Monthly Archives: October 2005

Convergence Moves

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I recently posted a long, rambling entry on the SL Future Salon website based on the idea that for the most part software – and in my example I used UGS’s PLM software – was moving toward the kind of middle-ground accessibility that highend videocard technology had settled into. Now comes news via Desktop Engineering that UGS is bringing “enterprise-level PLM to mid-sized manufacturers”. From the DE posting:

UGS Corp. (Plano, TX) has announced a new strategy focused on delivering mid-sized manufacturers enterprise-level PLM technology in an easy-to-deploy portfolio. The new UGS Velocity Series strategy comprises a portfolio of design, analysis, and PLM technologies that do not require extensive IT support for deployment and offer a low total cost of ownership.

Well that was fast. Already time to expand the market I guess. And down they go.

Multiworld Biking Comes to Second Life

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The folks over at Nonpolynomial Labs have been doing some interesting things lately (see this one for an interesting example). Their latest creation is a hack to turn a stationary exercise bicycle into an input device for virtual world Second Life. From their website comes word of LifeCycle v1.0:

Second Life can be an incredibly immersive world, seeing that it is based solely on user created content. However, there is only so much immersion that can happen through a keyboard/mouse control scheme. There are many different ways to control vehicles in real life, such as steering wheels, pedals, handle bars, and sticks, just to name a few. Implementing these control structures in Second Life allows users to get closer to the virtual world by giving them mechanisms they are familiar with in the real world.

Biking is the first of these controls we have decided to implement, because it is so ubiquitous.

Pretty cool. For the complete system, check out the project page here.

And apparently they’re not the only one’s who have done this. A comment from qDot Bunnyhug (gotta love the names people pick) over on the SL forum suggests another resident has done something similar, and perhaps a bit better… for now. Maybe I’ll see some documentation of that thing in the near future.

MetroBits

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Platform level of Pecherskaya station.

Via idgrid I stumbled across a nice little site documenting the integration of “Metro Arts and Architecture“. The photos of some of the worlds different subway stations are excellent. We could use more integration of this sort. I wonder when the coffee table book will come out.

{Image Copyright © M. Rohde}

Design Victim of Reliability

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There’s an interesting piece called “Reliability vs Validity” by Roger L. Martin over on BusinessWeek. For industrial designers out there (especially those familiar with the belly of the corporate beast) this is an interesting articulation of what many of us have seen to be the case. I’m sure many designers know what it feels like to sit in team meetings where the project manager downplays design issues and then devotes the lion’s share of the meeting to “reliability” concerns. Considering that most of the project managers I’ve dealt with are people who worked their way up through “reliability” fields, this is no surprise to me. Maybe what the CEO/CVO needs to be looking at is why there aren’t more “validity” people entering the upper-management pipeline. If all you have are “reliability” people calling the shots, there’s a good chance you’re going to get an Aztec.

By the way, this piece reminded me of Nussbaum’s blog entry “Operationalizing Innovation–THE hot topic“. When the organization chart is stacked with “reliability” people (especially short-term thinkers – see my comment over on that page), there’s probably very little chance it’ll be innovative.

Bite-Size Commerce

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Just finished reading a couple pieces over on Trendwatching.com: the newsletter about “Minipreneurs” and an older piece called “Customer-Made“. I’d seen the site before and read this article then as well, but thought I’d give the site another look. For some of us there isn’t much new, but for others it might be fresh or perhaps pitch the idea such that it finally sinks in assuming you didn’t grok it earlier. So I figure it’s worth posting something.

I have to say one thing though: the blue highlighting of words which I guess they make up – apparently so they can later claim the made them up – is really irritating. I expect an in-page Flash ad to pop up with Trendwatching cheerleaders sporting smiles that artificially sparkle like on teevee commercials. That site definitely feels superficial to me, and I don’t see any of these developments as superficial.