pixelbreeze:

“Is Sometimes Colder Than Ice”, the latest short from the Second Life machinima creator named BobE Schism. It’s based on a true story recounted by Paul Auster, from the The Locked Room book of his New York Trilogy. Almost everything in the machinima is executed in-world. The only exception is for the outdoor scenes where there are some extra snowfall particles composited to give the idea of a heavier storm.

(N.B.  While the future of Second Life is uncertain, the flexibility of the platform has given the world a powerful new vehicle for animation and storytelling)

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 Avatars rising in the enterprise | VizWorld.com Virtual worlds, particularly worlds like Second Life, are rapidly becoming more popular for enterprises and government agencies as global-meeting places where people can talk and interact without having to deal with the expense and trials of planes and hotels. An article over at ComputerWorld discusses how several companies have begun to integrate virtual worlds into their regular workflow, focusing heavily on the US Naval Undersea Warfare Center.  (FYI: Visit the Analytics Virtual Center to experience IBM’s collaboration space based on the web.alive platform)

 Avatars rising in the enterprise | VizWorld.com

Virtual worlds, particularly worlds like Second Life, are rapidly becoming more popular for enterprises and government agencies as global-meeting places where people can talk and interact without having to deal with the expense and trials of planes and hotels. An article over at ComputerWorld discusses how several companies have begun to integrate virtual worlds into their regular workflow, focusing heavily on the US Naval Undersea Warfare Center. 

(FYI: Visit the Analytics Virtual Center to experience IBM’s collaboration space based on the web.alive platform)

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FRONTLINE Presents
DIGITAL NATION
Tuesday, February 2, 2010, from 9 to 10:30 P.M. ET on PBS
www.pbs.org/frontline/digitalnation

Over a single generation, the Web and digital media have remade nearly every aspect of modern culture, transforming the way we work, learn and connect in ways that we’re only beginning to understand.

Several teams from IBM were interviewed regarding IBM’s use of virtual worlds for internal conferences, events and remote team collaboration, including IBM Vice President Francoise Legoues from the IBM CIO Organization.

See a clip from the interview with Francoise Legoues:  “Is World of Warcraft on Your Resume?”

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Breathing New Life into Virtual Worlds | Brian Solis - PR 2.0 And you thought Virtual Worlds were so passé…a new study suggests that virtual worlds may be getting a second life. In 2007-2008, many brands and companies flocked to Second Life to build a virtual presence, which spiked, peaked, and created somewhat of a backlash and ultimately a bit of a retreat in the process. By mid-2009, virtual worlds were realizing a comeback of sorts. In July 2009, virtual worlds consultancy kzero.co.uk reported that membership of virtual worlds grew by 39% in the second quarter of 2009 to an estimated 579 million. World of Warcraft, Entropia Universe, Habbo Hotel, Club Penguin and Second Life are respectively posting profits powered by those who were intent on getting a “second” life.

Breathing New Life into Virtual Worlds | Brian Solis - PR 2.0

And you thought Virtual Worlds were so passé…a new study suggests that virtual worlds may be getting a second life. In 2007-2008, many brands and companies flocked to Second Life to build a virtual presence, which spiked, peaked, and created somewhat of a backlash and ultimately a bit of a retreat in the process. By mid-2009, virtual worlds were realizing a comeback of sorts. In July 2009, virtual worlds consultancy kzero.co.uk reported that membership of virtual worlds grew by 39% in the second quarter of 2009 to an estimated 579 million. World of Warcraft, Entropia Universe, Habbo Hotel, Club Penguin and Second Life are respectively posting profits powered by those who were intent on getting a “second” life.

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Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds: Collaboration, Culture and Community’

The product of a year of research across the Internet and four continents, Dancing Ink Productions’ Rita J. King and Joshua S. Fouts explored the potential of virtual worlds as a tool for public diplomacy and a venue for cultural dialog with Islamic Cultures as senior fellows at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs funded by a grant from the Lounsbery Foundation.

(via DancingInkTV)

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Cross Reality: When Sensors Meet Virtual Reality| ReadWriteWeb During my recent visit to MIT in Boston I met with Joseph Paradiso, Associate Professor and Director of the Responsive Environments Group at MIT Media Laboratory. He showed me some demos of what his lab is up to, focusing mostly on what is termed “Cross Reality”. This is when sensor/actuator networks meet online virtual worlds.

Cross Reality: When Sensors Meet Virtual Reality| ReadWriteWeb

During my recent visit to MIT in Boston I met with Joseph Paradiso, Associate Professor and Director of the Responsive Environments Group at MIT Media Laboratory. He showed me some demos of what his lab is up to, focusing mostly on what is termed “Cross Reality”. This is when sensor/actuator networks meet online virtual worlds.

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“Virtual space technology will never replace good, old face-to-face meetings, added Craig Becker, an IBM Master Inventor who serves as tech lead for virtual space events — “but virtual spaces *are* a good deal more immersive, compelling, and engaging than a phone conference,” he said. “One thing we’ve found is that if you and I talk on the phone, we’ll wake up the next morning, and if we think about it, we’ll remember it as ‘talking on the phone.’ But if we meet inside of a virtual space like Second Life … we’ll remember it as an actual *meeting*,” Becker explained. “This sense of ‘meeting’ with other people is a subtle but very powerful advantage that virtual spaces offer.”

Linux News: Virtual Worlds: The Business Case for Virtual Business, Part 2

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“Sametime 3D” — a joint development effort between IBM Research and IBM Lotus extends the notion of collaboration beyond instant messaging, giving teams the ability to meet and interact in a 3D environment through a Sametime plug-in. Once in world, participants can share presentations or videos, utilize the ‘collaboration wall’ to create, discuss, modify and prioritize input for project plans, strategy development, process or requirements analysis or other collaborative activities, and export the results for further analysis

Sametime 3D video presented at the 3DTLC event April 20-21 in Washington, DC. (via jgluckibm)

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