If you did not notice yet, those virtual roaches - and human’s real reactions to those virtual bugs - keep me puzzled. That puzzled during I shared my thoughts on it with the real life friends. You know, those friends that ‘don’t like virtual worlds’, ‘prefer real life’, still ‘wonder what the hell it is that you are doing’, but that you love none the less as you forgive them their ignorance! ;) And also exact the kind of friends that - because of their ignorance - come up with great ideas regarding virtual stuff. They are able to look beyond those eye shells that grow on you when spending to much time in - any - world. And one of those friends told me about ‘augmented reality’. Using the words: ‘Having a virtual Christina Ricci projected in my bedroom would get me off, yeah, so I assume that stuff can be real. But preferably in my bedroom, yes.’*

Augmented reality is where one ads a layer of ‘virtual goodness’ on top of the real world, and do it that well that they blend in almost perfectly. But what do the roaches have to do with this all? In 2007 the clinical psychology department at Universitat Jaume I in Castelló, Spain did exact that experiment with virtual roaches: A team of computer-imaging specialists filmed the creatures, digitised images of their scurrying and teeming, and displayed the images—not on a computer monitor, but on see-through goggles. To the wearer, the virtual roaches then look as though they are really in the room. Next, university psychologists set about therapeutically frightening patients who have a fear of insects. “They put a foot on the ground and the cockroaches start climbing over it,” says Cristina Botella, who led the researchers. “The computer just pumps them out.” In November Ms Botella presented her team’s findings at the Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Therapies conference in Philadelphia. The treatment worked very well. I would love to see them test this with virtual roaches in our brave new virtual world**. Reality, only better from the Economist states: For some things, it turns out, computer graphics can be much more effective when viewed not on screens, but superimposed on the real world. The technique is known as “augmented reality” (AR) or, less frequently, as “augmented vision”, because the real world is augmented with virtual text or graphics. Ah, yeah well… as stated before, if you spend enough time in our virtual world, it kinda grows on you, and becomes as real - or almost as real - as that other one.

Still, I guess we just can’t do without ‘real life’ - ;) - and here are some interesting applications for augmented reality:

1. Scan for veins under skin, processes that data and then projects the veins on your skin in real time, making sure the nurse knows where to stick that needle. Would be handy because: it sucks to go to school in a long sleeve when it’s 30 degrees Celsius because else they’ll all think you’re a junk.
2. Tourist information, in stead of long brochures of boring text and dates, give the visitors a pair of goggles and show them battle scenes, how the ruins looked when they were still ‘castle’, or what exactly happened in the master’s bedroom. Would be handy because: they can charge extra for the viewer that includes pr0n scenes.
3. Virtual safaris in France the Parc du Futuroscope. Would be handy because: Reality TV sucks nowadays and it does no harm if you feed a virtual animal. They can sell an endless amount of virtual food.
4. In the military: Soldiers with head-mounted displays might read street names superimposed on the ground, follow colour-coded arrows for patrols or retreats, and see symbols indicating known or potential sniper nests, weapons caches and hiding places for booby-traps. The displays could also show the locations of friendly forces and levels of ammunition and other supplies, as in a video game. Would be handy because: Flight simulator fell in enemy hands.

All sound rather kewl, no? So what use for augmented reality could you think off? I think my friend was dead on target with his ‘virtual pr0n, live in your bedroom’ idea, but I’m sure you can think of some other great innovations making use of augmented reality?

* I do not exclude the possibility that for his birthday his bedroom will be rebuild in the virtual world and a Christina Ricci skin & shape will be shopped for! ;)
** Brave New Virtual World, a world previously known as Second Life, now Second Life™.

Tags: augmented reality, roaches, technology, virtual worlds
Categories: Exploring
3 Comments »

From Arnout Sequent - also known for the invention of the SLinternet, which was kinda kewl, but never really catched on - comes this ‘clonies & particle tv’, as machinima’d by Bella March:

Amazing, nah? This ‘clonies & particle TV’ is really something that can’t be captured in snapshots. As Bella says: ‘Arnout Sequent pushed particles a bit further by converting them to the so-called ‘Imposters’ and by playing videostreams on them. Amazing achievement, see for yourself.‘ I don’t know which ingenious scripting is behind this, I only know it’s all about ’speed reloading / refreshing’ and that I have two 3D Bella’s in my skybox now - and really love them. Almost as much as the ‘real’ virtual version. ;) I do know I want a Clonie-Vint. Do you think it will be convincing enough to let it go to work for me? ;)

Tags: arnout sequent, bella march, clonies, particle TV, particles, SLinovation
Categories: Exploring
1 Comment »

As filmed by Mr Miyaoka, The End of the Tiny Universe Convention. Don’t worry, it is not a sad story. It was a ‘kick ass’ convention, and I am proud that through ‘Tiny Greenies’ I’ve somewhat been a part of it too:

And if you thought there was ‘Tiny’, then what are these? Tiny²? Asked them to pose next to my shoe for comparison reasons:

I met those little critters at The Greenies Outpost store where Rezzable is handing out a limited amount of free Greenies Backpacks. Believe me, they are to cute to not get one! But be quick - checks inworld - only 170 from 500 left!

Tags: freebie, greenies, rezzable, tiny avatars
Categories: Exploring
1 Comment »

Rezzable and Greenies released two ‘tiny greenies’ avatars and landed at Tiny Kingdom. Side effects for Vint? Google Translate English - Japanese and Japanese - English are now added to the ‘browser thingies that need to be open for Vint to function’. ;) That and I’m slowly getting addicted to the ‘Turning Japanese’ song from the Vapors.

But what a nice world has opened itself for me: the Tiny sims are full of lovely, humorous and amazingly cute details! A few examples? Do you remember those snow balls from when we were young? Glass balls, filled with snow and a tiny scene, which you put next to you bed. I dare to bet almost all of us owned at least one. And I also dare to bet almost all of us wished they could ‘disappear’ into the snowball’s scenery at least once. Suddenly, become a part of that little tiny world. At the Tiny Universe Convention, find Cue Fride’s ’snow balls’ which are tiny little scenes you can sit your tiny avatar in: read a book, go to the toilet, get eaten by a shark, … . Just utterly lovely! More photographs of these tiny snow ball scenes you can find in my ‘Tiny Universe Convention’ Flickr set.

Another great example is Miyaoka Hitchcock’s latest release: the cutest fan you can imagine. And it’s an actual avatar! Very strange seeing that around. If it were not for the avatar tag, you would think it’s part of the scenery, and then suddenly it starts walking. Astonishing, that one is. Behold the ‘tiny electric fan avatar’:

And then there is the way of presenting all the avatars taking part in the convention: a long tunnel you walk through, and they are all lined up as little toy soldiers with their creator tags… there is the beautiful logo that’s build in prims… ah well, just go and take a look for yourself: Tiny Universe Exhibition - Dust - 97, 146, 90 (May 25th to June 1st)

Tags: avatar, greenies, japan, rezzable, tiny avatars, tiny universe convention
Categories: Exploring, Rezzable
7 Comments »

For those of you that own a garden, did you ever ‘discover’ something in it? Something that makes you go ‘woooow, this is awesome’? It may be little things - a beautiful butterfly, a cute little frogg - or huge things - ‘hey, did I have a three, that grows eatable stuff?! Woot!’ A friend of mine recently discovered a secret pathway to the city centre in mine. How can one miss that? Well, there’s a whole pile of crap in front of it. :p Anyway, those little things can utterly amaze you. This is how I feel each time I visit the - Rezzable, yes, Jon, I won’t forget to put that in front this time - Garden of NPIRL Deligihts.

It’s huge, and although I saw it grow and flourish, there are that many builds I have not seen yet. Or that you take for granted, as being part of the Garden, but that are actually little artworks on itself. A beautiful example are Artoo Magneto’s beautiful trees: a small detail, easily overlooked, but it makes the whole… well.. astonishing.

Another thing that I overlooked - or did not know off - is my own, Dutch music heritage. Apparently the song ‘Het Land van Waas en Maal’s lyrics are about the Garden of Earthly Delights. Would be so kewl if it could be covered by an artist who performs at Gardenstock.

So, there are a few ways how you can discover the Garden of NPIRL Delights:

1. Get the HUD. Available at The Dump entrance.
2. Go to The Dump and go on foot - don’t forget to take a miner’s helmet - or fly or jetpack or whatever. NPIRL ways of strolling the Garden are encouraged.
3. Go to The Dump and walk through the tunnel and take a tour vehicule. Best for easy adjustment to a huge load of NPIRL virtual art. The tours give you a great overview in less than 10 minutes, so it’s a great start before you explore on foot.

Let’s end with a quote of Lauren Weyland that I absolutely love:

Alice in Wonderland never fell far enough. Gulliver didn’t sail far enough. Michael Smith didn’t imagine enough. For if they had, their authors, Carroll, Swift and Heinlein would have written about the Rezzable Garden of NPIRL Delights.”

PS. Yeah, the belgian weather is back and it is sure as hell rainy. More SL playtime for Vint again! ;)

Tags: real life, rezzable, the garden of NPIRL delights
Categories: Art, Exploring, Rezzable
2 Comments »

I picked this one up from the Very Important Pixels shop out of curiosity: a talking sculpted face. Choices ranged from Bill Clinton, over Hillary, over OJ Simpson, but in the end I decided to settle for Angelina Jolie’s lovely face. It’s rather fun to play with. For about 5 minutes, and I got to test the flickr film upload thing, and fraps. Could be interesting though, for use in machinima in stead of gestures on your normal face? If…

1. You get a custom one made.
2. You take some time finding the right skin to match your face, and setting windlight settings so it does not look weird on any skin. (Objects react different to light than avatar textures.)
3. There’s an option to get rid of the stupid hand gesture that comes with talking

And good news, Angelina Jolie’s face is transferable. So if you always wanted to look like her, or test this yourself, say ‘hi’! Mind that I do want my face back after a while! ;)

Tags: angelina jolie, sculpted prims, talking, very important pixels
Categories: Exploring
6 Comments »

Toyota is one of the car brands not scared of experimenting with virtual worlds. Where they first hired Million of Us to bring their ‘Scion’ in Second Life, and later on launched that same Scion in the virtual world There with some help from Metaversatility. August 2007, Toyota’s marketing manager Adrian Si stated their total investment in virtual worlds to be a “strong six-figure one”. By now, this must be a whole lot more, as Toyota presents - in cooperation with Co-core’s MeetMe - their own virtual world.

With the cute avatar in the wheel chair, it almost seems like Motorability has found it’s spot in Toyota Metapolis too! ;)

Their own virtual world? Well, not completely. More of a continent. Toyota Metapolis is based on the MeetMe server technology and software. But Toyota got it’s own - what you could compare with a - continent: to get there, you need to either log into it directly, signing up at the Toyate Metapolis website, or start in MeetMe and take the shuttle to the Toyota area. So although you can move back and forth between MeetMe and Toyota Metapolis, the Toyota grounds are a complete living area, with car shops, a museum, residential areas and even a garage to park your car collection.

For now, Toyota Metapolis exists of:

Of course, a Mall where you can buy Toyota cars. Not only can you buy them, but you can also take them for a test drive. The cars even have Toyota’s Japanese car based information network ‘G-book’ implemented. Over time, they will sell 255 different colours of the car - wtf?! -, hoping to make it a collector’s item. Clicking the cars will get you more information on them. If you wish, you can get the Toyota catalogue mailed to your - real world - home.

Next up, is an Event Hall. Toyota will use this one for presentation of their latest cars and live music events. Streaming video of those and live sound is available there. They boast about being able to accommodate 1000 avatars at once, Miss Forager said the press release translated as ‘1,000 avies at 1000m2′. The first event will take place on the 12th of May. You will need a ticket to get in, which can be acquired by entering a prize draw.

The Museum is totally dedicated to Toyota. There you will find the latest developments, prototypes and next generation concepts for Toyota vehicles, as well as a display of their older models. The museum symbolises a ‘crystal tower’ towards heaven, which stands for Toyota’s willingness to learn, envision and progress. Here is mentioned that taking the cars for a test drive in the museum, or changing their colour is not yet possible. This is scheduled for Spring 2009.

Toyota’s Community Areas are split up in four main areas: Cars, Eco-park, music and beginners. Each theme zone will have it’s own games and events. Of course, in the beginners square, you can get - virtual - help. Nock started off with posing a typically Second Life question: ‘How can I make money?‘

The Residential Areas aren’t as sophisticated as we are used to, but at least they thought of it. To you to your room, get to the right building, and enter your room number on the key pad that pops up. You can’t move there from MeetMe though, you will need to create a new user ID/avatar at the Toyota Metapolis portal.

The Garage. I think this is a virtual first: building a giant structure, just to let your residents park - and show off - their cars. A user can own one up to three parking slots. Use the garage to get some spare parts for your car - even Toyota’s break down once in a while - or give it a paint job. And surely, you can drive from the the residential area to the garage. Just, not yet. The Garage area is scheduled to open in November 2008.

Being a Second Life resident, the possibilities of this seem fairly limited. We are used to living where we want (or where we can afford rent), rezzing whatever car we want (if we own it), using whatever transportation we want (you can’t think of anything that we can’t drive!) but… if they succeed in building a community of people that are interested in Toyota and not that demanding as it comes to virtual worlds freedom - they can go and visit virtual Tokyo at MeetMe - then surely, I think, they can have a more interactive place for them to meet than they could ever at a web forum and worlds like this may have a future. But please, over time, avatar portability! ;) I’m going to stick with Fiat for now, though.

Hat Tip to the cutest avatar on the Grid: Nock Forager

Tags: japan, meet me, toyota, virtual worlds
Categories: Exploring
9 Comments »

On a side note: 43 left to go

Nadine Nozaki was as kind to invite me to the next facebook… for avatars. Having a strictly ‘no human’ policy, it seems like fun: Avatars United is a community for game avatars only. You cannot upload real life photos nor include information on your avatars description that could reveal your real life identity. You are welcome however to upload photos of your real life friends’ game avatars. It is also possible to link more than one avatar to your account, to make sure you list your alts - be they in Second Life or another virtual world. Basic facebook functionality (groups, events, …) is there, although, I did not find any API’s (yet?).

Avatars United Mission Statement

Avatars United (AU) is a community website bringing virtual characters from all online worlds together. The project is built in recognition of the fact that strong bonds and close friendships actually can be tied within virtual spaces. AU has furthermore gone one step further in recognizing virtual personas as personas in their own right by building a community for avatars only. Anyone involved in any type of virtual world is familiar with addressing people using their avatar names even after having gotten to know them. With tools to communicate with, find and track old virtual friends and share experiences from virtual realms AU wishes to stand out as a community highlighting the social aspect of life within virtual worlds.

Discrepency between WoW and SL presence

Currently 21 out of 558 avatars are Second Life residents. Is this because not enough SL avatars stumbled over this yet? Or, as we have a lot of ‘personal avatar’ blogs, networks, groups, on the web already, we actually do not need another networking site representing our avatars?

1. World of Warcraft - 396 avatars
2. Eve Online - 34 avatars
3. Second Life - 21 avatars
4. Everquest II - 13 avatars
5. Star Wars Galaxies - 12 avatars
6. The Lord of the Rings - 12 avatars
7. Ultima Online - 11 avatars
8. Guild Wars - 10 avatars
9. Everquest - 9 avatars
10. Entropia Universe - 6 avatars
11. City of Heroes - 6 avatars
12. Dark Age of Camelot - 5 avatars
13. Tabula Rasa - 4 avatars
14. Lineage 2 - 4 avatars
15. Age of Conan - 4 avatars
16. Finfal Fantasy XI - 3 avatars
17. Dofus - 3 avatars
18. Vanguard: Sage of a Hero - 3 avatars
19. City of Villains - 2 avatars
20. Lineage - 0 avatars

IMVU, There and Kaneva not represented

Strangely enough, it seems IMVU, There, Kaneva and the Sims 2 avatars are not welcome. It’s not one of the possible picks when signing up. And is this any - direct - competition for Myrl.com, a website aimed at connecting avatars from different virtual worlds - Second Life and There at the moment - solely and offers more networking functionality?

Tags: avatar, avatarsunited.com, social network
Categories: Exploring, SL Web Resources
19 Comments »

When Tateru over at Massively wrote about ‘Avatar Rendering Cost’, a new feature in RC 1.20’s Advanced (former: ‘client’) menu, she asks a good question: ‘Will we see products one day labeled like this? “Purse, scripted, 8 prims, 90ARC“‘

One of the things that the new Second Life 1.20 release candidate viewer sports is a nifty new feature that busts some serious myths about avatar related lag. In short, by enabling the option, every avatar gets a number displayed over their heads showing how much work your PC needs to go through to render the avatar. This is the avatar rendering cost.

So far we have seen green numbers (low numbers, which are good), and red ones (high numbers, which are not so good). The amount of work that goes into rendering an avatar (now that we can easily measure it) isn’t quite affected by things the way we thought it was.

You activate the showing of ARC numbers the following way: Advanced > Rendering > Info Displays > Avatar Rendering Cost.

Curious about my own ‘rendering footprint’ - opposed to my ecological one - I did some ARC testing, browsing through the different ‘avatar versions’ I use often. Impressive is, that different hairstyles could mean a change of +5000 ARC units. And that my Greenie avatar came out pretty well. I should take a look a Quickly Alter - which is just one, huge sphere - too.

Next test: put 60 avatars with ARC 8000 on a sim and compare that with 60 avatars ARC 400 on the same sim? I think that - although this is an important factor and fun data to toy around with - we must surely not ’stare’ blind on avatar lag. How our avatar looks, for most of us, does depict ‘who we are’ in the virtual world. With big events the Avatar Render Cost will be far from the sole factor determining the amount of ‘laggyness’: optimal build quality, draw distances, scripts, sim class, state of the grid, … are not to be forgotten about. But yes, Miss Tateru, I would like to know the ARC of a hairstyle before I buy it! ;)

Tags: avatar rendering cost, exploring, lag
Categories: Building, Exploring, Fashion
28 Comments »

I actually just hopped in-world last night because I was worried about Gwen being worried about the waves. Having been ‘out’ mostly during the day, little did I know that it wasn’t just the waves. Thus I rezzed were I last left, the Rezzable Liberty Sandbox. Very close to something that looked like it could definitely run me over. Yikes! I send an IM to the creator to ask to not park his vehicule on me, please. Which was answered by an IM if I could help him test the back seat. Ah well… .

After a short ride, I sneaked behind him into the elevator, what made me the first avater to visit is home! Yeey! I sat down, and was utterly amazed when he rezzed the most cute cat I ever* saw, which was reading something way above my head. Astrophysics, quantum mechanics, … whatever. I now have that cutie in my inventory, of course! Quickly the others rezzed: a cat fishing in a fish boal, a cat playing with a ball of wool, … .

Fascinated, I took the next logical step: asked if Mister Maraschino Susa has a shop or anything. More cat stuff! Mr. Susa told me he sells them at his gallery, together with SL versions of his RL paintings. Aha? Paintings? Cats and paintings!? Woot! Seems that Mr. Susa was more interesting that I at first - ‘racepod’ and an elevator - had thought. Then, I made a huge mistake…

Being rather sure Miss Veyron would like this too - cats, fast flying things and well painted nudes - I offered her a TP. Before I could say ‘I’m lagged’ Maraschino was taking Veyron for a ride, and I was left alone with the cats and the paintings. My thoughts at that moment? File bug report! ‘MISC-1254: Veryon always runs of with the guys I like. Please FIX ASAP!‘ Were it not for driving into sim-walls the two of them would not have returned to keep me company and they would still be out there somewhere… . Pffff. ;)

What I actually wanted to say? Check out Mister Marashino Susa. And his paintings and cats. All three seem very interesting!

* Except for October Hush, Chloe Streeter, … . ;)

Tags: art, cats, vint falken
Categories: Exploring
33 Comments »