3pointD.com

• Why Work Is Looking More Like a Video Game - New York Times
  nyt feature on seriosity and entellium & productive gaming!
  (tags: business design games gaming HCI marketing software)
• Gaming: 2012: Online Only Video: The New Yorker
  Will Wright does a Spore demo for the New Yorker
  (tags: games interview spore videogames)

Channel 4 Radio of the UK has launched a permanent presence in the virtual world of Second Life, where they plan to offer a variety of programming ranging across entertainment, music, documentaries, news and current affairs. The island was constructed by leading UK virtual worlds consultancy, Rivers Run Red, and officially opened today. It comprises a shop, where a free radio wristwatch can be obtained, a studio (whose use is currently unclear), a dance area and “interactive archive pods.” High above the island is a single-seater pod, but there did not appear to be anything playing when I visited. There is also a link to the Channel 4 Radio Web site, where the station already broadcasts its content. Whether being offered in Second Life can add anything to that content remains to be seen. (more…)

UgoTrade has a lengthy write-up of some of the work IBM has been doing in the virtual world of Second Life lately. [Via IBM’s Rob Smart.] The blog entry is all about creating links between the real world and the virtual world, so that sensor data and other information can be visualized in Second Life on a real-time basis. In the screenshot above, “The blue balls with white designs represent active Bluetooth devices. The pyramids scattered about the floor represent other people working, with the color designating things like physical presence or telepresence,” according to UgoTrade. This is just one kind of application that could start to make Second Life a much more useful place. I’d love to see entities and conditions being tracked around SL in real time. Why? Because there’s a ton of information to be extracted from a digital environment, which can then be applied to real-world problems from logistics to marketing to sociology, you name it. That said, this won’t start to get really interesting until we have a nearly plug-n-play solution. Which is probably one of the things IBM is working on. Keep your sensors tuned.

Metaverse services company in-world momentum has begun construction on a virtual Munich in Second Life, the company announced today. Tourist attractions like the Marienplatz, the Viktualienmarkt, and the Frauenkirche should be built out by the end of June, and offices and shopfronts will eventually be offered for rent to SL members. There are a number of blog entries in English, and you should be able to follow the project’s construction at the site. While there’s not much here to get excited about yet, one interesting aspect is the entry detailing how the team shrank Munich down to manageable size. In the end, though, this isn’t the kind of virtual reflection of real-world people, activity and events that could be one of the most interesting uses of Second Life, but only a virtual tourist attraction and demo project. There’s a lot of potential here, though, given the density of tech in Munich, so we look forward to seeing where the SL version of the city goes.

Linden Lab has bought Windward Mark, a company that creates realistic lighting and cloud systems for 3D online environments, according to a story in the Boston Globe. (The purchase was made for an undisclosed sum.) The company is apparently already at work adding their code to LL’s software. “Users should see a major improvement in visual quality within several weeks,” according to the article. I imagine this will be a contentious move in some quarters. There are many people who don’t very much love Second Life’s current lighting systems — but there are many as well who will question why money and effort are being used to improve lighting instead of hiring more talent to stabilize the underlying platform. Let the debate continue.

Amy Wilson has been painting really nice watercolors illustrating her travels around the virtual world of Second Life for some time. Now, she’s published them in a 32-page book, available on Lulu.com. If you dug Giff’s Avatar Expression, you may well dig Amy’s work. The paintings are lovely, and the idea of using a virtual world as the source material for a painting is one that interests me a great deal. Painters have long used the real world around them as their subject matter; why not do the same with a virtual world? Does that mean Amy is painting from life? You can chat about that and other topics of art and virtual worlds at an opening in Second Life being thrown in Amy’s honor on June 2. More details on the where and when of that event when I get them.