Well, this is *somewhat* welcome news as I sit here crying in my samosa’s. Okay, not crying so much as pouting while scarfing. I was hoping to get into NYC to join Jerry P (of Acceleration Studies Foundation and the SL Future Salon blog) and Michael F (of Eyebeam) for a tour of the Eyebeam Openlab facility. That didn’t happen so on my way home I consoled myself by stopping at my favorite Indian restaurant, the Tandoor (map). Having just turned on the box and surfed over to the Second Life forum, I caught this very-related announcement by Robin Linden:

We’ve been discussing this issue further, and it seems like the best way to address the concern about texture copyrights is to take the same approach that the Patent and Trademark Office takes — provide a mechanism for proving first use.

Since we do have information about texture and sound creation and uploads, we’re going to implement a way for people to prove they originated the texture. This will work through the development of a User Interface element to display the original upload date and name of user who did the upload.

In the event of a dispute, this information will help to establish the original Second Life owner of the texture or sound.

“This issue” happens to be the ability of the GLIntercept code Michael is using with OGLE to capture textures from the videostream. I knew about it of course since I reported about it earlier in my attempts to capture data from Second Life. In the meantime, an SL resident posted something on the SL forum and on the O’Reilly “hacks” website (Link – now dead) about it. A few people got very concerned. Some links in the forum were edited out (right or wrong, I’m not taking a position on that). And now it appears as if Linden Lab will attempt to police it which is extremely interesting.

A few days back Jarod Godel asked why I hadn’t mentioned the ability to rip textures from SL on this blog (I’ve only been documenting my ripping the 3D data). My answer was simple: I didn’t want to be the bad guy. Because some – many – of the biggest and most profitable virtual world businesses are entirely based on selling texture “skins” and texture “clothing”. The ability for people to now rip/pirate, upload, and sell them for themselves is a big problem. At least now it’s out in the open. I guess we’ll see how things go.

{Update: For the sake of completeness, here’s a link to a “private” message conversation I had about this a few days ago – Link. Funny how “private” stuff finds its way online. No matter. Just another reason I can point to for why I’m not anonymous in Second Life.}

There’s an excellent article over on BusinessWeek online penned by Bruce Nussbaum. For those of you who’ve read some of my comments here and on his blog entries, you know I give him no quarter. As someone effectively speaking for the Industrial Design community, I’m very keen to ensure that my opinion as a member of that community is voiced… especially when I find fault with the messenger’s blog entry.

So when I tell you to go read his article (Link), you know my nose isn’t turning brown. The real question now is: will what those CEO’s learned in Davos make a dent? Just look at the trouble Kodak is having trying to transition to the New World Economic and Technological Order (see BW’s story on them – Link). Okay, to be fair, they got off to a late start, but that really is part of the problem, isn’t it? Times aren’t just a-changing, they’re changing a-fast.

So, assuming those CEO’s did “get it”, will what they learned have any kind of ripple effect and spread to other companies in the world? I don’t know how many CEO’s were in Davos, but I suspect it was less than a drop in the bucket. All you can do I suppose is wait and see. Me? I’m too busy splashing in my own little pool, dreaming up corporation-killing ideas and posting them in the same ocean.

The other day I commented over on the Mashable site that I’d read about a sub-$10k rp device … or 3D scanner. I couldn’t remember which. More I think about it, the more it seems I was recalling a scanner. Not that it matters now. The new opening price point is… get this … US $2,495. Don’t believe me? Go see for yourself (Link).

It’s going to be a wild and crazy year at this pace.

via Core77

Over the past week while watching for defacers (the upgrade seems to have helped … for now) I’ve been keeping a file of some interesting hits and curious visitors to this blog. Some things I logged because they were just plain funny (btw, 70.170.78.221, did you ever find that “skin+texture+penis” you spent a couple days hunting for?). So anyway, I happen to be looking through the log just now and caught this from Host: 66.150.244.152: googlealert.com Link.

Shades of a couple earlier posts (Link 1 and Link 2), eh? It’s not like a search for their company name on this blog points to only that one post. A simple search gets plenty of entries. And I’ve never seen Google Alert as a referral before now, and as I’ve mentioned previously, I monitor quite closely. So what gives? Busy “monitoring your professional interests online”? Gotta “Safeguard Your Reputation”? Look, why not just put my blog on your favorites and use comments?

The sad part is that I once sent them a confidential email with information that might have been of use to them. Next time I will undoubtedly think twice.

For all those who are nervous about Google’s tentacles, I may not be nervous, but I do understand.

For anyone who laughed (*cough* Sterling *cough*) and for those who understand (*cough* Marissa Ann Mayer *cough*), take a look at some of the parts that Vik Olliver recently put on display at LinuxConf Australasia 2006. He’s well beyond the toys (Link).

Read his RepRap blog entry (Link) and follow along as this project starts merging with virtual world content creation. PLM vendors take note.

{Image Copyright © Vik Olliver}