metaverse

You can star in a famous band's music video

STANFORD, Calif.--If you've ever wanted to star in a famous band's music video, a start-up called BigStage will soon give you your chance.

Well, not exactly. But BigStage, which is based in Pasadena, Calif., is planning on letting users insert avatar-like images of themselves into a premade music video for an as-yet unnamed--but very famous--band.

The thing that makes this very interesting is that BigStage has developed a system that lets anyone with a digital camera create an extremely realistic avatar by plugging a photo of themselves into what it describes as a fairly easy-to-use interface.

Then, … Read more

Mitch Kapor: 3D cameras will make virtual worlds easier to use

STANFORD, Calif.--Mitch Kapor, like many people, is well aware that virtual worlds are often very difficult to use.

The founder of Lotus 1-2-3, who also happens to be the first investor in Second Life publisher Linden Lab and its chairman, spoke at the Metaverse Roadmap meeting here today on the topic of what can be done to make using virtual worlds a better experience.

"I'm obsessed with what's going to make these things easier to use," Kapor said, his face lit with excitement. "I think a piece of hardware is involved."

And that … Read more

Areae's Raph Koster: Virtual world cash to go to entertainment

STANFORD, Calif.--If one thing is clear about the immediate future of virtual worlds, it's that every toy company is going be setting something up.

That was the prediction of Raph Koster, the co-founder of Areae, which has created a virtual world platform called Metaplace, at a meeting of the Metaverse Roadmap here Friday. Koster got up to speak to a group of the leaders of the virtual world community and announced he was going to be the day's cynic.

"We (were asked) to talk about what's exciting," Koster said. "But I'm pretty … Read more

Linden Lab to participate in memorial for popular designer

Maybe virtual world publishers do belong inside the magic circle after all.

On Sunday I wrote about an interesting situation that arose after the sad and tragic death of one-half of the Second Life fashion design team known to most as the avatar Ginny Talamasca.

In the wake of the designer's passing, Katt Kongo, the publisher of the Second Life newspaper, Metaverse Messenger, proposed having SL publisher Linden Lab designate April 17, 2008 "Ginny Talamasca Day."

But Kongo's proposal, which she made in an e-mail to a number of SL residents, including myself, was followed by … Read more

Cool Web front-end for multiple virtual world entry

SAN JOSE, Calif.--I was walking around the Virtual Worlds conference here this afternoon when I ran into Jerry Paffendorf, the co-author of the Metaverse Roadmap report and the current co-founder of a stealth start-up called Wello Horld.

Paffendorf knows all, and so I eagerly asked him what was the best thing he'd seen at the show.

Without hesitating, he pointed me over to a small corner of the expo floor and to the little booth of a skunkworks project called inDuality developed by a company called Pelican Crossing and another known as IBM.

Well, when I finally found … Read more

Metaplace brings user-generated virtual worlds to the browser

It's not the most innovative name but the concept may be revolutionary. Metaplace, a virtual community that is currently being tested for launch in spring 2008, was one of the most talked about start-ups at the TechCrunch40 Conference. The new platform allows anyone to build a virtual world from scratch -- for the web or even mobile applications -- without any programming knowledge. Like other virtual communities such as Second Life, There, Entropia Universe, or World of Warcraft, the Metaplace worlds can be used for gaming, socializing, and e-commerce. And they come with the usual community features: forums, user … Read more

Second Life: over-hyped or scientifically significant?

We're constantly imitating nature.

Artificial intelligence researchers study the way babies learn to right themselves after falling down to help train robots to behave similarly.

We're still learning new things about flight dynamics and wing design from butterflies and other animals.

If you've ever carefully tiptoed across the floor to keep from disturbing someone, you're mimicking how a deer walks to avoid alerting predators to its presence.

Okay, that one's a stretch, but if you've ever watched a deer do this, it sure seems like one heck of a coincidence.

In any case, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. It's also how modern science works - creating models for simple structures in order to approximate the real world. When we succeed, we learn; when we fail, we learn more. It's a painstaking process of trial and error called the scientific method.

Every year the biotechnology industry comes one step closer to learning how to cure our ills and extend the human lifespan. We have further to go than we've come, to be sure, but getting here was no easy trick. After all, biotech research is attempting nothing short of unveiling the secrets of life.

Why am I telling you all this? Because, this is the same thought process that changed my opinion about Second Life being over-hyped - an opinion many of you have recently expressed.… Read more