I had a feeling it would be one of the major appliance manufacturers that would take consumer-level products to this stage. They have big, boxy shapes which are great for online use, and they’re the next step down when going from architecture to interiors on the “environmental models” list. So it’s not a surprise to read over on 3pointD (Link) that Whirlpool – by way of a press release (Link to Forbes; Whirlpool news section isn’t available atm) – has announced that they’ve started stocking models to Google’s SketchUp 3D Warehouse.

We’ve now entered the equivalent of Henry Ford’s garage.

{Image composited from Whirlpool source material}

Okay, this is getting ridiculous. A number of people including myself have for weeks and now months been pointing out the errors in mainstream media reports concerning Second Life. I mean, I like SL and think it has a lot of extraordinarily interesting things going for it, but c’mon already. If it’s worth writing an article then it’s worth getting the facts straight. Yet the MSM screw-ups not only continue, they continue to get worse. What’s triggering this post is actually something else I read that leads me to the conclusion that most people writing for online MSM are basically clueless.

Yesterday I caught an entry on the WorldCAD Access blog titled “Fool, Indeed” (Link). What that entry is pointing out is a shockingly uninformed piece by Tom Taulli writing for The Motley Fool. I couldn’t have made this up and kept a straight face. Here’s the unbelievable excerpt from this apparently well-regarded analyst’s assessment of Autodesk’s technology: Continue reading →

I saw some images from a show titled “Closer: Commonwealth vs. Kenzo Minami” a week or so ago on a few different art & design websites and was sufficiently underwhelmed that I didn’t investigate further. A shame since I’ve had an interest in modularity since design school (we spent a whole semester doing nothing but working with modules) and in tiles since realizing some years ago that the ones used in videogames could be fabbed. In any event, while surfing through the Archinect site I found a gallery of images (Link) from the show that are much nicer than what I’d seen elsewhere.
Continue reading →

I caught this last night, “New machines make slots a multiplayer game” (Link), and while sleeping on it hasn’t yielded any additional insight, there’s something intriguing about the idea of mashing up casino slot gambling with – of all things – an MMORPG. I can’t find the original article on Reuters, so here are a few excerpts from the C\Net site:

Slot machine makers, keen to find a new selling point for a traditional game, are trying to increase the social aspect of slots by linking up machines so players can share payouts and the thrill of winning.
…
The trend began last year with the latest edition of the popular Wheel of Fortune slot game from International Game Technology, which allows up to nine players to sit around a large spinning wheel and share in the winnings.
… Continue reading →

There’s an interesting article on Wired called “Second Life Will Save Copyright” (Link). I’ve been working on a rather long post for a while and this piece touches on some thoughts I’ve been having in regards to Second Life (and virtual worlds in general), intellectual property, and community enforcement. Among other things. Definitely worth taking a few moments to read.

You might also want to stop by Jamais Cascio’s “Open the Future” blog (Link) to follow some of his outsider thoughts on the subject (Link 1, Link 2).

Lastly, for reference, you can check out a series of links on the Second Life event that prompted all this discussion in an entry I posted earlier (reLink).