Solidworks and other Apps on a Prim

I have been testing a few apps with SL Shared Media on a Prim

First: I used LogMein to access a remote computer, You can open any desktop application and share it with another user via HTML on a Prim. This snapshot shows Solidworks a high-end CAD app running on a remote computer (not my desktop but in another company). It was operable in SL.

We also explored

• Dimdim - with a Dimdim Free account you can schedule and host web meetings with up to 20 people with desktop sharing, chat, cam and a whiteboard.

Last we looked at chat, cams, games, java apps and Flash . Imagine a cam view out your RL window placed as a texture outside a window in SL and then watch NYC go by realtime from that skybox.

• YawCam - Yet Another WebCAM software... Put that view out your RL window into a window in SL. Watch NYC go By RealTime from that skybox.
• Ustream: Tested - Very laggy for interactive cam & voice chat, Good for broadcast only.
  
• imo.im: Tested this with Skype - The Cam window is very small, but you can chat an voice with those outside of SL and it has a nice whiteboard. This is a free service with no registration so anyone can log in via a prim.
  

  

• WIX - Free Flash Websites, Banners and Widgets

Here are a few URLS I tried to paste on prims to get started but it appears SL 2.0 does not play well with all java apps, since both refused to load showing:

This browser does not have a Java Plug-in.
Get the latest Java Plug-in here. :

Flame - Flame is a paint program in the browser by Peter Blaškovič like no other I have seen: http://www.escapemotions.com/experiments/flame/index.html#top

Processing: http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=6572
spacebar to shoot, right left to move



The Flickr Second Life - Best of the Best group slideshow did work great: http://www.flickr.com/groups/secondlife-bestofthebest/pool/show/

Blender 3D + many hours

Q.Why show advances in Blender that take hours of to render?
A. With Moore's Law, Real Time is only 3 to 4 1/2 years away.

Head Cam - Using the new Shared Media feature

Image and quotes from: The personal blog of Giulio Prisco.

"I made this webcam avatar attachment, a real augmentationist wet dream. It is very simple, open a ustream account and assign one of the media stream feeds to a face of a prim. Here I used the pop-up window feed: http://www.ustream.tv/channel-popup/giulioprisco"

"This was not possible before SL2.0 because there was a limit of one media stream per parcel. Now you can wear your realtime webcam feed all the time, and SL can be used for videoconferencing."

"In principle, of course -- I have not tested what happens when 100 users display their realtime webcam feed, it would eat a lot of bandwidth."

The IEEE Virtual Reality 2010 conference in Waltham, Massachusetts, USA, March 20-24, 2010.

After the Launch of SL 2.0 "The Lab" will be on a roll.

Keynote Speaker: Howard Look-Linden Lab

Keynote Title:
Breaking Down the Walls: The Future of Second Life

Speaker Info:
Howard Look
Senior Vice President of Customer Applications, Linden Lab

Abstract:
Is it possible for 3D Virtual Worlds to be as ubiquitous and relevant as the 2D Internet? Will a broad consumer audience find as much social connection and value in a 3D world as it does in the 2D experiences of Twitter and Facebook? Will conducting business in virtual meeting rooms or attending virtual conferences be as natural and valuable as in real life? Will consuming virtual goods be as commonplace as commerce on Amazon or Ebay? Will standards emerge that enable scalable and interoperable experiences between Virtual Worlds?

At Linden Lab, we certainly think that all this, and more, will happen. In this talk, I'll describe what we're doing to make the vision a reality. From our humble startup beginnings a decade ago, through a hype-fueled expansion, Second Life continues to grow. We're now undergoing a substantial transformation, renovating our platform and experience as we grow beyond our early adopter roots. I'll take you behind the scenes and describe what we're up to, the technology that we're banking on, and hopefully inspire you with some of the incredible experiences our residents have created.

Bio:
Howard Look joined Linden Lab in December 2008 as the Senior Vice President of Customer Applications. In this role, Howard oversees the team responsible for the Second Life Viewer, the client gateway to the Second Life Virtual World.

Prior to joining Linden Lab, Howard served as Vice President of Software at Pixar Animation Studios, where he led the team that developed and maintained its proprietary filmmaking system. Prior to Pixar, Howard was on the founding team of TiVo Inc., where he played an instrumental role in defining TiVo’s functionality and UI while serving as Vice President of Application Software and User Experience. Previously, Howard was Director of Applied Engineering at Silicon Graphics, where he led the team that created the “O2 Out of Box Experience,” the world's first Virtual Reality Modeling Language-based (VRML) 3D workstation setup environment. He also served as an engineer on the Inventor team, which later became the foundation for VRML.

Via: IEEE VR 2010 Program/Keynote

Scoble & M - Second Life 2.0 Beta Available

Second Life launches browser with Shared Media via Webkit

• Second Life Viewer 2 Beta, Now Available
• YouTube Videos & Tutorials

• Introduction to Shared Media in Second Life - Part 1
• Torley

I will be careful to not login to my bank account or even email while in SL until the security questions are answered.

Intel Smoke - Game Technology Multithreading Demo v1.2

A few days ago Intel released an update of it's Smoke tech demo. The demo shows support of n-way threading (multi-threading on N cores) using Intel Threading Building Blocks.

Physics simulation is performed by Intel's Havok Physics, 3D rendering is executed by OGRE and sound is powered by FMOD.

• Demo: http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/smoke-game-technology-demo/

News - Copybot Detection & Monthly License Model

Ann Otoole has reported that Skills Hak, a developer on the Emerald team, creator of the Gemini Viewer, and reportedly a past copybotter, has released a new product, the:
[GEMINI Cybernetics] Client Detection System / CDS Ban Relay 1.9 / 1 month license
to detect Copybot enabled viewers and to blacklist users found using "illegal" viewers.

I find a second thing interesting about this product; The monthly licensing model. This may not be the first time this has been done, but it is new in SL to me. It also follows quite the controversy about a post by a Linden Lab board member this last month.

https://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=2117915

LOL UPDATE:

Prok: Rodney Linden's Friend Sells Anti-Copybot Device

Gene Replacement: SLUniverse

"I just tested Meerkat, Imprudence, and Emerald, with the trivial (~3 lines?) change required to turn their object backup functionality into a full fledged copybot.

This system did not detect any of my copybotting attempts.

Sounds like its just a pay version of Emeralds client detection, which looks for unique UUIDs that clients like cryolife and neillife broadcast in place of the deprecated clothing layers.

With that said, the claim of detecting over 80% of copybot clients is most likely true, as over 80% of copybotters are too retarded to use anything other than cryolife or neillife."

Casper Priestman: SLUniverse

"Nothing like a good old community bitchfest to air things out and voice opinions and possible solutions."

What is Linden Lab doing with Endorphin & Euphoria?

NaturalMotion has three products: Endorphine, Euphoria & Morpheme. Linden Lab is listed as a customer of Endorphin. Just imagine what" could be" the future of SL animation. Imagine Havok 7.0 integrated with Euphoria, and a new API.


From http://www.naturalmotion.com

Euphoria has been used in a number of games like GTA IV & with Havok in StarWars in 2007

• To watch an introduction video by NaturalMotion Click here
• To download of endorphin (70MB) 2.7.1 Learning Edition & or Maya plugins:

One can only dream ~s~

QtWebKit & Torque 3D

While we await SL 2.0, work with Kristen's S19, watch the development of Google O3D, Unity 3D, Sirakata and RealXtend Naali, in the game engine world there are parallel developments. Here is a video of WebKit & Flash Player support for Torque 3D Beta 1.1



The technology uses QtWebKit which is based off Apple's WebKit, the same HTML5/Canvas based web rendering engine from Chrome, Safari, and Adobe AIR. Flash is also fully supported.

In addition see this from the same developer: Google Chromium embedded in Torque3D

Logorama - The Extreme Fair Use of Trademarks

A great short from H5 featuring Ronald McDonald - NSFW

Private Clouds

Below is from: http://www.aecbytes.com/feature/2010/BIM_Cloud.html <- read it in full since this gives a taste of the future for professional 3D applications, Architecture, CAD, BIM & PLM. I can not believe that IBM & Linden Lab did not see this coming when they cooperated in the development of the Second Life Enterprise Platform.

BIM and the Cloud

Chris France
CIO, Little Diversified Architectural Consulting

We have heard a lot about Cloud Computing and SaaS (Software as a Service), but what about moving our high performance graphics workstations to the cloud? This article describes how Little Diversified Architectural Consulting, located in Charlotte NC, built a private cloud that included their high performance graphics workstations (HPGW). A private cloud differs from the public cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services or Google by the fact that the cloud computing infrastructure and resources are controlled by the individual business that deploys it. (See a brief discussion by Tom Bittman of Gartner on private cloud computing in this YouTube video.)

In general, most of the current discussion around cloud computing has been dealing with the servers (or back-end systems). Only recently have businesses begun to put their desktops and workstations into the cloud. Little’s cloud is the first AEC workstation cloud in production and is on track to reduce our workstation and laptop hardware expense by 67% ($2M) over the next 10 years.

Why is this solution viable now—what has changed? There are several reasons. First, the cost of network bandwidth has decreased. You can now get 10mb of metro Ethernet for the same price a T1 (1.5mb) used to cost. Also, Windows 7 and Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) have gotten much better at moving screen images of media-rich applications. Finally, hardware costs are coming down and rack-mounted server-class workstations are within the reach of many firms.

Business Benefits of Workstation Clouds

The current economy has been challenging for all organizations and has caused everyone to rethink everything. The driving force behind this cloud innovation at Little has been Building Information Modeling (BIM). Designers are now able to construct a fully documented, 3D building on a computer before they actually build it on-site. This requires a lot of computer power as well as a few obstacles to overcome. Little’s cloud strategy “kills 11 birds with one stone” and has many applications outside of the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry as well.

Read the rest: http://www.aecbytes.com/feature/2010/BIM_Cloud.html

More reading - CAD PLM/BIM blogroll:

• Clarity on PLM
  
• 3D Perspectives
• Between the Lines
• Daily PLM Think Tank / PLM Twine
• Develop3d
• Siemens PLM Software Blog
• SolidSmack
• Virtual Dutchman
• Vuuch Voice

AIA Interoperability Position Statement

Interoperability Position Statement
(approved by the AIA Board of Directors December 2009)

"The AIA believes that all industry-supporting software must facilitate, not inhibit, project planning, design, construction, commissioning and lifecycle management. This software must support non-proprietary open standards for auditable information exchange and allow for confident information exchanges across applications and across time.

This is best accomplished through professional, public- and private sector adoption of open standards. The AIA encourages its members and other industry organizations to assume a leadership role in the ongoing development of open standards.."

via: http://www.nibs.org/client/assets/files/bsa/aia_interoperability_position.pdf

The National Institute of Building Sciences is a non-profit, non-governmental organization that successfully brings together representatives of government, the professions, industry, labor and consumer interests, and regulatory agencies to focus on the identification and resolution of problems and potential problems that hamper the construction of safe, affordable structures for housing, commerce and industry throughout the United States. Authorized by the U.S. Congress, the Institute provides an authoritative source and a unique opportunity for free and candid discussion among private and public sectors within the built environment. The Institute's mission to serve the public interest is accomplished by supporting advances in building sciences and technologies for the purpose of improving the performance of our nation's buildings while reducing waste and conserving energy and resources.

About the American Institute of Architects

Based in Washington, D.C., the AIA has been the leading professional membership association for licensed architects, emerging professionals, and allied partners since 1857.

Keeping Tabs on Emoko

I wrote a post titled A Proposed New Open Viewer Platform last October after looking at Sirikata's Berkelium & Realxtend's work on creating a new viewer. I also looked at Emoko™, an indi browser with avatars developed by Graham Software of New York. It appears the project is based on the Torque Game Engine Advanced ("TGEA") and the Mozilla open-source software project, but I have not confirmed this.

Mal Burns had run across a YouTube by Skylar Smythe reporting for The Metaverse Tribune on Emoko. I tried it and found it was interesting but offered no real usability improvements unless it could be integrated into Virtual World Viewer like The SL viewer or realXtend.

I just recently revisited their YouTube channel and they recently posted a few interesting new videos. Though Emoko is concentrating on making the web page 3D or floating in space, I was impressed with a few things, like user customizable buttons. Imagine an SL Viewer with this feature for music, huds, build tools etc. Take a look.

SHADOWS - One of a few snapshots

Snapshot-shadows_003, originally uploaded by jeanricard.broek.

Today I tested KirstenLee Cinquetti's newest S19 viewer. It now displays dynamic shadows with ATI Radion Cards (ATI 3870 and above). The location of the shot is the Pathfinders Sim, and Kirsten's blog and the viewer download can be found at: http://kirstenleecinquetti.blogspot.com/

The Easy Bake Oven, Lionel Trains & Second Life

Image: Life.com Lionel Trains, August 08, 1949, Al Fenn
© Time Inc. For personal non-commercial use only

With the Engage!® Conference and Expo, this year coupled with the American International Toy Fair (Toy Fair) in NYC I could not help thinking back about a previous post were I compared building a sim in Second Life to Model Railroading, a childhood hobby.

Lionel Trains was the creation of engineer and entrepreneur Joshua Lionel Cowen, who built his first electric train as a store-window attraction around 1900. When customers asked to purchase the train instead of the product it advertised, Cowen realized the toy’s potential and, in 1902, started the Lionel Manufacturing Co. Lionel train sets were noted for their authentic detail, smooth-operating three-rail tracks, and transformers that allowed kids to control the speed of their trains. Shrewd marketing made every boy think of Lionel trains each time Christmas came around.

In the early 20th century A.C. Gilbert introduced the Erector Set in 1913.

Henry Ford's Model T was still new. The Wright Brother's triumph was still experimental. Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, and George Eastman watched their inventions flourish. New railroads and bridges reached out and pulled together a nation that New Mexico and Arizona had just joined.

Source: The Eli Whitney Museum

Later in 30s Gilbert reintroduced the American Flyer Train Set.

In 1938, Gilbert purchased American Flyer, a struggling manufacturer of toy trains. Gilbert re-designed the entire product line, producing 1:64 scale trains running on O gauge track.

In its heyday in the 1950s, Lionel accounted for two-thirds of all the toy trains sold in the United States.

Source: Wikipedia

While writing the history of Second Life, the decline of Lionel Trains after it's highpoint crossed my mind. In the 60s a new "standard", 1/2 O scale (HO) took over the train market. Lionel was trapped and could not change, escape its roots, its brand, new or old customer expectations and associations.

Now think about the changes that Linden Lab must make or may have to make. Lionel was like Second Life, proprietary with a third rail, one dominant company with control of it's world, a walled garden. Along came S scale and two rails but It was only a little better. Think OpenSim and how scale compares to today's toys, the computer platforms, the PC, the game console, the smart phone and now the iPad.

Like today there were attempts to create standards. Read this quote from the NMRA site and compare it to what is occurring today:

Before the 1930s, there were no common standards pertaining to model railroad equipment. One manufacturer's equipment would not necessarily work with another manufacturer's or even run on someone else's track. Many modelers built to their own standard or from their own designs and ideas. In many cases it was difficult, if not impossible, to take your cars or locomotives to another modeler's railroad and expect them to run without problems. There were nearly as many couplers as there were manufacturers. This situation could only work to the detriment of the hobby as a whole.

The NMRA came into being in 1935 with a gathering of model railroaders, manufacturer's, and publishers, in response to the need to bring order out of chaos. The NMRA Standards were developed as a way to help insure that equipment could be interchanged between one model railroad and another and that cars and locomotives of one manufacturer could run on the track of another manufacturer together with cars and equipment of still other manufacturers and modelers.

Since 1936, many of these basic Standards have remained virtually unchanged from the time of their original publication. They have been added to and refined, but they have stood the test of time and have proven to have been of great benefit to the hobby of model railroading and have contributed greatly to allowing the hobby to develop to the point where it is today.

In the late 50s HO scale, a standard that had no single dominant manufacture, took off like hotcakes. The customers and the hobby shifted to hundreds of large and small manufacturers, some as small as a single person in their basement making parts or cars or little people. HO was better, based on standards, cheaper, more detailed, innovative, more realistic, more varied, etc, etc, and it killed O scale Lionel and S scale American Flyer. Train sets changed from toy trains to the hobby of Model Railroading.

Outside the confines of the train business the rest of the toy business was also changing, just think plastics and electronics.

The Etch A Sketch was introduced in 1960 and the Easy-Bake Oven was introduced in 1963 by Kenner. Both were hits.

Toy companies did not transition to electronics well as they adopted plastics. Etch a Sketch's second generation product, the Etch A Sketch Animator, which debuted in 1986, featured a low-resolution dot matrix display and used two knobs for drawing but did not exactly take the world by storm. New players did better.

The Atari 2600, a ROM cartridge-based console was released in 1977 and in 1985 a console was launched named the Nintendo Entertainment System, and was accompanied by a game named Super Mario Bros. Ballgame changed.

By the late 60s Lionel Corporation was bankrupt & sold the tooling for its then-current product line and licensed the Lionel name to General Mills in 1969. The final blow to Lionel in the 80s was electronic games. After trying to move manufacturing to Mexico and then China by the early 90s Lionel was all but dead.

From here on the time-line matches the period I covered in the Second Life History Post.

1995 - Investors, Stars and New Technology:
Source: clipped from Wikipedia

Lionel changed hands again in 1995, when Kughn sold controlling interest in the company to an investment group that included rock starNeil Young and the holding company Wellspring Capital Management, which was headed by former Paramount Communications chairman Martin Davis (he had left the board of Viacom, which bought Paramount the previous year). The new company became known as Lionel LLC. The company continued marketing reproductions of its vintage equipment, and the trend towards producing new equipment that was ever-more-detailed (with a correspondingly higher price) continued.

Additionally, Young, who at that time had a 20% stake in the company, helped finance the development of Trainmaster Command Control, a technology similar to Digital Command Control which permits, among other things, the operation of Lionel trains by remote control. In order to proliferate this standard, Lionel has licensed it to several of its competitors, including K-Line. This technology was the brainchild of Neil Young. It was originally licensed to Lionel under the Liontech name. Another element of Young's vision was the creation of "Railsounds II" a sound system that would faithfully reproduce the sound of a particular locomotive, with electronics and loudspeaker built into each model.

Profits, IP, Trademarks and Trade Secrets:
Source: clipped from Wikipedia

In April 2000, competitor and former partner MTH Electric Trains filed a trade secret misappropriation lawsuit against Lionel, LLC, saying that one of Lionel's subcontractors had acquired plans for an MTH locomotive design and used them to design locomotives for Lionel.

On May 27, 2004, Union Pacific Railroad sued Athearn and Lionel for trademark infringement because both companies put the names and logos of UP, as well as the names and logos of various fallen flag railroads UP had acquired over the years, on their model railroad products without a license. While Athearn quickly settled and acquired a license, Lionel initially resisted, arguing that it and its predecessor companies had been using the logos for more than 50 years and had been encouraged or even paid to do so.

In September 2004, the troubled company dismissed its CEO, Bill Bracy, and replaced him with Jerry Calabrese, a former Marvel Comics and NASCAR executive.

Last Hopes: (note the business is about the same size as Second Life)
Source: clipped from Wikipedia

On November 15, 2004, Lionel, LLC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing the $40 million-plus judgment in the MTH lawsuit.

The 2004 Christmas movie Polar Express, based on the children's book of the same name, provided Lionel with its first hit in years. Lionel produced a train set based on the movie, and stronger-than-anticipated demand caused highly publicized shortages. Various news stories told of a reporter's quest to locate a set, and some dealers marked the prices up above the suggested retail price of $229.

On September 13, 2006, Lionel and UP settled the suit for $640,000 plus a royalty on future sales. In regard to MTH lawsuit, recent filings revealed Lionel agreed to pay MTH $12 million in cash to settle the lawsuit and a separate spat involving patented smoke-puffing technology.

By November 2006, the company had turned a $760,000 profit on sales of $55 million.

In 2006 the classic Easy-Bake Oven and Lionel Trains were inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame at the Strong National Museum of Play, Rochester, NY.

March 27, 2008 Judge Burton R. Lifland, of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York, approved Lionel LLC's Chapter 11 reorganization plan, clearing the way for the company to exit bankruptcy.

Lionel's Chapter 11 plan also calls for private-equity firm Guggenheim Corporate Funding to contribute $37.1 million to the reorganized Lionel company, which consequently now owns 48.6 percent of the new Lionel. Similarly, the plan also calls for the estate of the late Martin DavisParamount Communications Inc.) to provide $21.9 million to Lionel, and the Davis estate will now have a 28.6 percent share in the reorganized company. Guggenheim's and the Davis estate's funding totalled $59 million for the reorganization plan; they are also loaning Lionel an additional $10 million in second-lien debt.

In 2007 the first electronic game console the Atari 2600 and in 2009 The Nintendo Gameboy" were inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame

In 2009 George Lucas was inducted in the Toy Industry Hall of Fame. Star Wars was the first entertainment franchise that brought together film, licensing and merchandising. Star Wars action figures established the 3¾-inch scale and spawned a community of passionate toy collectors setting the industry "standard" on which most major movie toy lines are based today.followed.

For the 2009 Christmas Season Lionel opened a pop up retail shop in Rockefeller Center. In its 100+ year history, this was the first time Lionel Trains set up shop in New York at 30 Rock on 50th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues.

The Future:

Today Lionel is again trying to build on it's brand and reinvent itself.

http://www.lionel.com/

Syntensity Browser Plugin

On Jan 24th 2010 The author of this video Dr. Alon Zakai ('kripken') Project leader posted his intent.

3D and the Open Web

This post is a call for feedback, about Syntensity's engine (the Intensity Engine) being used on the web. The basic idea is that we - people on the web - should avoid what happened with Flash, a single vendor controlling a closed technology, which became the de facto standard for video and interactive content for many years. Instead, we need an open source solution, not controlled by any one corporation. I think the Intensity Engine is close to being suitable for that, and am looking for feedback on this idea, and help in achieving it.

A big part of the success of the web is its openness: We can run websites on any of several webservers, some of them open source (Apache, lighttpd, nginx, etc.), and visit those websites using likewise open source web browsers (Firefox, Chromium, etc.). That's an amazing achievement. And let's not forget that just a few years ago Internet Explorer was dangerously close to a choke hold on the web browser side.

.....

There are some open technologies that show promise, mainly WebGL and Google's O3D. These may well end up succeeding. However, neither is a complete game engine, like for example the Unity 3D web plugin. There is a lot more that is necessary over what is present in WebGL and O3D - physics, content creation tools, a proper API and useful libraries, network protocols (for multiplayer), etc. etc. Some of that might be added to WebGL and O3D using JavaScript. However, many games are too computationally intensive, even with the best JavaScript engines out there.

Perhaps at some point Google Native Client (NaCl) will allow running game engines on the web. But instead of entirely relying on that, I think the open web needs an open source 3D gaming engine. The time to do it is now, before something else non-open comes to dominate the field. I'd like to suggest the Intensity Engine for that purpose: It is a complete, stable, cross-platform game engine. It works right now (outside of browsers) and has been in production for several months, successfully, on syntensity.com. It is 100% open source, and the current license, the AGPL, can be modified immediately to something else, like the BSD license, if that makes sense for this purpose. Also, the Intensity Engine was built with something like the web in mind - we use JavaScript to create games (Google V8 right now, and we also did some tests with SpiderMonkey), for example. In our mind, the ability to download and run games was always in parallel to how web browsers download and run web pages.

One concrete idea among others is to port the Intensity Engine's rendering system to O3D, and build a browser plugin of the result.

So, I'm looking for feedback about this topic, and ideas and help for how to move it forward. I really feel it isn't just us over here (in 3D gaming) that care about this stuff - lots of people want the web to remain open, and that should include 3D content and games. "

Drop by http://syntensity.blogspot.com/ and leave a comment

Sirikata Architecture

Daniel Horn and Ewen Cheslack-Postava gives a high level overview over the Sirikata system architecture. Recorded at Stanford University January 29th 2009. More information about Sirikata at sirikata.com


1 year ago: Tue, F

New Player on the block - NeoAxis Game Engine recommended by OGRE Team

With the use of Ogre by both Sirikata and realXtend, and Unity getting attention for its ability to run in the browser via a plug-in. This is an interesting addition to the mix from Russia.



Press Release:

NeoAxis Game Engine recommended by OGRE Team

03 February, 2010

The NeoAxis Game Engine is the first Full Game Engine that has made it on the list of software recommended by the OGRE Team. OGRE is the most powerful Open Source Graphics available. The development team of OGRE states that "On this page we list the best tools and add-ons available for use with OGRE".

Features:

• .NET based API - Internally, the engine uses the power of unmanaged C/C++ compoments such as rendering, physics and audio for maximal performance. You can execute your project without installed .NET Framework by means of Mono Runtime.
• NeoAxis based applications can be deployed to web browsers. NeoAxis Engine supports all major browsers including FireFox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Opera and Safari.
• Physics: NVIDIA PhysX support. ODE support (expanded by continuous collision detection)
• Networking: support based on UDP protocol

Link:

http://www.neoaxisgroup.com/

Quote and Video - Philip Rosedale - Virtual Worlds and Second Life

"The gap between Pixar and realtime rendering is four to five years"
Philip Rosedale @ 43 min into the video



Tat tip to: Mal Burns

For more about Philip see this Digital Nation by PBS interview

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/virtual-worlds/second-lives/the-believer.html?play

Watch Digital Nation Online (90 minutes) --- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/

Q.What is Philip up to now?
A. The Love Machine

LoveMachine is a team of people using disruptive technologies to very rapidly build things that can make money and have a shot at saving the world. Right now we have three projects, in different areas and stages of development:

Work. Software for companies to work better and faster.
Money. A digital replacement for world currencies.
The Brain. Can 10,000 computers become a person?

Oracle pulls the plug on Project Wonderland

After just reporting here on Project Wonderland Jan 18th, 2010, this news appears on January 30th 2010.

http://blogs.sun.com/wonderland/entry/good_news_and_bad_news

Screw Search - How we find the Best Shit in SL

1. Click on any great object you like, hair, prim dress, tree, chair, etc.
   
2. Select Edit or More/Inspect if you want to look deeper
   
3. Find the Creator of the Object
   
4. Look at their Profile
5. Check their Picks to find their store/shop
6. TP to the shop
7. Look around, find the item and Buy

This is not news to anyone who has been in SL more then a few times. This method is the way most experienced shoppers find quality content and is a favorite and unique SL method of "discovery".

Success breads success in SL, the more objects a creator has out there inWorld the more click-throughs you get. I am now curious to know how people discover the best skins. Is it all by word of mouth, search, advertising? Are marketing programs significantly different for skin creators since there is no discovery via edit?