Talking about virtual worlds outside virtual worlds: Quora

One of the impressive things about virtual worlds are the communities which create not only those worlds, but also a social media ecosystem around the actual virtual environments. This is a first post in a series about those “other places” where we meet. Instead of starting out with the usual… Continue reading

Second Life seems to be focused on entertainment (Gasp!)

Shocking! Maybe Second Life is a game after all! For years now residents of Second Life explain over and over again that they are not ‘players’ but ‘residents’, that one does not ‘play Second Life’ and that it is not a game even though one can play games in that… Continue reading

Kinect and virtual reality hacks, taken to an extreme (for now)

Okay, still trying to figure out how to use this in a newsroom context, but KinectHacks says this is The Most Extreme Kinect Hack they’ve seen so far, so here it comes (waiting for Draxtor Despres to incorporate some Kinect magic in one of his news machinimas): Adding another one… Continue reading

Kansas to Cairo: vanishing cultural differences, or rather avoiding stereotypes?

If there is one thing which seems to be perfectly suited for collaboration and research in a world such as Second Life, it seems to be architecture. If such a project also involves geographically dispersed teams, education, and different cultures, it really becomes a fascinating challenge. Students from Cairo and… Continue reading

The future is here! And it’s even not that unevenly distributed!

In the previous post I briefly mentioned the Kinect as possibly being a part of the further evolution of virtual worlds. I was very interested finding a presentation by former Linden Lab employee Kyle Machulis about the OpenKinect community. Which is kind of neat, because that community demonstrates that one… Continue reading

Existential questions about virtual worlds

It has been interesting to be away from virtual worlds stuff for a few weeks. I had some catching up to do, but at first sight it seems not much has changed. There is another famous Linden Lab employee leaving the company, Jack Linden. Other virtual worlds are presenting themselves… Continue reading

Metanomics master class in game development

Wow. Tomorrow’s Metanomics show will be extremely interesting: During this Masterclass on Game Development, guest host Dusan Writer will take us behind the scenes with a panel of guests and look at how games are developed. What IS a game, exactly? How do you develop the rules, stages and rewards… Continue reading

Mary Meeker sees ‘unusually high level of global innovation’

Mary Meeker (Morgan Stanley) talks in her recent state of the internet about disruptive innovation: new or incumbent players disrupting whole industries by offering cheap or free products and services (Google, Amazon… ) or by creating new markets (Apple, Facebook, Zynga… ). One of the remarkable aspects of the recent… Continue reading

Finally, traveling in SL via the web

In the meantime I managed to try out Second Life via the Gaikai’s cloud-rendered web access, following a tip on the New World Notes. Even though it’s still an experiment, it was a very smooth experience with pretty fast teleporting. I tried out surfing and it worked just fine. In… Continue reading

Affordable AR glasses plus virtual worlds on any device gives us…

Let’s do something wild and combine two fascinating developments. The first one is about augmented reality. As I said in a previous post, I’m not totally convinced that looking through a smartphone camera is such a compelling experience. What about glasses? The conventional wisdom says that it won’t work: people… Continue reading