General News

Medical education in Second Life: it works

February 8, 2010 · Comments

(This story originally appeared over at Metaverse Health) The Journal of Medical Internet Research has published a study on the outcomes of a a pilot postgraduate medical education program at the Boston University School of Medicine presence in Second Life. You can read the full paper here, but the synopsis of the study is: 1. Fourteen physicians participated in the pilot, with twelve providing feedback. 2. The learning exercise was related to Type 2 diabetes, with participants surveyed on any change in confidence and performance, as well as attitudes toward the virtual learning environment itself. 3.... [Read the full story]

Australian News

Discussion on internet filter on Tonight Live is… live!

January 26, 2010 · Comments

As mentioned previously, I had the pleasure of appearing on Tonight Live with Paisley Beebe. The topic of discussion was the Commonwealth Government’s proposed internet filtering legislation and its potential impact on virtual worlds. Paisley asked some incisive questions that helped set the scene for both the challenges and opportunities the legislation may provide. As I say in the interview, I’m confident environments like Second Life won’t be heavily impacted by the legislation, assuming those of us affected ensure the government understands the issue. Aside from that discussion,... [Read the full story]

Business

Immersive environments and the enterprise: new report

January 22, 2010 · Comments

Erica and Sam Driver from ThinkBalm have released a new report. Titled The Enterprise Immersive Software Decision-Making Guide, the focus is obviously virtual environments suitable for business applications. For those not aware of ThinkBalm, they have a growing stable of reports on the state of play in virtual worlds industry, particularly from a business perspective. Aside from detailing nineteen vendors out there, the guide provides some useful strategies to assist in choosing a virtual environment for an enterprise. It’s pretty standard project governance and needs analysis stuff, but... [Read the full story]

Education

Body image and virtual worlds: call for study participants

January 12, 2010 · Comments

Jon-Paul Cacioli is a Doctor of Clinical Psychology student at Deakin University, and he’s currently conducting a study on body image in virtual worlds. In his words: “I am looking for participants, male and 18+ to complete a survey regarding both their real world and virtual world body images and psychological states.” He needs 300 or so participants to take the survey. It’s a fairly intensive process, which takes around 15-20 minutes. If you have that time to give, then go make a contribution toward the increased understanding of how we perceive ourselves in the virtual... [Read the full story]

Health

Medical education in Second Life: it works

February 8, 2010 · Comments

Op-ed

Avatars United: desire or forced marriage?

February 1, 2010 · Comments

Linden Lab, whether by design or by accident, appears to have pulled their usual stunt: Wallace Linden’s post caused panic and disarray, focussed in a misleading direction, and barely hinted at the truth of the matter. Once again, decisions had been finalised even before the post went live. This sort of behaviour does nothing to inspire confidence in the user population, but I suppose it is at least consistent. These days, many of us know to be very critical of any blog post offering, even from new folk on the team. This consistency means that we can predict with some confidence that changes... [Read the full story]

Op-ed

Avatars United: desire or forced marriage?

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Identity: Linden Lab change of heart?

Your identity is defined in part by which pieces of identification you choose to share with a person or group. Every person you know does not have the same information about you as everyone else. What you share with your mother, your boss at work, your bank manager, is different to what you share with your lovers (unless...

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Will the Real You Please Stand Up: precedence in communications

The precedent that has been set by most of the employees permitted to post on the Linden Lab main blog is this: that the issues addressed in the post are close to final or finalised already. The posts are presented as though those commenting on the posts could still have some input, however it’s usually in vain...

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Why the iPad is a game-changer for virtual environments

In the past couple of hours, the official announcement of the Apple iPad has finally been made. As with all these announcements, the rumors have been partly right, but there’s still been a fair share of surprises. I won’t go into the technical specifics of the iPad here: publications like Australian Macworld...

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