On November 30 and December 1 the conference “MetaMeets 2012. The Art of Creation : Virtuality meets Reality†takes place (‘s-Hertogenbosch,The Netherlands). MetaMeets is a seminar/meeting about virtual worlds, augmented reality and 3D internet, this year’s topic will be The Art of Creation : Virtuality meets Reality. Virtual worlds and… Continue reading
In an open ended, user-generated virtual environment, you get that exciting feeling that you can build your own world. You just start creating objects and scripting them, following the tutorials and getting help from community members. It’s a kind of ‘makers ethos’ which increasingly permeates the ‘real world’. Of course,… Continue reading
“As technology evolves to make the office more obsolete, it’s going to result in massive changes–and massive opportunities.” But the process is sometimes painstakingly slow, as it conflicts with traditions, the desire for ‘real face time’ and office politics. via Diigo http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680621/unleashing-workers-is-going-to-lead-to-drastic-changes-in-how-we-work
What does it mean to be an avatar? Or should we say to ‘have’ an avatar? And what is an avatar: the thumbnail on a Twitter of Facebook account? The 3D characters in World of Warcraft or in Second Life? The textual description of a character in a text-only roleplaying… Continue reading
I’ve just finished reading The Rapture of the Nerds, written by Charlie Stross and Cory Doctorow. It’s an often almost dream-like book about life in the era of the technological singularity. Wikipedia explains: The technological singularity is the hypothetical future emergence of greater-than-human superintelligence through technological means.Since the capabilities of… Continue reading
There is a fascinating discussion going on at The WELL, where Howard Rheingold is being interviewed by community members about this book Net Smart. The discussion is wide-ranging. Howard provides plenty of links to useful resources about crap detection, journalism, education, and all things helping people to thrive online. The… Continue reading
Monday afternoon: while I’m in a chat session on one screen, I watch my finance twitter list on the other screen. The tweets about Europe are rather apocalyptic, like this one by the investment banker Dan Alpert: Developed econs sinking on oceans of easy money. Dragged down by debt overhang,… Continue reading
I just finished reading William Gibson’s Distrust that Particular Flavor. Gibson is the man who gave us the notion of ‘cyberspace’ in his 1982 story “Burning Chrome” and popularized by his 1984 novel Neuromancer. Here is his formulation of “cyberspace” in Neuromancer: Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate… Continue reading
Professor Henry Jenkins published the second part of his interview with his colleague Beth Coleman about avatars and the x-reality (the thing we live in when we constantly switch back and forth from digital space to what we used to call the ‘real world’). I also read Coleman’s book Hello… Continue reading
These last few days were very rich in eye-opening news events and posts – enabling us to get a better view on fundamental changes in media and technology. An overview: [<a href=”http://storify.com/mixed_realities/where-is-your-avatar-anyway” target=”_blank”>View the story “Where is your avatar, anyway? ” on Storify</a>]