3pointD.com

I like the idea of WidSets (which Joi Ito blogs today), a new service from Nokia that lets users create little widgets for Java-enabled phones that are delivered on the fly. Joi:

It’s a very cool service that allows people to make simple widgets which get sent to your phone and run on your phone. They are similar to OS X widgets and do various things like read RSS feeds, show flickr images for a particular tag, or show a Technorati feed. It’s still in Beta, but seems to work well. It works on Java phones so will work on non-Nokia phones as well.

Seems like you could do cool 3pointD-type stuff with this and GeoRSS, maybe even combining it with a GPS-enabled device for even better action. Like a quick feed of interesting places nearby. Easy to hack together. Should be interesting.

Andrew Hudson-Smith at Digitally Distributed Environments has posted some nice work that takes advantage of Google Earth 4.0’s new texturing features to recreate a street full of London row houses. (Hudson-Smith uses his own software to obtain “accurate height/facade data from photographic modelling” and then uses “a camera-calibrated algorithm” to place windows and doors and rapidly create city models.”) As Ogle Earth points out, the result is “very cool.” Now let’s get some avatars into that picture. Close-up after the jump. (more…)

Popular Second Life architect and content-creator Aimee Weber of in-world brand *PREEN* sends news that she’s just designed and built an in-world showroom for real-world fashion brand American Apparel. The store, located on a private island in Second Life, is set to open as soon as this weekend. The news has SL residents considering what it means that the first real-world fashion brand has made an entrance to Second Life. Fashion is one of the virtual world’s biggest industries, and the fashion business in SL is extremely competitive. So it’s not a surprise that the first real-world retail brand to set up shop in SL is a fashion retailer. (more…)