Raph Koster has posted something of interest, a post titled “What the Web and games have to teach each other” (Link). Interesting to me especially given my post yesterday (reLink) which makes mention of both in their relation to Product Lifecycle Management software (PLM).

For his part, Koster starts to look at the shared elements between videogames and internet-related applications. This is where I wish I had a better handle on the current state of PLM software. As I commented over on his entry and hinted at in my earlier post, I believe PLMware is wrapped up with both. A deeper understanding would be helpful. I could then take his list and see how PLM relates. Unfortunately, that will have to wait until later. In the meantime, we can at least read comments discussing two of the three.

A little late, but via a post over on the MIT Technology Review website (Link), I found this bit of interface design. Neat demo. Makes me wonder what kinds of 3D interactivity we’ll be seeing in the coming days.

For those of you who have noticed, over the past few weeks I’ve been refocusing this blog. While advertising inside games was once new and interesting, it is – to me – now mostly old hat. I have no interest in blogging the latest moves of that industry; the technology is in place and the word is out. Let others worry about which brand signs what deal with which intermediary to stream ad content into which games on what platforms. There might be something on occasion that I find of special interest, but generally that’s not what this blog is really about. Recognition of this sort is only the first hurdle afaic. There are other areas to watch.

What you should have noticed was an increased number of posts dealing with those other elements that are part of the overall equation – especially fabbing technologies. Of course news in that field is less dynamic, so overall anyone who bothers to read this blog should expect a decrease in the number of posts … at least until the technology adoption rate really kicks into gear.
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Picking up from where we left off (reLink), the Interactive Architecture blog has another entry, “Topotransegrity – Non-Linear Responsive Environments – Robert Neumayr” (Link), on morphing architectural structures. Very cool stuff.

When I look at the images, I can’t help but think that my most recent post discussing printed biological organs is related. Walking on a morphing structure must feel like walking on the heaving chest of a titan; a living, breathing thing.

Now imagine a structure not of pneumatically-controlled trusses, but of some biological mass, or maybe some material derived from the work being done at UT Dallas (reLink). Wicked.

You know, where else could you test something like this but in a virtual world where users are sufficiently immersed to make a proper judgement as to whether average people could stomach the ride… before they got on.

{Image source: 5subzero.org}

I don’t often discuss the printing or fabbing of biological parts, though I probably should. A quick search shows that it was December when I last posted something on the subject (reLink). So to make up for that lack of coverage, here’s a new article over on New Scientist (Link) discussing the topic and an excerpt from it:

It relies on droplets of “bioink”, clumps of cells a few hundred micrometres in diameter, which Forgacs has found behave just like a liquid.

This means that droplets placed next to one another will flow together and fuse, forming layers, rings or other shapes, depending on how they were deposited. To print 3D structures, Forgacs and his colleagues alternate layers of supporting gel, dubbed “biopaper”, with the bioink droplets. To build tubes that could serve as blood vessels, for instance, they lay down successive rings containing muscle and endothelial cells, which line our arteries and veins. “We can print any desired structure, in principle,” Forgacs told the meeting.

Sounds like some regular RP processes to me.

Quote of the month: “Bioprinting is the way to go”. I’d say “Go West, young man” is officially outdated.