3pointD.com

• StumbleUpon brings video to the Wii | CNET News.com
  The revamped video site, launched Tuesday, includes an interface specifically designed for the Wii’s Opera browser.
  (tags: video games wii stumbleupon)

I can’t believe the YouTube clip above has been up there for six months and I’ve only just found it now. I no longer want a touchscreen, now I want a BumpTop interface (which got Dugg a couple of weeks ago and is now all over the Internet, of course). Watch the video above. It contains some of the only truly new GUI techniques I’ve seen in a long time. Touchscreens are extra cool, but they really only give you new ways to do what you’re already doing with a mouse and keyboard. The BumpTop actually gives you useful new ways to easily organize information visually and in three dimensions. Very, very exciting.

There’s an excellent piece in the Hollywood Reporter at the moment by Andrew Wallenstein that looks at media companies’ growing interest in Second Life and other virtual worlds. Wallenstein has done a great job gathering a range of perspectives and dispenses with the usual lurid descriptions of what’s going on in SL. In fact, his description of the service is one of the best I’ve ever read: “Imagine the premise of 1999’s “The Matrix,” which presented a computer-generated 3-D alternate universe where humans could interact, filtered through the bizarre sensibility of “Alice in Wonderland” and rendered with the graphics of “Grand Theft Auto,” and you’ll end up with something like Second Life.” Spot on. More importantly, Wallenstein talks to a couple of analysts who have very balanced and sensible things to say about the potential of Second Life for media companies and others. We’ve talked on SecondCast before about the fact that much of the value of launching in Second Life is in the print headlines you garner, not the in-world eyeballs you reach. JupiterResearch vp and senior analyst David Card feels similarly: “There’s definitely buzz and quite a bit of growth, but it’s still a relatively small platform,” he tells Wallenstein. “So many companies are getting in now, but at some point the PR value will wear off, and these things will have to pay off on how many people are being reached.” Any way you slice these things, this is recommended reading.

From what 3pointD hears, Linden Lab is very close to integrating native voice support for the virtual world of Second Life. Of course, things they’ve claimed are “very close” in the past have taken months or years to implement (or were in fact not being worked on at all), and the Lab has been having some pretty severe problems of late. But a number of other companies are working on or already providing stand-alone voice services that are integrated with Second Life. Now comes a press release from Internet telephonists Woize International (that’s their cool little logo above) flagging a new “voice-to-voice” product as an “interactive advertising service.” Are avatars soon going to start getting cold calls from marketers? (more…)

Yup, we’ll be in the virtual world of Second Life this evening for a meet-the-authors event to promote the official guide to Second Life, which came out a couple of months ago and has been selling like hotcakes since then, I hear. The event starts at 6:00pm SL time (9:00pm Eastern), and will take place at the amphitheatre in one of Joi Ito’s sims, »in Kula 1«. The Wiley store can be found »in Furu«, though I’m not exactly sure what’s going on there. Show up early for your seat, it should be a fun evening — depending on the quality of griefers we get, of course.

Me, my avatars, and Uffie

Well, Jerry’s at it again. This time he’s roped me in to give some kind of presentation at this month’s Metaverse Meetup in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. (Brooklyn is, of course, the capital of the metaverse, for those who didn’t already know.) In fact, it’ll be a fun evening. The metaverse meetups regularly draw a great crowd of people doing fascinating things with virtual worlds, geospatial technologies and lifelogging, and there’s ample opportunity to drink in a rich stew of ideas, socialize and just generally goof off from 6:00pm into the wee hours of the morning, if you last that long. [UPDATE: There’s now a location for this event. It’ll start off in the back room at Planet Thailand in Williamsburg, and move on from there.] (more…)

Second Life resident Forseti Svarog (aka Giff Constable of the Electric Sheep Company) has begun a search for the greatest architectural wonders of the virtual world of Second Life, which he plans to collect in Volume 2 of Great Builds of SL, a virtual book you can pick up in the »Bisque region« of Second Life. So if you have one in mind, drop him an IM in-world, or email him at forseti.svarog[AT]gmail.com.

I love the idea of a virtual picture book on Second Life (such as this one). The only way I’d love it more were if it were real. (Who knows, maybe that’s on the way as well.) I actually think it’s important to keep these kind of documents updated, since SL is so mercurial, and great builds rise and fall practically overnight. I’d love to be able to look back on the best, rather than have to lament that they’ve been lost to the pixelated mists of time.