Although there are significantly fewer entries here covering rapid-prototyping and nano-fabrication, that’s no indication I haven’t been watching and reading. The guys over on RepRap have been plugging along. There is occasional news of some new 3D printer coming onto the market… sometimes with a neat feature or greater capacity. We’ve got news of printing human organs. But then every so often the bio-fab segment pops up with something I believe is pretty important. Like now.

Via WorldChanging comes word on their website of an interesting development: a demonstration by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco showing how light can be used to trigger and control bacterial functions. This is significant in that we appear to now have the ability to create biological switches. For example, by directing laser light at a particular bacteria, we could cause it to switch outputs; it could be munching along on toxic styrene waste and leaving Product A in its place, and with a simple trigger activation it could produce Product B. Now assume that Product A is nothing but some other bacteria’s food (and in turn it produces a similarly benign output which is the food for another and so forth and so on, thus keeping a system in equilibrium). Product B however might be something else entirely, including the input to a whole chain of processes resulting in the creation of raw materials suitable for manufacturing.

Biomimicry is already suggesting solutions to nano-scale fabrication (see my earlier post). But why bother with mimicry? I know I tend to segregate biological science from traditional engineering, but there’s absolutely no reason to do so. Further, I suspect I’m not alone in this. Just look at the way we generally regard the integration of biological and metallic components. From Giger’s biomechanical horrors to Tetsuo: The Iron Man, we seem to be predisposed to separating the two (something to do with millenia of using foreign objects to kill each other, perhaps). Time to get past that and realize that our future may not be gleaming cities of steel and glass, but glistening organics.

Maybe the Master Plan is to eventually create a world full of noodly appendages and researchers at UCSF are just serving the Master.

Howard be thy name. Ramen.

{Wired News is carrying an article on it now. Worth reading. Link.}

Last night while surfing the Second Life forums I noticed a familiar-sounding thread title: “Grid Under Attack“. Seems as if the availability of free account sign-ups has brought its share of script kiddies and griefers (or maybe just made it easier for repeat offenders to get new accounts). And like the last one, this was an attack of the self-replicating (and poorly-textured) spheres; a rather simplistic but dynamic bit of programming which probably makes it intriguing for noobs. For anyone who’s wondering what a simple computer virus looks like in a virtual world, the above image (snapped in-world by SL resident Alyssa Bijoux) is a pretty good example.

Unlike the last grid attack however, this one was contained in an interesting fashion: Linden Lab created a “firebreak“. In other words, to prevent the self-replicating objects from bouncing their way across borders into uninfected regions (each computer server/sim borders on another server), they simply cut off access (or as described over on Clickable Culture, they erected a “virtual firewall” – I like that). You can see the fireline on the image of the virtual world map (courtesy SL resident Broken Templar) here –

Now this is all well and good, but the truth of the matter is that this attack was about as unsophisticated as they come. I like the solution, but I have little doubt griefers will get more creative; there’s nothing stopping someone from creating a number of strategically-placed “timebombs”. What was really needed was more drastic action, and it appears to have finally come. From an announcement today by Ginsu Linden over on the Second Life forum:

In the last month there have been several attacks in which users of Second Life have intentionally released objects or taken actions intended to disrupt activity in the Second Life grid. These attacks result in substantial real-world economic harm, and Linden Lab intends to protect its interests using all legal means.

Although most people using Second Life are enjoying the fun and creativity that the platform provides, a few malicious individuals are intentionally acting to impair some or all of the Second Life grid. Please note that personal and account information of these individuals will be disclosed to appropriate law enforcement agencies for further investigation, including U.S. state and federal authorities and agencies in applicable international jurisdictions.

Now things are getting interesting. Let’s see how this pans out. This may be just the sort of protective action that convinces real world companies to poke their toes in the virtual water.

Interesting post over on Clickable Culture concerning the move of videogame EVE Online to offer ad space in it’s official magazine in exchange for virtual currency. As mentioned in the post, this isn’t entirely new. Second Life’s developer has been offering virtual currency for a number of resident services (or service attempts); Linden Lab typically states how much they’re willing to pay and then takes proposals/submissions. There’s been a fair amount of discussion on this kind of “work”, for obvious reasons. What’s most interesting to me however is this bit from the post:

A CCP employee noted on the EVE blog that “E-ON is the first magazine I’ve heard people raving about the adverts.”

Kind of goes with my earlier post on Massive’s possible inclusion of player-created ads within “The Matrix Online“. I’ve been involved in a good conversation over on the SL forums about in-world (virtual) advertising so this all dovetails nicely. Now I’m curious to see if virtual ad agencies come into their own.

Curious article over on AdAge (registration req’d) about some striptease video for the iPod which makes use of the Burger King icon (that’d be “The King”). Now while the video may be officially “unauthorized”, it sure sounds like the people at BK got just what they wanted. From the article:

Burger King’s iPod sponsorship on Heavy.com has spawned a wildly popular online parody of Miramax’s once infamous “The Crying Game.� A viral video of a striptease ends in a twist that leaves viewers staring in disbelief at Burger King’s The King mask.

The video was submitted by a Heavy.com user after the site handed out King masks to a handful of its fans. WPP Group interactive agency VML, which is the interactive agency of record for Burger King, had bought media for the video iPod campaign. It gave Heavy.com the masks because “they are our media partner,� said Nick Centofante, VML media director. A Burger King spokeswoman said its brand is part of the popular culture, and that the chain had no control over the video’s content.

More interesting still is this from Heavy’s co-CEO, Simon Assaad:

When users create content with their cultural icons, it’s not always in line with the strategy of the advertiser, but it’s really important because sometimes the consumers are more in touch with how to propagate a brand than the marketer is.

Now the real reason I’m posting this is because of my earlier post on Massive considering player-generated ads inside “The Matrix Online” videogame in which I said, “I wonder if Massive and their clients are thinking they might learn a thing or two from the players themselves.” Given this pathetic effort, maybe I’m expecting too much. I guess this is what happens to companies when desperation sets in; something we may see more frequently as the mediascape continues to evolve. Oh joy.

The other night I caught an episode of “60 Minutes” that had a segment on internet gambling (net version here). Well, having seen my share of gambling blogspam, I have no doubts that the numbers used are legit; it’s a huge… HUGE… business. Well, via a Wonderland post comes word of a mod for Quake 3 called Quake4Cash. From the homepage:

Welcome to Quake 4 Cashâ„¢ where you can prove your skills and earn some money. We’ve designed a mod for id Software’s venerable and recently GPL’d Quake III Arena to bring you the ultimate competitve environment.

Are you good with the railgun? 70%+ headshot ratio? You’ve come to the right place then!

Register, download the mod, login to our servers and put your money where your BFG is.

Although I’m unaware of any other games that do this, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there are many already out there; though probably most are still 2D. In contrast, Quake 3 is both a 3D game and a wildly popular one at that. It’s tailor-made for this kind of immersive, competitive gaming… and the betting it could spawn.

Something like this reminds me of boxing. I could see Spectator micro-betting (everything nowadays is “micro”) becoming really popular. Don’t just bet and stay in the bleachers… get into the game. Follow your horse up close. Watch as your pick vanquishes the opposition (or turns into a pile of gibs). All up close and personal in a way you don’t even get with real world betting; watching a two-dimension television screen isn’t as immersive as being on a simulated 3D racetrack or in a virtual ring if the resolution is decent.

Assuming they can keep the cheats out and this does take off, I’ll venture we also see some content creators getting into the game doing custom skins and weapons; perhaps spawning a niche industry in the process. It’ll be a whole new kind of circuit.

Going to have to keep an eye on this. Always fun to see how money flows through the system.