Virtual Happenings
Posted by Peter | Filed under Second Life, Software, Technology, Virtual Worlds
Lebanese business and tourism
Some interesting things happening lately in the realm of virtual stuff, be it worlds or otherwise. One article which particularly caught my eye was the Bab-ilu portal, which is designed to help foster international business and tourist interest in Lebanon. (I did some brief mission work in Lebanon in 1999, while they were at war with Israel. One thing which struck me wonderfully was the kindness and generosity of many people; despite being in a warzone, and despite the fact that we were outsiders from another religion, they treated us with utmost respect. Parts of it were also absolutely beautiful… if I can find and scan some of my old photos, I’ll post them.)
Virtual conferencing
In other news, a company called Altadyn has released “Online Meeting”, which is designed to support business meetings, based on their 3DXplorer platform, encouraging more participation than you typically get in video-based tele-conferencing. It’s good to see some competition opening up in this area, since Second Life seems to have been the virtual platform of choice for many business happenings of this nature, seeing lots of support from IBM in particular. I have nothing against SL being used for that purpose, but competition is healthy for the market and it’s healthy for innovation.
Music world
Similarly, there is talk of a music-centred virtual world, designed with “live” online concerts in mind. Once again, Second Life has been used for this quite a lot, but having something developed which is dedicated to the particular feature is great. (My experience of “live” music in SL is rather less-than-wonderful, usually due to technology issues.)
Ignorance ain’t bliss!
Let’s balance all the hope of good things with a shot of negativity. Teresa Hunter, writing for Scotland on Sunday, took a hefty, and downright ignorant swipe at Second Life, calling it a “virtual world for sad losers”. I am glad to say my good friend Gia dutifully reprimanded the shocking excuse for an article! (Woo! Go Gia…)
Clash of the Titans
Posted by Peter | Filed under Second Life, Technology
(Warning: a slight moan ahead… you’ve been warned…!)
Call me a doomsayer, but I think we could be about to see a trademark war. Thus far, Linden Lab’s legal team have reared their ugly (I mean lovely and in no way defamatory) heads at anybody and everybody who even hints at the name or logo of Second Life, even if the usage falls under “fair use” and does nothing but promote the platform. They have seemingly destroyed communities which support the virtual world, all in the name of defending their oh-so-precious trademark, which was never in any real jeopardy anyway.
It will be interesting to see how these bullies stand up to the biggest legal bully of all, now that Microsoft has (either foolishly or heroically) announced their SecondLight technology. Admittedly, it’s not a virtual world… rather, it provides a degree of depth for an otherwise flat display technology. Still, I reckon its close enough to give Linden Lab the shivers.
You can bet that if I alone started a website or service called “SecondLight”, even if it had nothing to do with Second Life, then Linden Lab would be on my case in a flash. So come on Linden legal dudes… bare your teeth at the monster. If you don’t, we’ll all know you’re cowards after all… you squish the little guys, but hide in the corner when somebody bigger comes along.
Long Distance Communication
Posted by Peter | Filed under Technology
You can tell I had a slightly bored lunchtime, as I spent it doing some trace routes and looking up their geo-location information (such as was available). The reason? I wanted to figure how insanely long-distance communications between me and my boss technically are.
From my office, if I want to visit my boss in person, then I go up a set of stairs, and take a very short walk along a corridor. However, we tend to use email a lot more often… so I was wondering just how much further that actually is. The internal email system is rubbish, so we use our own external email systems… his is based on a server in New York (as far as I can tell), and mine is based on a server somewhere in Germany. Here’s the approximate route traced by my system:
- Paisley (University)
- Glasgow
- London
- San Francisco
- New York (mail server #1)
- San Francisco
- Germany (mail server #2)
- London
- Glasgow
- Paisley (University)
My geography has never been terribly good, but looking at a map, I make that at least 9000 miles! (Probably much longer, given that cables are never in a straight line over those kinds of distances.)
Ironically, of course, an email between our offices is likely to arrive faster than we could on-foot. The Internet is amazing when you think about it!
SL Word Processor
Posted by Peter | Filed under Second Life, Technology
I am very pleased to see that the new “http-in” functions for LSL (in Second Life) are available for beta testing now. Basically, these functions let you setup any prim as an HTTP server, which can be accessed from outside via URL, for sending data into SL, and/or requesting it back out.
In a word: awesome! It will be great to avoid so many HTTP polls or whatever.
But here is my cunning new idea… create an object which sets itself up as an HTTP server, and puts its own URL as the parcel’s media URL. It then listens for text coming in via chat, and outputs that text in response to incoming HTTP requests. Voila! Mini-word processor for Second Life!
I have no idea if this will work… I guess I’ll need to wait until the functions go officially ‘live’ before I find out. It’ll be really cool if it does though!
Give them computing… but not too much!
Posted by Peter | Filed under Education, Games, Technology, Websites
All around the world, we are seeing the pros and cons of computers. Education is a major part of the thrust in various aspects of computing right now, whether it is computing classes for prisoners in Pakistan or senior citizens in Illinois, virtual classrooms for universities in India, or even a double-glazing company donating computers to a school in the UK.
As many people have alluded to, genuine computer skills are very important now. The existence of courses such as the ECDL shows this; it is not enough to say simply “computer literate” on your CV now… employers often want to know exactly how computer literate you are (which is entirely fair and valid, because being able to make a pretty Bebo profile is not what I’d call a ‘transferable skill’).
On the flip-side of the argument, I am sure we have all seen many protestations over violent video games. Beyond that, people are now complaining about kids getting addicted to web-games in local cybercafes, with very genuine concern that it could even lead to gambling habits in the future. On a personal note, I am rather appalled at how the number of online Bingo (and similar) sites has ballooned lately (there are numerous TV adverts for them here in the UK). I do not begrudge the choice people have to throw away their money as they see fit, but particularly in such a financial climate as this, convenient at-home gambling — often under the guise of a purely ’social’ activity — is rather a cruel enterprise.
As with everything, moderation is the key. I myself have fallen victim to over-use of computers in the past. Mind you, I don’t even rememeber what I did on the computer all day before I had an ‘always-on’ Internet connection! Perhaps one of the key skills that is not being taught is the most simple of all… how (and when) to switch it off!
Ubiquitous computing and keeping a personal touch
Posted by Peter | Filed under Technology
According to MarketWatch.com, a new hospital in Missouri was designed with a computer in every patient room. (With 258 beds, that’s a lot of computers!)
The results in terms of improving efficiency (less running about finding charts and supplies and so on) are certainly great, but more than that, I am impressed by the deliberate decision to avoid losing the personal patient contact. Specifically, it would be easy for a nurse in the patient’s room to spend all their time looking at a computer screen, and if it is fixed to a wall, that would inevitably mean turning his/her back on the patient.
To avoid this, a mechanism made by Proximity Systems was used, whereby the computer screen and keyboard are on a retractable arm. It can be moved and swivelled into place, allowing the nurse/doctor to continue facing and talking to the patient, and making it a secondary tool in the interaction (as it should be). It can even be swivelled around to let the patient see the screen too. When not in use, the whole thing folds up into the wall, taking up almost no space at all.
I am a self-confessed computer geek, so I like my computers… but I also greatly appreciate this importance for personal contact above artificial. The futuristic visions of computers and robots tending to all our needs (a la various movies) seem fairly bleak to me. We should never lose sight of the personal aspect of life, because we are inherently social creatures (some of us admittedly less so than others!).
Computing for Everyone!
Posted by Peter | Filed under Education, Technology
Budgetting for computing facilities is an odd area sometimes. As many will point out, the cost of the outlay can be quite high (although it is reducing), and the ongoing cost of maintenance can be very difficult to meet (schools in Australia are seeing the negative consequence of bad planning in this area). However, it is also noted that computers can help to save money too, whether by reducing the need for printed material, or allowing colleagues to meet ‘virtually’ instead of having to travel great distances.
Some people have the budgetting fairly well sussed (or just have a big budget!), to the extent that computers practically seem to be a dime-a-dozen for many of us, which is a wonderful privilege. The perceived value of computing facilities is evident in the very fact that initiatives such as OLPC and Classmate PC exist.
Unsurprisingly, education is a major proponent of computing facilities, given the ease with which so much reference material can be stored and searched using a computer (I often wish books had a ’search’ button!), as well as the effectiveness of word-processing assignments over hand-writing, and so on. I have no idea how many computers my university has, for example, but given the number of students across the campuses, I wouldn’t be surprised if the number is into the thousands; there are numerous labs for all students, and it is expected that everybody (no matter what they study, from art to nursing) has some IT literacy.
However, it is worth remembering that not all people are so fortunate in their budget for such things. Computer prices in Pakistan have seen a 20% increase lately, which is adversely affecting educational institutions, which need to increase their tution fees in response, which in turn puts more strain on the students. Worrying too is the situation at the Eastern Ilinois University, where the campus computer labs are too expensive to keep open, so some students are required to buy their own laptop for use on campus instead. Meanwhile, some teachers in Ireland are struggling simply due to apparent strange spending priorities.
Clearly, it is an important area. There are drives to press forward the goal of “computing for everyone”, especially where education is concerned. I am certainly in favour of more people having the knowledge and access required to use things like the Internet, although I wholeheartedly agree that too many people are not educated properly about computing (even those who are regarded as ‘computer literate’ seem to lack fundamental knowledge sometimes).
Having said all that, I doubt there is much that can really be done to rectify the present problem situations, except to learn from the mistakes that are already being made! Maybe make plans more realistic, and remember to help people make effective use of computing opportunities.
(Not Quite) Virtual Teachers
Posted by Peter | Filed under Education, Technology
The BBC carries a video report about teachers making videos (’vodcasts’) to help pupils revise material. While I somewhat challenge the claims of ‘virtual’ and ‘interactive’ made in the report, I do believe this is a positive use of technology… to a certain extent.
I have learned a lot of interesting stuff by watching some educational videos on YouTube and elsewhere on the web (check out the awesome Periodic Table of Videos, for example), but I think it’s crucially important that pupils aren’t lulled into a sense of it being OK to rely too much on ‘after-the-fact’ learning resources. Learning is a process by which information is absorbed and retained. In the same way that mobile phone address books have destroyed people’s ability to remember important phone numbers, these kinds of quick-fix education hits run the risk of reducing pupils’ retention of the material if they are over-used or over-emphasised.
I am still positive about it though. Carry on, but tread carefully!
