Our Twenty Year Mood Swing

Interesting entry over on O’Reilly Radar concerning the Supernova 2005 presentation given by Linda Stone. If you’re in the Industrial Design field or familiar with Ms Stone’s background at Microsoft’s Virtual Worlds/Social Computing Group, this may be of interest to you.

The only thing I wonder is if the cycle she describes moves like a wave – with “early adopters” at the leading edge, aso. This might explain what I perceived as a subtle but significant ripple in the social fabric caused by the cinematic release of “Fight Club” in 1999. Seems to me that the movie – and the book on which it was based – might have qualified as early indicators. Guess I have some reading and research to do especially since I see a potential tie-in to some thoughts I’ve had in another area.

Ministries of VideoChina

BBC News online has an informative article on the amazing growth of online gaming in China. Interesting to note the government’s involvement: three separate ministries oversee the videogame industry. Of course there was no mention of virtual worlds. So maybe they could see fit to add another “ministry” – if just to help this poor virtual world resident posting on one official forum:

I Always Play Slingo, I Seen 10k Pot In Xxlodge Club, And Last Night Always From 3k-10k Changing The Pot, I Think The Players Are Mad, But To A Pity , I Was So Bad Luck Played All Night Didn’t Win Any , When I Near Ly Win I Met Devils,
So I Think, We Need Make A Script To Keep Us From Devils

I’ll update this when a “Soul-Saving Script” turns up in the virtual marketplace. Any day now…

Will The Real Virtual Eve Please Stand Up

Virtual Eve and someone else... I think

For the past few days I’ve been noticing a continuing stream of visitors coming from search engines throughout the world – though mostly Europe. They all have one thing in common: they keep landing on this post in my blog because they’re entering “virtual+eve” in a search engine query. At first I thought maybe there was some researcher(s) out there using the net to gather information. A few moments ago I noticed even more visitors so I figured something else was up. And here it is from the second most popular search engine return:

What is Virtual EVE? Is it a video game? “Not exactly,” says Mr. Sexton. “It doesn’t fit within the tradition goal-oriented framework of what we define as a ‘video game’. There isn’t a specific goal you need to accomplish; it’s something you experience. So in that respect, it’s not a game, but it’s not just another static porn movie either. It’s more of a real-time sex simulator. It features completely real-time 3D graphics which allows for a more interactive, immersive experience. You choose the sexual position, you navigate the environment with a free-roaming camera, and you direct the on-screen action.”

That’s from a press release dated 20 June 2005, so it looks as if someone has recently figured out there’s money to be made from selling… who would have thought… s e x. But I have to wonder if the people behind this “game” even know about sims like Second Life or There (the latter of which I’ve heard is nothing but Socializing). And heck, for half that one-time price people could get a world full of Eves… and Liliths and whatever else strikes their fancy (be sure to say Csven Concord recommended you should you register for Second Life. Thanks.). But if this simulation strikes your fancy, google away.

(Above image is Copyright © 2005 Eve Interactive. And btw, sorry for the excess pixelation. Who knew hiding naughty bits could be so much fun?)

Trimersion For 3001 AD

wrl/x3d of Trimersion googles

Via Blue’s News and Game infowire comes news of a low cost VR headset from Kopin Corporation that will be incorporated into gaming developer 3001 AD‘s Trimersion virtual reality system. The post notes that this will be the first time VR-style gaming will be available for XBox, PlayStation and PC gamers. That claim sounds a little overstated (perhaps they mean they support all three platforms), but still interesting news. From the Game infowire entry:

Trimersion brings full immersion and 360-degree head tracking to home gaming, and is the only system to deliver high-quality, cross-platform virtual reality for this market. The Kopin BDM-230K, a complete binocular video subsystem, delivers crisp, full-color, QVGA-quality (320 x 240 resolution) video with a virtual image equivalent to a 35-inch display viewed from a seven-foot distance.

Core Nano-leverage

Posted an entry over on the Core77 Software & Technology blog (man is it lonely over there for a group effort). There’s something about that Victorian-style nanotechnology that brings rapid-prototyping to mind. I have to hold onto that thought.

(btw, there is a joke in the last line of that post.)