This isn’t exactly something I’ve been wanting to discuss but it’s come up on Jamais Cascio’s blog entry, “(Virtual) Weapon Smuggling” (Link): kirkyan weapons.

For those of you who don’t understand what that is, imagine you designed a weapon inside a 3D virtual world like Second Life. Imagine that data was sufficiently accurate that a real device could be fabricated using rapid-manufacturing technology (e.g. a metal laser-melting system). Let’s say that the fabbed device isn’t functioning as best it could, so the virtual version which is connected to the real version via a ubiquitous computing network – using sensors embedded in the fabbed version to record relevant information – redesigns itself using automated software routines. The owner puts the weapon in a recycle unit where any number of processes break the weapon down into its core materials, and then those materials are used in the re-fabrication of a superior, custom replacement weapon based on the new virtual version of that weapon.
Continue reading →

This one I had to find. After noticing a nice screenshot from Atari’s Test Drive: Unlimited game, I read a couple of paragraphs of the accompanying Next Gen story (Link). I didn’t get further than this line:

Revenues will be supported by downloadable content via Xbox Live.

I’d wondered off and on what was going on with XBox Live’s Marketplace. If you recall, when Microsoft announced it I was more than a little enthusiastic (reLink); and for good reason I thought (reLink). However, I’m not a console person so I had to rely on what I found online to get a sense of how it was going. And most of what I was hearing was that the Marketplace was being used by developers – not by independents freelancers. That wasn’t what I was hoping to hear. It just meant that developers were off hiring people to make add-on content and then taking a major chunk of the profit. I’d prefer the money go straight to the creator (minus MS’s cut, of course).
Continue reading →

I’ve never bothered to listen to a podcast via iTunes, and I rarely listen to them at all; however, after yesterday’s news of the power shift at Ford I wanted to hear what William Jeanes, former editor of Car and Driver magazine, had to say about the U.S. automotive industry in Ad Age‘s interview (Link). What a great piece. I often complain both about the lack of long-term planning (especially when it comes to greening manufacturing) and the absence of courage in American business (as in this earlier comment on company marketers being stupidly hesitant to enter virtual worlds – reLink), so the short, blunt comments by Mr. Jeanes were a welcome start to the morning. If you’re a designer, there are comments to add to your arsenal when fighting against the stale sameness that marketers usually want out of fear of being too different or of not delivering what the all-powerful buyer expects; a blandness in design that seems to permeate the landscape and which was recently pointed out elsewhere (Link). Assuming, of course, that designers out there really care.

Here’s a fun update: I don’t know how many recall an old post of mine (actually a cross-post of sorts) about I-Wei Huang’s steam-powered toys like the one shown above (reLink). Well, there’s an update/interview over on Wired (Link) where they also have a gallery of steambots (Link).

What’s really neat is that the image above, a 3D CAD drawing, got me digging deeper. After you check out the steam-powered spider in action (Link – there’s a video on that page you’ll want to see), be sure to check out the Mechanical Spider website (Link) where there are some fabbed parts and a nice little video demonstrating the linkage being used in this project.

{Image Copyright © 2005 Klann R & D, LLC}

Henry Jenkins, the well-known Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT, has posted a nice (and rather long) synopsis of the marketing side of Second Life called “Experimenting with Brands in Second Life” (Link) which I’ve just read. Of course I once again find myself pointing out in comments that the issues extend beyond intangible media into the realm of tangible product. Not quite yet, but soon there will be compelling examples. How that might come to pass is, of course, often on my mind and behind much of what I write here.

Anyway, it’s a fun read. Felt to me like a trip down memory lane. I’ve not really given it much thought, but Second Life has grown quite a lot since I got involved just a year and a half ago. It’s actually a bit awe-inspiring to imagine millions of people across the globe simultaneously logged into a single, connected 3D virtual space where they can create 3D objects, write code and basically do many things one might do in front of a computer. I expect that will happen in the near future. Maybe it’ll be SL; maybe it’ll be another virtual world system. Either way, I’ll be there I guess. It’s just too interesting to not follow the evolution of this technology.