College of Information and Computer Science, Long Island University
Published by October 5th, 2008
in virtual worlds and science.
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Stale doughnuts and doodling on notepaper can’t compete with giant squirrels and hesitant text-speak, if a new study by Penn State University on the effectiveness of group work can be believed. Researchers found that groups worked together better in online world Second Life than in face-to-face meetings and teleconferences.
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Published by September 14th, 2008
in libraries, Second Life, American Library Association and virtual worlds.
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Visitors to ALA Island in Second Life are encouraged to show their library card pride by taking a snapshot of their avatar holding an “@ your library” library card. Snapshots can be posted on the Constellation of Library Stars gallery. Virtual library cards are available at the ALA Main Stage,
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Published by September 14th, 2008
in virtual worlds and psychology.
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Americans are spending increasing amounts of time hanging around virtual worlds in the forms of cartoon-like avatars that change appearances according to users’ wills, fly through floating cities in the clouds and teleport instantly to glowing crystal canyons and starlit desert landscapes. Simply fun and games divorced from reality, right? Not necessarily so, say two social psychologists from Northwestern University who conducted the first experimental field studies in the virtual world. They found that avatars in these elaborate fantasylands responded to social cues to help one another — and revealed racial biases – in the same ways that people do in the real world. “Is It a Game? Evidence for Social Influence in the Virtual World” was published online in the journal Social Influence; the study’s co-investigators are Northwestern’s Paul W. Eastwick, a doctoral student in psychology, and Wendi L. Gardner, associate professor of psychology and member of Northwestern’s Center for Technology and Social Behavior.
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Published by July 19th, 2008
in virtual worlds and economics.
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Virtual Worlds Management released a new report recently tracking the virtual worlds-related investments of Q2 2008. $161 million was invested in 14 companies, not including two companies that were acquired for unknown amounts. Full List Here. This compares with $184 million dollars in 23 virtual worlds related companies during the first quarter of 2008. That puts the total amount invested in the first 6 months of 2008 at $345 million.
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Published by July 19th, 2008
in Second Life, virtual worlds and internet.
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Virtual worlds can seem walled off from the rest of the Internet. Many, including Linden Lab’s popular virtual world Second Life, can’t be accessed through ordinary Web browsers: they require separately downloaded software. A Web link embedded in Second Life will open an outside browser window, pulling a user out of the immersive experience that is one of the virtual world’s main draws. But Linden Lab is now adjusting its technology to make it easier to bring data into its virtual world from the larger Web and from users’ desktops.
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Published by July 12th, 2008
in innovation, virtual worlds and technology.
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Earlier this week Google launched Lively, a new social network where anyone can create an avatar and virtual room that can be embedded anywhere on the Web. 3D services such as Lively are popping up more and more online thanks to the popularity of virtual worlds like Second Life , Meez , and more. So are your skills up to snuff? We’ve gathered over 20 3D creation tools so that you can create your own avatar or virtual world. Whether you’re a 3D pro or just starting out, we’ve got tools for everyone. Try them out and let us know what you think.
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Published by July 12th, 2008
in virtual worlds and Google.
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Google launched a new service July 8 called Lively, a browser-based virtual world add-on that lets users create and customize avatars and worlds, interact with other users, and generally have a richer social interaction than is offered by GTalk. Worlds can be embedded into web pages, although only Windows users on IE or Firefox can view them, after an add-on download and installation. This isn’t yet a full Second Life competitor. There’s no single world, for example, where users can move around. But it’s easy to see Google evolving this into a single online world
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Lively website
Published by June 21st, 2008
in Second Life and virtual worlds.
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If Dubai is the City of the Future, its digital twin in the virtual world of Second Life is the “City of the Speechless”. Here, amid millions of people chatting across oceans via Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP), there is silence from the pixilated UAE residents due to Etisalat’s ban of some online voice transmissions. Even so, a class from the Dubai Women’s College (DWC) is making a noise in the simulated world. Last term, the college opened a virtual campus in Second Life. Already populated by more than 13 million computer-generated avatars – virtual representations of users that inhabit Second Life – the roughly 40 DWC pupils are among the digital domain’s citizens.
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Published by June 7th, 2008
in Second Life, virtual worlds and collaboration.
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To save money in these tough times, universities, conference planners and global companies have started holding gatherings for far-flung employees and students in the online world known as Second Life. Sun Microsystems, a Silicon Valley tech company, has only one rule: Employees should show up looking like humans. Other companies don’t seem to mind if their workers take the form of animals and other entities while they’re on the clock.
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Published by May 26th, 2008
in education and virtual worlds.
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Cory Ondrejka, the co-founder of the virtual world Second Life who is now a visiting professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, said in a speech today that virtual worlds are here to stay, and that professors are among the most active pioneers. “In my view the academy has been blazing the trail of adoption of virtual worlds far more than gamers or industry,” said Mr. Ondrejka, who spoke at a conference at Case Western Reserve University called Collaboration Technology and Engaging the Campus 2008.
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Published by May 26th, 2008
in Second Life and virtual worlds.
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Edd Hifeng barely merits a second glance in “Second Life.” A steel-gray robot with lanky limbs and linebacker shoulders, he looks like a typical avatar in the popular virtual world. But Edd is different. His actions are animated not by a person at a keyboard but by a computer. Edd is a creation of artificial intelligence, or AI, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, who endowed him with a limited ability to converse and reason. It turns out “Second Life” is more than a place where pixelated avatars chat, interact and fly about. It’s also a frontier in AI research because it’s a controllable environment where testing intelligent creations is easier.
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An avatar, the image a person uses in a virtual world, is currently bound to the particular world in which it was created. But at the Virtual Worlds Conference 2008 in New York City recently, several companies showcased their efforts to allow people to carry their avatars from one virtual world to another, and even out onto ordinary Web pages. These developments point to a convergence between virtual worlds and social networks.
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U.S. lawmakers held the first-ever hearing simulcast in a 3D virtual world Tuesday, probing experts about the opportunities and dangers posed by new online communities. Noting that millions of Americans will soon inhabit virtual worlds for part of their day for purposes of communications, business, education, health care, or cultural interest, Representative Edward Markey (D-MA) said he called the hearing — which took place in a real-world hearing room in Washington, DC — to help lawmakers learn about these online spaces, which simulate real-world venues.
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Published by April 6th, 2008
in libraries, Second Life and virtual worlds.
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Second Life is more than an on-line game for ETH Zurich. It is a handy three-dimensional tool used for resolving real issues. ETH Zurich Computer Science students recently used it to analyze and solve the everyday frustrations involved in borrowing a book from a library. The project to tackle the problems that lending libraries face was carried out within the framework of the Information Systems Laboratory course taught by Professor Nesime Tatbul at the Computer Science Department (D-INFK), The study of information systems is a core area of computer science. It has evolved from the more established study of database management. Research into information systems now includes pervasive computing: the convergence of largely wireless technologies and the Internet. This may well signal a shift away from personal computing and into pools of shared information, available to anyone from anywhere at any time.
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Published by April 6th, 2008
in education and virtual worlds.
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How big a hall would you need to bring together some 50,000 students and their parents, as well as college admissions officers, guidance counselors and financial-aid experts? No room required: the crowd participated in CollegeWeekLive, a virtual two-day college fair held this week that built on a smaller “test” event held last fall. For the event’s organizers, the point was to go to where the kids already congregate. “This is where students of the millennial generation live—online,” says Robert Rosenbloom, CEO of PlatformQ, the digital media startup that developed the online event. “So we saw an opportunity to create a virtual fair that would bring students and college admissions personnel together in an efficient manner, in a market where the audience is wired and the information is rapidly changing.”
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Published by March 16th, 2008
in education, social networking, virtual worlds and economics.
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Since the 1990s, educators have been focusing on access to Internet as a means of engagement, concerned about the digital divide; now that the divide has been bridged, we are concerned about access to education. Cause and effect here correlate. Rising costs of a college degree at our wireless colleges and universities have resulted in increasing public scrutiny, student debt and budget models based on marketing rather than pedagogical concepts. Academe’s insatiable investment in virtual worlds, social networks and other consumer applications is a benchmark of how far we will go and how much money we will spend in the name of engagement.
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Published by March 3rd, 2008
in virtual worlds.
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It’s not often you catch a grown man playing with a doll’s house, let alone doing it while pretending to be a little old lady. But this is not your average Barbie residence, and it’s all in the name of research. The adapted PlayMobil house is in fact part of an experimental platform to explore new ways to bridge the gap between virtual and real worlds. A range of sensors and gadgets inside the house allow it to be monitored and controlled through an exact digital replica inside the virtual world Second Life.eIf the front door has been left open or a light left on in the doll’s house it will show in the virtual version. It works both ways, too. You can control the real house — for example by cranking up the thermostat — via its virtual doppelganger.
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Published by February 25th, 2008
in education and virtual worlds.
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IBM recently launched PowerUp, a free, 3D virtual world today aimed at educating teenagers about alternative energy sources and environmental conservation. A part of IBM’s TryScience initiative and launching at Engineer’s Week 2008 on February 16, the world tries to merge the appeal of fantasy virtual worlds with the educational goal of building wind- and watermills to save the world.
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Published by February 18th, 2008
in education, Second Life and virtual worlds.
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Imagine a science class without text books. It sounds tough to do, but it is happening at one school in our area. It’s part of an innovative pilot program that allows students to experience lessons like never before. Education reporter Art McFarland has the story. It is an experience that is out of this world, but inside any computer.“You can do things you can’t do in real life, like fly,” student Ernesto Machado said. “You can actually go into the volcano.” It is called “Second Life” for a reason. It allows computer users to live outside of themselves, even inside an erupting volcano. At Brooklyn’s High School for Global Citizenship, Second Life is part of a science class.
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Published by February 5th, 2008
in education, Second Life and virtual worlds.
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The Princeton Review has partnered with Ohio University to launch a free SAT prep course inside of Second Life. It seems like it’s an experimental endeavor aimed at testing demand, but also at generating more demand for the physical prep classes. Only two 20-minute presentations are available (one took place on January 19th and the second will be on Jan. 31), but users will then be involved in a Q&A with instructors. Ohio University, which entered Second Life a year ago, also hopes to generate virtual foot traffic across its campus. “We wanted something fun that would really appeal to tech-savvy, college-bound juniors and seniors,” said Michael Reiss, online marketing manager for Princeton Review.
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Published by January 26th, 2008
in education and virtual worlds.
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Don’t look now, but multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) are gaining momentum as the latest and greatest learning tool in the world of education technology. How do you get started with them? How do they work? Arm yourself with these 13 secrets from immersive education experts and educators, and you, too, can have real success implementing these new tools and technologies on your own campus.
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Published by January 26th, 2008
in virtual worlds, research and Microsoft.
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The University of Kansas Biodiversity Research Center has received an $850,000 grant from the European Science Initiative of Microsoft Research Inc. to study biodiversity changes in complex environments with a focus on Mexico’s cloud forest. In partnership with the national biodiversity commission in Mexico, the project will analyze the data, but it is also taking a meta approach to examine how to best combine a broad set of complex data for analysis. One answer is to design a virtual world to test the researchers’ predictions. “The virtual world will give us ways to test tools we have been developing for 10 years,” said Jorge Soberón, lead investigator for the project and senior scientist at KU’s Biodiversity Institute. “We want to create a very complex simulation, not just a beautiful envelope with nothing inside.”
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Published by January 26th, 2008
in Second Life and virtual worlds.
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Governments have been taking tentative steps towards establishing a presence in the virtual world. And while the business case may yet to be proven, there is potential for the public sector to utilize virtual applications such as Second Life, says analyst Alison Brooks. Brooks, senior analyst for government insights at Toronto-based IDC Canada, says that there’s some piloting of Second Life going on across the world with the U.S. government using it for immigration and educational forums. “The Center for Disease Control uses it as an educational tool,” she says.
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Published by January 20th, 2008
in education and virtual worlds.
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In three to five years, Media Grid hopes to have established a cross-platform, immersive virtual world for education. “The future is not a single platform. Multiple platforms can provide similar experiences, consistent from platform to platform,” said director of the Media Grid and the Immersive Education Initiative Aaron Walsh. Walsh spoke at a Second Life event in advance of the “Boston Digital Media Summit: Enabling the Age of Immersive Education”
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Published by January 12th, 2008
in virtual worlds.
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The world’s first fully three dimensional town will not feature spectacular skyscrapers or the neon wonders of a metropolis at night — instead, it will showcase the modest octagon in Westport, UK. The Co Mayo town is to be launched as the first 3D village by Google Earth next week, allowing virtual visitors stroll through the streets whilst sitting at their computers. The town council initially approached AMT3D, a digital computer modeling company based in Westport, about the project to help out with town planning.
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The author tour, with its accompanying readings and signings, has come to be the quintessential tool for promoting books. It is a chance for writers to charm their readers and for readers to glimpse the person behind the words. At its best, the meeting can be electric. (At worst, nobody shows up.) But in the past five years or so, observers say the traditional author tour has been in decline: Fewer writers are being sent out, and those who do tour make fewer stops. Among the many reasons for this shift are marketing tools that have made it possible to orchestrate a virtual encounter, without the hassle or expense of travel. Publishers and authors are now touting books through podcasts, film tours, blog tours, book videos, and book trailers.
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Published by December 29th, 2007
in children and virtual worlds.
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Parents: It’s almost 2008. Do you know where your kids are playing with their toys? Increasingly, it’ll be online. A growing number of online tie-ins to toys like Barbie, collectible trading card games and even stuffed animals are joining established kids-geared online communities to create what will soon become hundreds of social networks and virtual worlds for children.
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Giving each member of a digital crowd its own personality could make animated mob scenes more realistic. The behavior of computer-generated crowds in movies and video games could soon appear much more realistic, thanks to new software that gives each character a complex personality of its own. The software has been demonstrated in a simulation of Pennsylvania Station, in New York City, depicting more than 1,000 commuters, law-enforcement officers, entertainers, and tourists going about their business. Each individual demonstrates complex, rational behaviors that collectively create a much more lifelike representation of human activity, says Demetri Terzopoulos, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Los Angeles.
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Published by December 22nd, 2007
in Second Life and virtual worlds.
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Second Life has long been seen as the bell-whether for the growing interest in virtual spaces. Here, founder Philip Rosedale talks to the BBC News website about the past and future of the parallel world he is helping to create. These are interesting times for Second Life. In the four short years it has existed, it has seen media coverage go from hysterical to hectoring. It has been hailed as both a harbinger of the next big thing and a brake on the burgeoning development of virtual worlds.
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Published by December 22nd, 2007
in virtual worlds.
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This Virtual Worlds Management Industry Forecast 2008 brings together 45 virtual worlds industry leaders, including CEOs of developers, platforms, and agencies, analysts and thinkers, and lawyers and government representatives to offer their thoughts on and predictions for virtual worlds in 2008. Also examined in the report are the 2008 business goals for many of the leading companies in the industry.
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Published by December 16th, 2007
in virtual worlds.
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20 percent of Australians believe that their “true self” comes out better in their online identities than in their real-world identities, according to a new Symantec Australian Identity Survey. The study, which surveyed 596 Australians, showed that the figure jumped to 40% among “power users” of virtual worlds, social networks, and gaming sites.
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Published by December 9th, 2007
in innovation, virtual worlds and corporations.
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In Forrester’s new study, “The Seven Tenets Of The Information Workplace,” it identifies several Web 2.0 technologies that companies should adopt for stronger information connections: RSS, blogs, rich Internet applications (RIAs), tagging, wikis, and virtual worlds. “Some companies have adopted them more heavily than others,” Erica Driver, a Forrester analyst who contributed to the report, told CIO.com. However, she says a lot of CIOs might play it safe. “As they try to develop information workplace strategies, they want to get as much Web 2.0 as they can from incumbent vendors.” Instead, they should look for innovation from the younger set. [via CIO.com]
The first of the seven tenets:
1. Work should be contextual
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Published by November 20th, 2007
in education, Second Life and virtual worlds.
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Bowling Green State University is celebrating its newest campus, where faculty offices are on a mountainside, people from across the world routinely drop by, and students can fly to class. Obviously, this is not in northwest Ohio. It’s in Second Life, a virtual reality community becoming increasingly popular among educational institutions.
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