Talent Abounds

Image Source: © Stacia Villota / Virtual Neko in Second Life – 2010
Virtual Neko in Second Life

Second Life is About to Change

Progress with adding Collada Meshes to SL was leaked this past week by Beta Testers and much will be written about how this will change SL and it certainly will.

Here is a peek via the SL FOrum chatlog:

* Import format will be Collada
* Collada allows rigging which means:
o Wearable clothing
o Entire avatar replacements that bent with animations.
* Five submeshes for each object
o Four for different Levels Of Detail
o One for collisions for Havok.
* Meshes will need specifically made textures
o You can have custom uv maps applied to your mesh
o Material id can be assigned to polygons, they can be accessed as "sides" in lsl
o The sides you can use to script texture changes, like in prims
* Theoretically Unlimited number of vertices can be used in a model, but some N number of vertices will be counted as 1 prim against the parcel Limit


images from: Runitai Linden aka Dave

Note the dates: Jan 12, 2010 & Mar 3, 2009


Video by: TimmiAllen

Lab's New Logo?

via: http://alphavilleherald.com/

ThinkBalm Innovation Community to be Disbanded - Erica Moves on

Things are rapidly changing and the rats are getting of the ship.

Yesterday I attended a very well attended broadcast on what the future holds for Second life by hosted by Saffia Widdershins, the Editor of Prim Perfect Magazine, and Elrik Merlin of Radio Riel. While this was occurring I received this in email:

Hello, innovators.

At ThinkBalm we’ve had a couple of great years as industry analysts dedicated to covering work-related use of immersive technologies—an early-stage, emerging technology market. We have worked with some terrific people at great client organizations like Altadyn, BP, Chevron, Forterra Systems (now part of SAIC), Linden Lab, Moondus, ProtonMedia, Teleplace, and Tandem Learning. We’ve published nine comprehensive reports spanning market overview, business value, technology selection, barriers to adoption, and best practices—and made this research freely available via our Web site. We launched the ThinkBalm Innovation Community, grew it to more than 470 members, and hosted more than 35 facilitated work sessions, training sessions, and networking events. More than half of our research reports arose directly out of ThinkBalm Innovation Community activities.

We believe that mainstream adoption of immersive technologies in the workplace—virtual worlds, immersive learning environments, and virtual event platforms—is a matter of when, not if. But these technologies are still a new concept to most organizations and overall the barriers to adoption are quite high. In April, we modified our earlier prediction that we expected to reach the early majority adoption phase in 2013, to say we think it will take longer than this. One thing is clear: this emerging market does not yet require full-time, dedicated industry analysts to cover it.

In early July, Erica will be joining the marketing team at QlikView, a business intelligence software vendor. Sam will stay on with ThinkBalm for some time to work on client consulting engagements. We won’t be publishing any more general research, and plan to disband the ThinkBalm Innovation Community.

One of the greatest gifts of the past two years is the people we’ve met. The people who are working on Immersive Internet initiatives are innovators and free thinkers—truly a special breed. Thank you to all of you who have participated in ThinkBalm Innovation Community events and activities, and in ThinkBalm’s research.

You can find more details about our future plans in this ThinkBalm blog article: http://www.thinkbalm.com/2010/06/15/change-is-under-way-at-thinkbalm/ .

via: LinkedIn Groups

D8 Tech Demo: Microsoft's Project Natal

Microsoft's Molly O'Donnell joins Walt and Kara to talk about Natal, the company's new gesture-based controller for the Xbox.

via: WSJ

All Things Digital Published on 6/2/2010

Finnish Police Investigate Virtual Object Thieft

Up to 10,000 virtual objects stolen from Habbo Hotel

Thieves believed to be between 16 and 19 years old.Up to 10,000 virtual objects stolen from Habbo Hotel

The Habbo Hotel, a virtual online world favoured by many Finnish schoolchildren and young people, may have had up to 10,000 virtual objects stolen from it.

Police suspect that several people in a number of communities have been involved with the virtual theft. Police have conducted a number of house searches in Helsinki, Hämeenlinna, Masku, Raisio, and Pori.

Each of the communities have at least one suspect, according to Marko Levonen of the Satakunta Police.

The suspects are between 16 and 19 years old. Levonen says that it was not hard to find them.
“I cannot say that they would have covered their tracks very much.” However, he will not say to what an extent the young people had understood that they were actually breaking the law. “Most of them certainly have understood that they have done wrong.”

The suspects face charges of crimes including data break-ins and violation of communications confidentiality.

The suspects are believed to have acquired at least 400 user codes and passwords, with which they have logged on to the service and exchanged goods. Levonen says that the goods have been stolen for use in the hotel’s virtual world, and it is also possible that some of the virtual goods have been exchanged for real money.

Exchanging virtual goods for money is not allowed under the rules of the Habbo Hotel, but it happens constantly. On Tuesday, a Habbo Hotel figure was on sale on the Finnish auction site Huuto.net for a starting price of EUR 65. Police say that it is quite possible that new crimes will emerge. Those who are believed to have been the victims of virtual theft are to be contacted by e-mail.

Via :Helsingin Sanomat