I’ve never bothered to listen to a podcast via iTunes, and I rarely listen to them at all; however, after yesterday’s news of the power shift at Ford I wanted to hear what William Jeanes, former editor of Car and Driver magazine, had to say about the U.S. automotive industry in Ad Age‘s interview (Link). What a great piece. I often complain both about the lack of long-term planning (especially when it comes to greening manufacturing) and the absence of courage in American business (as in this earlier comment on company marketers being stupidly hesitant to enter virtual worlds – reLink), so the short, blunt comments by Mr. Jeanes were a welcome start to the morning. If you’re a designer, there are comments to add to your arsenal when fighting against the stale sameness that marketers usually want out of fear of being too different or of not delivering what the all-powerful buyer expects; a blandness in design that seems to permeate the landscape and which was recently pointed out elsewhere (Link). Assuming, of course, that designers out there really care.

Here’s a fun update: I don’t know how many recall an old post of mine (actually a cross-post of sorts) about I-Wei Huang’s steam-powered toys like the one shown above (reLink). Well, there’s an update/interview over on Wired (Link) where they also have a gallery of steambots (Link).

What’s really neat is that the image above, a 3D CAD drawing, got me digging deeper. After you check out the steam-powered spider in action (Link – there’s a video on that page you’ll want to see), be sure to check out the Mechanical Spider website (Link) where there are some fabbed parts and a nice little video demonstrating the linkage being used in this project.

{Image Copyright © 2005 Klann R & D, LLC}

Henry Jenkins, the well-known Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT, has posted a nice (and rather long) synopsis of the marketing side of Second Life called “Experimenting with Brands in Second Life” (Link) which I’ve just read. Of course I once again find myself pointing out in comments that the issues extend beyond intangible media into the realm of tangible product. Not quite yet, but soon there will be compelling examples. How that might come to pass is, of course, often on my mind and behind much of what I write here.

Anyway, it’s a fun read. Felt to me like a trip down memory lane. I’ve not really given it much thought, but Second Life has grown quite a lot since I got involved just a year and a half ago. It’s actually a bit awe-inspiring to imagine millions of people across the globe simultaneously logged into a single, connected 3D virtual space where they can create 3D objects, write code and basically do many things one might do in front of a computer. I expect that will happen in the near future. Maybe it’ll be SL; maybe it’ll be another virtual world system. Either way, I’ll be there I guess. It’s just too interesting to not follow the evolution of this technology.

Here’s an interesting effort: going from PowerPoint 2D to Second Life 3D (Link). I know next to nothing about PowerPoint; I’m surprised you can even draw lines in it.

Seems strange to think of PowerPoint as a CAD tool, doesn’t it?

Occurs to me that you could go from PowerPoint to solid geometry and from there to manufacturing.

Strange is good.

{Image Copyright © 2006 Dave Braines}

Ilya Vedrashko posts over on his Brands in Games blog (Link) that he’s defended his thesis and his paper is available for review (Link). I’ve not yet read it, but I will find time for it. It should be an informative read. Currently a PDF but an upgrade patch is forthcoming.