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Sunday, 17 June 2007 |
by Don Reisinger
Besides cost effectiveness, a variety of ideas is swirling around the industry that involves data center evolution that may be unrealistic but still possible and cool to envision.
Right now there are likely thousands of people roaming virtual worlds such as those found in Second Life or World Of Warcraft. Now imagine that kind of environment as a way to manage and visualize data centers.
Lechner believes such a world is a possibility. He says, “Clients will go into virtual worlds from a remote location and view a mirrored image of their data center and deploy, reconfigure, repurpose servers and software through this virtual world. This will be a unique way to manage and view your entire data center from any location.”
READ IT ALL HERE:
http://www.processor.com/editorial/article...
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Sunday, 17 June 2007 |
By Armchair Anarchist
IBM are totally in love with the metaverse, and are currently churning out ideas related to virtual worlds at a rate of knots. Their latest wheeze is to give avatars a sort of virtual passport that allows them to keep the same appearance and possessions as they travel between different synthetic spaces. Which is a nice idea, but it could be a slippery slope. Next thing you know, you'll have to get a replacement virtual passport with a virtual RFID chip in it. And then you'll have to remove your avatar's shoes and dispose of any virtual liquids before starting your journey ...
READ IT ALL HERE:
http://www.futurismic.com/
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Sunday, 17 June 2007 |
By Karl
The next revolution is sneaking up on us; witness these two commercial products: the $2500 NextEngine 3d scanner, which lets you suck real objects into the virtual realm of your computer; and the $5000 Desktop Factory, which lets you spit them back out again.
There's two axes to this revolution. Along one of them, we start dissolving the distinction between the virtual and the real; combine the above technologies with pervasive location- and orientation-sensitive augmented reality systems, and soon some of your possessions are physical and some are virtual, but which is which is a matter of choice. Some of the physical ones can be scanned and stored (the vase and its flowers), then summoned back into existence in virtual form, duplicated, changed etc. Some of your virtual possessions can be made physically real (much of your Second Life or WoW swag, for instance), or you can recreate that vase that you scanned and then sold at your garage sale--complete with a fine reproduction of the flowers that were in it when you scanned it!
This is fairly mind-boggling, but imagine the possibilities when you combine these tools with reprap technology. Reprap stands for "REPlicating RAPid prototyper," which, to translate, means self-reproducing machine. I spent some time with one of the project members, Sebastien Bailard, at the most recent Penguicon, and they're not joking when they say, "We hope to announce self-replication in 2008."
The technology is evolving so rapidly, in fact, that we're likely to see a kind of Moore's Law liftoff in the next several years. Consider that Canon has just announced it will start selling a 3d printer this summer. Fab technology is rapidly tipping over into home hobbyist territory and, once that happens, expect things to accelerate.
READ IT ALL HERE:
http://www.kschroeder.com/1181850035
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Friday, 15 June 2007 |
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Sponsored by: 
By Paul R. La Monica Second Life, the popular online world, is certainly getting a lot of attention these days. The company's parent, Linden Lab, is generating revenue from transactions that take place in the Second Life world as well as advertising. Members can buy Linden Dollars to conduct business. Big corporations such as IBM (Charts, Fortune 500), Starwoods Hotel and Resort (Charts, Fortune 500) and Toyota (Charts) have set up virtual shops in Second Life. And earlier this week, adult entertainment company Playboy (Charts) announced the launch of a Playboy Island in Second Life that will include a retail store, video lounge and virtual beachfront property where Second Life members can hang out. But even though Second Life gets the most attention, it is far from being the only virtual community out there. Several lesser known sites are also attracting a lot of visitors. In fact, sites such as Club Penguin, a popular virtual community for young kids, Gaia Online, Habbo Hotel and relative newcomers Zwinky and Kaneva all had more unique visitors than Second Life's stand-alone application did in May, according to figures from comScore Research. And another site, There.com, had about the same number of visitors as Second Life in May. READ IT ALL HERE:
http://money.cnn.com/2007...
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 16 June 2007 )
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Written by Enniv Zarf
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Friday, 15 June 2007 |
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 By Eric Reuters
SECOND LIFE, June 14 (Reuters) - Support for open source add-ons to Second Life that were first touted in January are still months away, according to Linden Lab, frustrating some open source efforts to improve the viewer software and the user experience. Hopes were high that open source add-ons to the viewer would help make Second Life easier to use, especially for new residents. A steep learning curve has led a large percentage of new users — as many as 90 percent, according to Linden Lab’s own estimates — to abandon the service within a few months of thier arrival in-world. READ IT ALL HERE:
http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories...
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Written by Enniv Zarf
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Friday, 15 June 2007 |
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The virtual world frenzy will have to be postponed for a few more weeks until one of these burgeoning companies can close a nine figure sale. PaidContent is reporting that Club Penguin's sale talks with Sony have failed. While Club Penguin's reported request that some profits be allotted to charity were cited as one obstacle, Sony's unwillingness to pay more than $500 million is more likely the cause of the breakdown. Club Penguin is a bootstrapped Canadian company that hosts the world's most popular social network for six to ten-year olds. READ IT ALL HERE:
http://vcratings.thedealblogs.com/2007...
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