Last night I read on The Meshverse Journal (Link) that Trevor Smith reported getting some Open Croquet avatars into Ogoglio (Link). Rozier asks whether avatars (and I assume he means portable avatars) should be linked into OpenID. I kinda figure this is inevitable in the same way I figure Human Resource information will eventually be tagged to avatars used inside corporate simulations; and those avatars will be passed among companies (e.g. employer to insurance company to…). At some point I suspect public and corporate avatars will merge, meaning that our avatars would become important and sensitive information containers. You know what that means: get ready to have your avatar hacked.
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I’d started a longish entry yesterday tying together a post I’d read that morning over on The Meshverse blog (Link) with an article I’d read on The New York Times website (Link). I was tying them together by integrating a series of posts/comments I’d made earlier regarding what I view to be the future of Product Design (example: reLink) along with a “stellayan” concept example I’d provided some time ago (reLink). Because I don’t feel like spending too much time proofing and editing that post to make it easily digestable, I’ll just quote that example and move on.

For example, imagine that there was one virtual Blackberry that was connected to all the physical versions so that as people were using their devices, their interaction with the user interface was tracked: how many times a button was used, how much pressure was applied to the buttons, aso (this should sound similar but inverted to the kirkyan weapon example I posted recently – reLink). By mapping user interaction from numerous sources, a more efficient interface might be developed which could then be used to automatically modify the CAD model. That updated geometry serves as the 3D template for a new version; an evolving product that is mass-produced.

If you’ve been reading my posts over the last few months the pieces will likely fall into place. If you haven’t…

Hosted on: VideoSift originating from Google Video

Excellent. And a nice companion to my previous entry: “Virtual Learning Tools and Toys” (reLink).

Via Blue’s News

I usually have a healthy skepticism for anything that’s genetically modified, but this is something I’ve previously mentioned (reLink) which I rather like: plastic produced by bacteria. In this case, however, they’re genetically-altered, so I’m a little torn.

According to a story on the MIT Technology Review site (Link), the uses are primarily for medical purposes . I’d rather we were using this material in things like plastic engine components or something else a bit further removed. From the article: Continue reading →

It’d been awhile since I traded text with Kimberly Rufer-Bach (aka Kim Anubis) of the Second Life developer group “The Magicians” (Link). After she stopped by here last week to inform me of the NASA CoLab project in Second Life (reLink), I made a point to see what she and her team had been up to. I’ve previously mentioned projects by the Electric Sheep Company (reLink), Millions of Us (reLink), and Anshe Chung (reLink) so I thought this would be an opportunity to see what else has been developing. Besides, when I was mostly a lone voice debating trademark issues on the old Second Life forum, Kim was one of the very few who jumped in to support my position; not an especially popular move but one that I appreciated.
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