passports (you can get a look at the relatively boring, RFID-enabled U.S. passport over on the Spychips RFID blog – Link).
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In hopes of trying to pair related items which come from at least somewhat different arenas, I wanted to call attention to a couple of toy-related efforts that lie on what I’d call the outskirts of design. The first is a relatively old project called “Virsual” (Link) which is a digital rocking horse for children. This interactive toy works along the same lines as exer-cyclists sweating in place while viewing a dynamic landscape on a screen in front of them, but is much, much more cool. From the Virsual website: Continue reading →

Last night I read on The Meshverse Journal (Link) that Trevor Smith reported getting some Open Croquet avatars into Ogoglio (Link). Rozier asks whether avatars (and I assume he means portable avatars) should be linked into OpenID. I kinda figure this is inevitable in the same way I figure Human Resource information will eventually be tagged to avatars used inside corporate simulations; and those avatars will be passed among companies (e.g. employer to insurance company to…). At some point I suspect public and corporate avatars will merge, meaning that our avatars would become important and sensitive information containers. You know what that means: get ready to have your avatar hacked.
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I’d started a longish entry yesterday tying together a post I’d read that morning over on The Meshverse blog (Link) with an article I’d read on The New York Times website (Link). I was tying them together by integrating a series of posts/comments I’d made earlier regarding what I view to be the future of Product Design (example: reLink) along with a “stellayan” concept example I’d provided some time ago (reLink). Because I don’t feel like spending too much time proofing and editing that post to make it easily digestable, I’ll just quote that example and move on.

For example, imagine that there was one virtual Blackberry that was connected to all the physical versions so that as people were using their devices, their interaction with the user interface was tracked: how many times a button was used, how much pressure was applied to the buttons, aso (this should sound similar but inverted to the kirkyan weapon example I posted recently – reLink). By mapping user interaction from numerous sources, a more efficient interface might be developed which could then be used to automatically modify the CAD model. That updated geometry serves as the 3D template for a new version; an evolving product that is mass-produced.

If you’ve been reading my posts over the last few months the pieces will likely fall into place. If you haven’t…

Hosted on: VideoSift originating from Google Video

Excellent. And a nice companion to my previous entry: “Virtual Learning Tools and Toys” (reLink).

Via Blue’s News