A couple of days ago while reading over that Dassault press release I mentioned earlier (reLink) I researched a few MSM articles and blog entries about the new Vista OS on which that press release so heavily depended. One of the more interesting things associated with it was the development of a system for feeding 3D over RSS. The first thing that came to my mind was Gibson’s vision of cyberspace – not avatars roaming virtual worlds but people using new interfaces for navigating data streams (I’ve previously mentioned this distintion between Gibson’s vision and the current avatar-inhabited virtual space most often associated with Stephenson’s “Snowcrash”… somewhere). What I neglected to do was visit the MS website to learn more. And so courtesy of 3pointD, I surfed over to see an image of what I was imagining. Right there on the MS website. Just what I was thinking. You might want to check it out yourself (Link).

They look just like little Borg cubes, don’t they?

Okay, so while I was on Ad Age the other night, I caught a piece on Halo 3 (Link). It’s interesting. Has some numbers. A little commentary. But this is what got me wondering:

The “Halo 3” spot, half of which is live-action, will air between 9 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. EST and will be available on Halo3.com, Xbox Live Marketplace, Microsoft Soapbox and YouTube.

Take a look at that commercial and tell me if there’s anything live-action in it. I could be mistaken, but that all looks like CG to me (using motion-capture, of course). And before you discount what I’m suggesting, take a look at these amazing images from the CGTalk forums – Link. Still sure that the Halo 3 commercial isn’t all CG?

By the way, does this Halo 3 commercial remind anyone else of the cinematic intro to Quake 3 (Link)? First thing that came to my mind. Guess the hero diving into a horde of enemies is standard enough fair. Even so…

One of the more popular posts here is “Smiley Face Savvy” (reLink) in which the hiring of Chrysler’s director of marketing communications, Julie Roehm, by everyone’s favorite retailer, Wal*Mart, got me to imagine and lay out a plausible future for online marketing and sales using virtual worlds in combination with rapid-manufacturing processes. It’s not that I expected Wal*Mart to be doing anything like what I documented in one or five or even ten years, but having been at a large consumer products manufacturer in the late 90’s, when Target was initiating their new, more upscale strategy, I sensed that the day would come when Wal*Mart would also need to go beyond their distribution efficiencies and Chinese-sourced, low-cost goods. That they, too, would someday have to make dramatic changes of the kind being implemented by Target (we should all remember how big a deal it was for Target to go from a regular retailer no different than K-Mart or Wal*Mart to where they are today).
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I remember downloading the original “Natural Selection” HL total conversion and never even installing it, but the version for HL2 is looking extraordinarily compelling. Very, very cool.

via Wonderland

Here are some interesting clips from a recent press release by Dassault Systemes (Link):

…says Sanjay Parthasarathy, corporate vice president, Developer and Platform Evangelism Group at Microsoft. “With an enhanced user experience in a common 3D environment, 3D real-time collaboration in context, easy integration with the …
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As part of DS’s commitment to 3D democratization and making PLM pervasive, the company has been working closely with Microsoft
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