Collaborate on common desktop applications in a virtual world
On the side line I spend time with a number of friends building up a grid based on open simulator, the open source answer to Second Life. At current we have a grid with approximately 50 regions and 300 user accounts, of which half is active at least once a month. The great thing about open source is .. that its open. So a lot of add ons are being developed, and I expect this system to out smart the functionalities that Linden Labs Second Life offers one day.
Real Xtend is virtual world software originally based on open sim and is a very interesting basis to start building your own 3D applications. The one thing i wanted to mention today is the combination of Real Xtend with VNC to share standard desktop application within a 3D world. The most simple application of this is to sit down together and edit that Power Point presentation together, while all the participants are spread out geographically in the actual world. Its this sharing and collaborative editing that makes virtual worlds a killer app for companies in-house, making the tele-worker part of the office based team again.
Read the full article over at Cyber Tech News
Single point of publication
Though I have an account with almost every single social networking service I have ever heard of (and no account with the long tail of SNW i have never been in contact with), i have been hesitant to start using them beyond the function of a community connection point. In other words; I have a friendslist on those networks, but no content. All for the simple reason that I do not have the time to update each and every profile and blog service i have.
So i have started the endevour of using the www.tothport.nl blog as a base to publish my findings and articles on and have them propagate into all the other networked profiles I have, automatically. At current, any blog created at tothport.nl will now show up at Twitter, Hyves, Facebook and in my Linked In Profile. I intend to expand this as far as possible, so each network on which i have friends will also receive the items i care to blog about.
Another part to this is to find the BEST ‘share this content’ service. These services are online applications that allow integration into your site, and then let visitors easily publish the page to their own faceboko, myspace or hve it emailed to any other friend (See the share button below this article) So far I have found the following three: Add to any, Share This and Add This.
Even though ‘Add This’ has a great analytics tool to show you who is tracking you in what manner, I have for now choosen to use the ‘ Add to Any’ service, because it lets you select any one from a huge number of available services if you want to add the link. And in the end, that is all i care about : having my vision and view propagated as far across the metaverse with a minimum of effort on my side.
The machine is us – Web 2.0 explained with Web 2.0
Totally cool movie, explaining in under 5 minutes in a gripping way what exactly the current state of the web is.
Virtual world gains real world banking status
The Swedish financial authority Finansinspektionen has granted virtual world developer Mind Ark a banking licence to create MindBank. This is a VERY big step forward. MindArk currently develops Entropia Universe and intends to bring real life banking to their virtual universe, effectively cutting out the middle-man like pay-pall and your credit card vendor to purchase in world credits.
The future implications of this will be to have my salary paid into MindBank – as it has a real bank status, and directly use my credit on any virtual platform that mindbank supports. Again, the mind boggles as we think ahead at the merging of virtual world platforms and the intricate value that virtual world items have. I am looking forward to selling my unique Second Life sword to a World of Warcraft player and seeing the resulting credit of that end up on my MindArk account.
Tracking income tax is going to be a riot.. and yeh, the swedish taxman has already been at MindArk for that.
Visualise excelsheet data in virtual worlds
The guys from Green Phosphor have made a toolset to allow you to easily exhibit data from a local excelsheet, database or serverbased database (with a little more effort).
Augmented reality and collectible cards
Great to see this: the age-old collectible baseball cards merged with augmented reality. The cards are published by Toppstown, the realisation of the 3D augmented reality games done by Total Immersion.
IBM Lotus Samespace 3D goes Beta
We’ve seen this idea before in the form of RiversRunRed’s Immersive Workspaces; combining online 2D and 3D tools to collaborate and share idea’s. Today IBM has announced its going to Beta with selected clients in the combined use of its Lotus Sametime software with virtual 3D environments. Lotus Sametime will be able to interact with Second Life, Open Sim and Forterra’s worlds, imho a good set to be able to cooperate with.
Now, the next step is being able to pull off the same trick, but now using any virtual world platform as a basis and having it integrate with IBM’s Lotus, Microsoft Outlook or any other existing ’2D’ collaboration tool.
What I want for christmas
Virtual reality cocoon promises full sensory experience
London (England) – At a major science event in London today called Pioneer 09, a new device under development called a Virtual Cocoon has been showcased. The kitchen-sized device encases the user in a sensory input room which virtual reality headsets alone cannot achieve. The potential level of virtual reality the device will deliver has caused the research team to coin a new phrase: Real Virtuality.
Virtual currency broker
Jambool is a service providing game- and virtual world developers with the oppurtunity to leave the handling of the payments for currencies to a third party. Tho its interesting to leave all the poohah of implementing a RL currency <> VW currency to a third party, these guys will take a 10% cut out of all micropayment transactions as handling fees. pretty steep imho.
In practise, you can buy ‘Social Gold’ in MySpace or Facebook and use it to make payments inside these social networks on games or other apps. What seems to be wrong tho, is that i still have two seperate stashes of Social Gold; one for MySpace, and one for Facebook, that i can not transfer Social Gold between. And that just sucks.
