Here are some interesting clips from a recent press release by Dassault Systemes (Link):

…says Sanjay Parthasarathy, corporate vice president, Developer and Platform Evangelism Group at Microsoft. “With an enhanced user experience in a common 3D environment, 3D real-time collaboration in context, easy integration with the …
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As part of DS’s commitment to 3D democratization and making PLM pervasive, the company has been working closely with Microsoft
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Few days back I caught a post on Core about the Michelin design competition. I hadn’t seen the 2006 results (Link) and so have just found some time and stopped by to get a quick glimpse. Wouldn’t you know it, the first one I look at is a skateboard chassis idea called “Nugget” by Christian Ebert. Figures.

There are some interesting concepts in the gallery, and like the person on Core who reminded me about the competition, I find them more interesting than the one’s I’ve been seeing out of the studios lately. Stuff like this definitely makes a case for design coming from the “crowds” (although the counter-argument that designers inside industry better understand limitations to production is hard to beat). I think there’s room for both.

{Image source: Michelin Challenge Design Gallery 2006 (not sure if Christian and others had to hand over their copyrights)}

For anyone still relatively unaware of some of the practical, behavioral issues surrounding virtual world activity, there’s an article on C|Net by regular vr writer Daniel Terdiman which you might wish to read. Titled “Who governs virtual worlds?” (Link), it provides a decent if broad overview of the problems being encountered. For reference, you might also read about a scam (reLink) that was pulled off in the popular “EVE Online” MMORPG; when I was reading the article, that came to my mind.

The punchline, of course, is towards the end: Continue reading →