1. If I Were an Auditor – A Second Life Accounting Music Video
2. Google Parody Advert (Search Stories): Second Life
3. “Dream Island” Second Life Short by Tak Naglo
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UWA’s Machinima competition: beauty and success
February 10, 2010 By
On Monday the University of Western Australia in Second Life had a bash to announce the winners of its MachinimUWA Challenge. What started out as a L$10,000 prize ended up as L$215,000 thanks to the entries being viewed by the University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alan Robson.
You can view each of the entries below, with the descriptions all provided by the UWA’s resident dynamo, Jayjay Zifanwe. If you take the time to view each, you’re likely to agree that the overall quality of entries has been very strong. I don’t envy the 12-member international judging panel for the decisions they had to make on the shortlist of thirteen. The final results were:
Winner
CISKO VANDEVERRE, Berlin, Germany
SEEK
“The judges thought that this was an absolute firecracker of a Machinima with a brilliant and very different approach. This had wonderful humour, amazing visual effects, great quality of editing and remarkable camera control.”
Second Prize
BRADLEY CURNOW, Perth, Australia
MachinimUWA: Art Architecture, Research, Teaching
“With Bradley’s work, the judges felt this had wonderful velocity with fantastic cutting to music transients, an epic soundtrack and showed off the “4 main elements” to great effect.”
Third Prize
COLEMARIE SOLEIL, Florida USA
UWA Machinima Challenge Submission
“ColeMarie’s brilliant modern and edgy piece was another favourite. Responding to the announcement, she said, ‘I would like to thank all the artists involved in the creation of the UWA sims,and to UWA in particular, for this terrific opportunity to creatively express myself. To all my friends who gave me my space and understood how much working on this project meant to me, to JayJay for asking me to make this video, and Surrealia Anatine for getting me into machinima to start with. To energy drinks for keep me working late into the night, and Bryn Oh for ‘subtle’ yet threatening encouragements to finish this video.’ ”
Honourable Mention
MASTERDARK FOOTMAN, Dallas, Texas, USA
The Heart of UWA
(video unavailable)
Honourable Mention
CHANTAL HARVEY, Maastricht, Netherlands
University of Western Australia in Second Life
Honourable Mention
LASLOPANTOMIK YAO, Barcelona, Spain
MachinimUWA
Finalist
PYEWACKET BELLMAN, New York City, USA
University of Western Australia in Second Life
Finalist
SOPHIA YATES, Lancaster, Massachusetts, USA
The Challenge – Architecture, Teaching, Research Arts on the UWA sims
Finalist
IONO ALLEN, Paris, France
Seek Wisdom
Finalist
GLASZ DECUIR, San Sebastian, Spain
MachinimUWA: UWA in Second Life, Achieving International Excellence
Finalist
NOVA DYSZEL, Toronto, Canada
UWA in SL Challange
Finalist
MASTERDARK FOOTMAN, Dallas, Texas, USA
UWA Jan 2010
(video unavailable)
Finalist
SOPHIA YATES, Lancaster, Massachusetts, USA
Second Life Virtual University of Western Australia
Details of Judging Panel
1. Professor Alan Robson (RL) – Vice-Chancellor, The University of Western Australia
2. Professor Ted Snell (RL) – Director, Cultural Precinct, The University of Western Australia
3. A/Professor Wade Halvorson (RL) – Lecturing in Marketing, Business and Electronic Commerce, The University of Western Australia
4. Colin Campbell Fraser (RL) – Principal Adviser (External Relations and Advocacy),
Vice-Chancellery, The University of Western Australia
5. Kelly Smith (RL) – Director, International Centre, The University of Western Australia
6. Jon Stubbs (RL) – Director, Student Services, The University of Western Australia
7. Susana Willis-Johnson (RL) – Marketing Manager, The University of Western Australia
8. Dr Carmen Fies (RL) – Assistant Professor, The University of Texas at San Antonio
9. Torley Linden (SL) – Linden Labs
10. White Lebed (SL) – Lead of Burning Life Art Department, Curator
11. Raphaella Nightfire (SL) – CEO SW&MB Fashion Productions, CEO Evane Model Agency, Snr Writer Best of SL Magazine
12. Jayjay Zifanwe (SL) – Owner of The University of Western Australia (SL), Creator & co-host of the UWA 3D Art& Design Challenge
The final word from Jayjay Zifanwe:
“In the words of Torley Linden as he was being TP’ed out at the end of the ceremony to attend to Viewer 2.0 matters, ‘This has been awesometastic!’. Yes Torley. It has indeed.”
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Medical education in Second Life: it works
February 8, 2010 By
(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. Confidence increased after the Second Life event, in respect to selecting insulin for patients with type 2 diabetes, initiating insulin and adjusting insulin dosing.
4. There was an increase to 90% (from 60%) of participants initiating correct insulin dosages.
5. The percentage of participants who provided correct initiation of mealtime insulin increased from 40% to 80%.
6. All twelve participants surveyed agreed that their experience in Second Life was an effective method of medical education.
7. All twelve also agreed that “the virtual world approach to CME was superior to other methods of online CME, that they would enroll in another such event in SL, and that they would recommend that their colleagues participate in an SL CME course.”
8. Two of the twelve disagreed with the statement that Second Life provided a superior to face-to-face option for continuing medical education.
The take-home message? Nothing new really: virtual environments can be very useful for education. The small sample size is obviously worth noting. Additionally, I remain amazed at the positive feedback garnered for education sessions held in Second Life given the rudimentary aspects of the platform itself i.e. the need to type responses in chat and viewing what’s essentially a Powerpoint presentation (as shown in the picture above). That’s not to take away from the work the University of Boston have done, it’s just one key aspect for future studies: how much of the positive feedback on virtual environments is the ‘wow’ factor experienced by newer users versus the well-established data on immersion and its benefits?
Another key point for me was this:
Our search of English language peer-reviewed publication databases did not identify any formal evaluation of the educational effectiveness of health professional training in SL or other virtual worlds.
Studies like this one are helping to address that gap, but there’s plenty more to be done. What’s fairly certain is that work is underway and within 12-18 months there’s likely to be a significant body of work pointing out the opportunities and challenges virtual worlds present for health-related training and education.
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The Watch – virtual worlds in the news
February 7, 2010 By
1. The Register (UK) – Oracle: destroyer of virtual worlds. “Another of Sun Microsystem’s almost-practical projects for Java has been shuttered now that Oracle holds the purse strings. Project Darkstar, an open-source application server catered specifically for massively multiplayer online games, will no longer receive Snoracle funding. The news was announced yesterday with a post to the Project Darkstar community forum. Loosely, Project Darkstar is open-source middleware written in Java aimed at helping developers create massively scalable persistent virtual worlds. The project later expanded its aim to include social networking applications as online ventures are wont to do these days.”
2. CBC News (Canada) – New online payment system takes cash for virtual goods. “New startup company Kwedit Inc. is making it easier for users of free online games like Farmville who don’t have credit or debit cards to pay for the virtual goods sold in such games using cash or third-party payments. The California-based company on Thursday launched a payment system called Kwedit Direct that allows users in the U.S. to pay for their digital purchases after the fact by mailing in cash, paying the bill at a 7-Eleven store or getting a friend or family member to pay on their behalf through a social payment network called Pass the Duck.”
3. Gamasutra (USA) – Sci-Tech Firm Buys Forterra’s OLIVE Platform For Virtual Training. “Several weeks after Forterra Systems reportedly laid off almost half its staff and rumors of a possible acquisition began to spread, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) has revealed that it has purchased Forterra’s On-Line Interactive Virtual Environment (OLIVE) product line, including all names, trademarks, and licenses. Neither Forterra — formerly a spinoff of still-in-operation virtual world There.com — or SAIC disclosed financial terms for the purchase. OLIVE enables clients to deploy persistent and secure 3D virtual environments where users can collaborate, train, learn, and interact in real-time with avatars. The software platform supports virtual world implementations in healthcare, financial services, energy, transportation, retail, government, and higher education markets.”
4. VentureBeat (USA) – Vivox raises $6.8M for voice chat for online games. “Video game voice-chat provider Vivox is announcing today that it has raised $6.8 million for its business of providing voice services for online games, virtual worlds and social networks. Vivox ustomers include CCP Games, Electronic Arts, Gaia Online, Hi-Rez Studios, Linden Lab, NCsoft, Nexon, Realtime Worlds, Sony Online Entertainment and Wizards of the Coast. While others provide voice-over-Internet-protocol voice services in games, Vivox focuses on providing a managed service.”
5. NPR (USA) – The Technology Paradox: It Separates But Unites. “In filming at the IBM offices in Westchester N.Y., we were astonished to find the huge, slick office park almost deserted. We learned it was a byproduct of the fact that so many IBM employees telecommute from home or hotels. In fact, now, IBM is shifting a significant portion of their internal meetings into virtual worlds like Second Life, giving their employees another excuse not to come into the office. A couple of those employees told us they find virtual worlds like Second Life to be much more human and intimate than video conferencing or phone calls. A group of avatars sitting around a virtual conference table can share a joke, grab a virtual cup of coffee or divulge a virtual secret.”
6. Security Director News (USA) – Virtual worlds on the horizon for security. “Virtual worlds and augmented reality are not just the stuff of the gaming world anymore. “A lot of this technology isn’t as futuristic as we think, it’s upon us now,” said Frank Yeh, senior security and privacy architect at IBM, who delivered the keynote address at TechSec Solutions Feb. 1. Further, there’s tremendous potential for this technology to harness data in new ways and really change and improve the way physical security systems work, he said. Want to do facial recognition using your iPhone?, Yeh asked. You can download an app, called TAT, which does just that. It not only recognizes faces, information about the person appears in dialog boxes floating around that person’s image. How about attending a “virtual meeting” with colleagues who are located in cities around the world? Yeh showed a demonstration of Cisco’s Telepresence, which he called “a phenomenal technology” that will save businesses money be allowing them to “tranport bits not bodies, in the future.” One of the coolest things about telepresence technology, he said is that “it offers you things that you can’t do in a face-to-face meeting.”
7. The Escapist (USA) – Virtual Egg Sells for $70,000. “The hidden virtual worlds out there never cease to amaze, with virtual items and property in MMOG Planet Calypso selling for enormous amounts of money. First Planet Company, a subsidiary of MindArk that runs MMOG Planet Calypso, has announced that an in-game item called the Atrox Queen Egg recently sold for $69,696. That’s in real dollars, not virtual currency. I say again, and this is not a joke, somebody bought a virtual egg for $70,000.”
8. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Arbopals, Infinite Spaces Developing Tree Virtual World. “Arbopals and Infinite Spaces, the Virtual World Design Centre at Loyalist College, have partnered to create a tree-themed virtual world for kids aged 5-10. The site is now in beta, and the company has promised to plant a tree for every avatar created in the virtual world’s beta, up to 1,000 avatars. “Every kid these days is an environmentalist,” explained Peter O’Brien, President and CEO of Arbopals. “I have a daughter who is 13, and she, like all her friends and everyone from the age of about 5 to 20 is a real environmentalist. They understand global warming, they get that the world needs help, they understand the importance of trees and how trees clean our air and water. If anything, the kids are even more enthusiastic about the environmental hook of Arbopals than their parents.”
9. Information World Review (UK) – The wonders of a virtual world. “Want to look round the Egyptian pyramids or view Stonehenge from any angle? Well, there’s an app to do just that. No, it is not an iPhone application but a freely accessible interactive website called Heritage Key. Historians, archaeologists, academics, researchers and anyone interested in exploring ancient civilisations and monuments from the comfort of their homes now have a web-based resource to let them do so. Heritage Key, from Rezzable, offers visitors a 3D reconstruction of historical sites, excavations and monuments. Users can join live online lectures, ask questions, post on discussion boards and conduct their research.”
10. The Daily Star (UK) – Doctor Who Enters Computer Game World. “THE BBC is turning Doctor Who into a computer game. Bosses want to cash in on the show’s huge popularity by taking the Time Lord into the new market. Until now they had held off from making a game based on the show, only allowing the release of the Eidos game Top Trumps: Doctor Who in 2008. But Dave Anderson, head of multi-media development at BBC Worldwide, said: “We are having discussions about a variety of ideas around Doctor Who that are complementary to each other rather than in competition, including boxed product console games, virtual worlds and other experiences.”
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Weekend Whimsy
February 6, 2010 By
1. Leipzig Space Station – Second Life
2. The Beach – Atmosphere in Second Life
3. University of Western Australia in Second Life
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Merged realities – events and issues for virtual worlds
February 2, 2010 By
1. One of Second Life’s most innovative content creators, Ordinal Malaprop, has shuttered his business. Find out why.
2. Forterra have had some business challenges over recent months including laying off staff at the end of 2009. Their OLIVE virtual environment has been bought out by the Science Applications International Corporation. All the details here – this will hopefully be a positive outcome for a virtual environment under somewhat of a cloud.
3. Twinity continues its expansion with a growth in Virtual London: “These areas will include famous buildings and monuments, from the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace to the Millennium Bridge, and the Trocadero. With this, Virtual London, will have grown to the east and south of its present spread, while also marking a foray across the virtual Thames.”
4. Virtual World Best Practices in Education 2010: the call for presentations has gone out. Their website contains all the information you need.
5. The University of WA have announced the finalists of their Machinima Challenge. You can read all the details on the excellent UWA in SL blog, but here’s the list of finalists:
MASTERDARK FOOTMAN, Dallas, Texas, USA
The Heart of UWACOLEMARIE SOLEIL, Florida, USA
UWA Machinima ChallengePYEWACKET BELLMAN, New York City, USA
University of Western Australia in Second LifeCHANTAL HARVEY, Maastricht, Netherlands
University of Western Australia in Second LifeCISKO VANDEVERRE, Berlin, Germany
SEEKSOPHIA YATES, Lancaster, Massachusetts, USA
The Challenge – Architecture, Teaching, Research Arts on the UWA simsIONO ALLEN, Paris, France
Seek WisdomGLASZ DECUIR, San Sebastian, Spain
MachinimUWA: UWA in Second Life, Achieving International ExcellenceLASLOPANTOMIK YAO, Barcelona, Spain
MachinimUWABRADLEY DORCHESTER, Perth, Australia
MachinimUWA: Art Architecture, Research, TeachingNOVA DYSZEL, Toronto, Canada
UWA in SL ChallengeMASTERDARK FOOTMAN, Dallas, Texas, USA
UWA Jan 2010SOPHIA YATES, Lancaster, Massachusetts, USA
Second Life Virtual University of Western Australia
The winner announcement is coming up on the 8th February at 1pm SL time, with Torley Linden making an appearance.
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Avatars United: desire or forced marriage?
February 1, 2010 By
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 have been made. What changes? That is a much trickier question.
Putting that aside for the moment, let’s look at the acquisition of Avatars United by Linden Lab.
Acquiring a team of people who have already demonstrated their abilities in a certain field makes a whole heap of sense – especially when you want your existing development team to continue on with what they are doing. It’s also great to bring in new people for a fresh look at old problems.
“[…] we’re committed to keeping this ideal of a place where avatars from multiple worlds and games can come together.” ~ M Linden
The Avatars United (AU) idea is all about collating your online identities, and connecting to other people engaged in the same virtual environments (VEs) or games as yourself. I am forced to wonder, how many people have the time to be heavily engaged enough in several VEs to want to be connected this way? Perhaps AU will encourage cross-pollination of VEs, perhaps each person will remain firmly in their own VE’s social circle. Since you cannot easily share the details for each avatar name between VEs, the latter seems most likely.
“The first design principle in this social strategy is respect of your privacy. We aren’t going to take away any privacy or anonymity for those that want it. We are not going to “out” people. We are not going to force anyone to reveal any private or personal information. […] But for those who don’t want to opt in to an arrangement like that, nothing at all will change.” ~ M Linden
Thank you, M, that’s a fantastic idea – make all linkages opt-in! But wait, what’s this – linking all your avatar names together in AU is opt-out, not opt-in? I sincerely hope that this is changed in the near future, and that the place that this is accomplished is made more obvious, instead of having it tucked away under the Account Privacy settings. I’m also keen to know why there’s a section under the Account tab that allows you to fill in your personal information. It too is opt-in, except for birth-date, but I don’t see how having that section is useful, or who might require or desire access to that information.
“In coming months, we’ll be looking at the best way to create new services for Second Life around some of the sharing and networking tools that Avatars United has to offer.” ~ M Linden
AU is set to be changed in the next few months. Applications for SL users seem imminent, and it will be interesting to see how much work is funnelled into SL-related ideas, and how much is devoted to other VEs. Fortunately, “the AU team already has an active and growing developer program”, so we should start seeing useful, relevant, apps quite soon, regardless of what is happening internally at Linden Lab.
I would like to see AU become a way to be lightly engaged in VEs, whereas actually entering those environments would be a heavy engagement. In the future, AU could become a way to check in, in a central location, and see who is online, what they are doing currently, keep in touch with groups via forums. You could use it to form an “acquaintance list”, or perhaps use the group features to belong to extra groups, or to have a forum for existing group. AU is a good place, and hopefully in time will become an even better place, to keep your finger lightly on the pulse of what’s happening in your social circle online, while still being able to get in-world and experience all the wonders of high social engagement and creative past-times.
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