3pointD.com

I want this, even though the post I’m about to link is two weeks old. The HipTech blog reports on the MERL DiamondTouch Table, a flat, interactive panel that not only displays screen images but takes input via touch and gesture — including from more than one user at a time. There’s a video of people scribbling on screens and resizing windows at the MERL site, but far better is the YouTube video linked by HipTech, which shows someone playing the real-time strategy game Warcraft III by using a DiamondTouch table and some voice-recognition software. (Via Brad King.)

What’s so 3pointD about playing a video game using touch and voice? Everything. (more…)

Fred Limp of the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies at the University of Arkansas has the first of three articles up on geoplace.com, titled An Impending Massive 3D Mashup, which look at how 3D technologies are going to have a greater and greater impact on the world. (I hesitate to send readers to geoplace’s crappy Web site, but it makes good reading if you can overlook all the awful bells and whistles.) The first article looks at some of the technologies that will contribute to the 3pointD-ization of the world, with the impact of such technologies to be explored in parts 2 and 3. A taste of what’s to come:

The technologies behind MMOGs, when integrated with the other aspects, will change the “(Geo)world” completely, and it will happen soon — if not right now. What will the new (Geo)world look like? Where will we get and store all the data? How will we integrate different workflows and (sometimes) conflicting professional attitudes and perspectives? And, perhaps most importantly, why is this inevitable?

(Via Ogle Earth.)

Clickable Culture reports that Zach Brock of alwaysBETA will be liveblogging during a raid in World of Warcraft’s BlackWing Lair, one of the toughest instances in the game. The raid is set to start Saturday, April 15, at 7pm Eastern. I kinda wish this was a podcast, but it should be a nice look into what the most formidable reaches are like in one of the world’s most popular massively multiplayer online games.

For those who missed it a couple of days ago, it’s worth reading this essay on Serious Games Source, a new sister site of Gamasutra, in which David Rejeski of the Wilson Center think tank calls for the formation of a Corporation for Public Gaming, after the model of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which brings you your local public television channel wherever you are.

A Corporation for Public Gaming (CPG) could be established that would operate on a model similar to its broadcasting equivalent, providing grants to develop a diversity of games for the public good. Like CPB, the goal of the CPG would be to provide high-quality games, which “inform, enlighten and enrich the public.”

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Etsy.com is the craft Froogle, only better (apparently). It’s “your place to buy and sell all things handmade,” and its home page features very neat tools like a very 3pointD geolocator that lets you search for products by location, a “Shop by Color” function, and the ability to browse the thousand or so listings that went up on any particular day in the past. In best 2.0 spirit, there’s even a “coproduction” contest, in which Etsy sellers are asked to form teams and create things to sell on the site. Clickable Culture’s Tony Walsh passed an Etsy link along to me, though, because of the recent Town Hall meeting the community held, which took place in full 3pointD. (more…)