Virtual lips and law enforcement

Two interesting but totally unrelated pieces of information:

1. For the academically inclined, the Virtually Blind blog has an excellent piece on virtual law enforcement with a link to the paper written by a Dutch Assistant Professor at the University of Leiden, Bart Schermer. It’s a fascinating read best summed up in Schermer’s own words:

From this article we may conclude that in order to combat cheating and crime in virtual worlds, ‘artificial police agents’ may be employed. As of yet, these systems are not very advanced and can be used mainly to assist human beings in governing virtual worlds. However, as we move closer to the vision of strong artificial intelligence, more advanced software agents may be employed to combat crime in virtual worlds. When these intelligent systems arrive we must ensure that the legal basis for their use is codified within the law of criminal procedure.

To date media coverage of law enforcement has been about controlling the spread of real-life legal issues in the virtual sphere. There’s a much wider view that needs to be taken including virtual world-specific legal issues.

2. The ability for an avatar’s mouth / lips to sync with their speech has been something sought for years and there’s some light on the horizon on the Second Life front. Massively’s Tateru Nino has been trawling Second Life’s horrific development database cum bug-tracker to discover lip sync is on the way. I’d be doubtful it’ll deliver anything particularly realistic but it’s at least a start.

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The Watch - virtual worlds in the news

1. The Chicago Tribune - Virtual dinner and a movie? Simulated dating ranks grow. “Paula Weisz’s favorite place to take her dates is the Millennium bar, where she can sip a glass of red wine and have a good conversation. She typically goes on one date per week with men she meets online at OmniDate.com.”

2. The Edmonton Journal (Canada) - Plug ‘n’ play. “Cyber sex isn’t just the late-night pastime of techno-tarts, sex addicts and pedophiles. Today, even the military thinks getting your virtual groove on is a matter of national security, says the creator of HighJoy.com, a virtual world where your vibrator meets your USB cable. “We create the technology that allows you to control another person’s vibrator over the Internet,” says Amir Vatan, co-founder of HighJoy Products.”

3. Linux Insider - Not Much Life in China’s Virtual Worlds. “Last November, Procter & Gamble’s Vidal Sassoon launched with much fanfare its first hair salon in China’s virtual world. There was even a virtual ribbon-cutting ceremony. However, today the VS salon in HiPiHi, China’s oldest and largest virtual world (a simulated online environment where users adopt identities known as avatars), sits mostly empty save for the occasional visitor.”

4. Los Angeles Times - A Second Life for corporate America. “To save money in these tough times, universities, conference planners and global firms have started holding gatherings for far-flung employees and students in the online world known as Second Life. Sun Microsystems Inc., a Silicon Valley tech company, has only one rule: Employees should show up looking like humans.”

5. Science News - Scientists get a 2nd Life. “To track down neuroscientist Corey Hart, you could stop by his laboratory, located on the second floor of Drexel University’s medical building in Philadelphia. Or, you could visit the lab of Luciftias Neurocam, located in the virtual world of Second Life. Luciftias is Hart’s digital alter ego, or avatar. Like his real-life counterpart, Luciftias tracks the twitches of frogs’ muscles to find clues to the spinal cord’s ability to control movement.”

6. Gamasutra - GFH: Neils Clark On Moving Beyond ‘Game Addiction’. “Following his Gamasutra feature on the subject, writer and researcher Neils Clark spoke at the ongoing Games for Health conference in Baltimore on game addiction. In his talk at the conference, he covered the perceived problems, a run-down on why people might get addicted, and some proactive measures that developers can use to combat addictive behavior in the future.”

7. Reuters / Second Life - EVE Online experiments with virtual democracy. “It can be difficult for the most well-meaning of virtual worlds companies to understand what their customers want. But CCP, the company behind the sci-fi world of EVE Online, thinks they’ve solved the riddle: have users elect their own representatives. Sixty-one candidates are vying for nine spots in open voting on EVE’s website. The top vote getters will become the official representatives of EVE’s player community, and flown to Reykjavik, Iceland to share their thoughts on the game at the company’s headquarters.”

8. World Changing - Gold Farmers. “Gold Farmers are young people who earn their living by playing MMORPG games. They acquire (”farm”) items of value within a game, usually by carrying out in-game actions repeatedly to maximize gains, sometimes by using a program such as a bot or automatic clicker.”

9. Reason Magazine - Virtually Free. “In February, subscribers to the virtual world of Second Life awoke to a surprise: The garish, skyscraper-sized billboards they had learned to tolerate as part of their three-dimensional landscape were about to be vaporized, the site’s creators announced.”

10. Accountancy Age - DO enters Second Life. “BDO Stoy Hayward has launched on internet virtual world Second Life in a bid to open up its services to a broader audience. Its launch of an ‘island’ on the world will enable the firm to holding meetings online, presentations and events for staff and enhance recruitment options by engaging with a broader, international audience.”

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Nursing Education in Second Life

Nurses are one of the most active groups of health professionals in Second Life and I regularly get asked by health professionals what use a virtual world like Second Life is in regard to training. The video below answers that question beautifully:

If you’re a nurse in Second Life, tell us what the experience has brought to your practice. Has it improved your skills at all?

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Weekend Whimsy

1. Iron Man in Second Life

2. Henry Jenkins in Second Life Talks about Potter Fandom

(this one runs for 51 minutes)

3. Tiny Anatine’s “A day in Second Life”

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Virtual worlds: a real life leadership incubator?

The mainstream media cops fairly regular criticism for its sensationalistic coverage of virtual worlds and rightly so in some cases. A very impressive exception to this rule is an article published this week by the Harvard Business Review.

It’s a detailed look at the role gaming worlds like World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online play in the development of leadership skills. It’s well worth a read and the authors have a good grasp of their subject.

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Need help with creating scuplted prims in Second Life?

Then Torley Linden’s latest tutorial may assist you in a big way.

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The Watch - virtual worlds in the news

1. The Toronto Star - Let my avatar buy your avatar coffee. “Paula Weisz’s favourite place to take her dates is the Millennium bar, where she can sip a glass of red wine and have a good conversation. She typically goes on one date per week with men she meets at Omni Date.com, a Toronto-based company. For her dates, the 42-year-old single mother of two doesn’t need to leave the comfort of her living room sofa. And the Millennium won’t be found in any local phonebook.”

2. Reuters - Lego’s latest brick trick: a virtual world. “Millions of children pick up Lego bricks each year to spend hours — 5 billion, in fact — creating their own imaginary worlds. Now the manufacturer of the little plastic playing blocks wants to take them online to “Lego Universe,” a virtual world for fans of the ubiquitous toy.”

3. The Jeffersonian (USA) - Virtual world new marketplace for cars. “Owings Mills entrepreneur and iMagicLab CEO Richard Keith Latman is obviously tickled by last month’s opening of his company’s newest venture — a multi-brand automobile dealership. Set on its own island, the dealership looks like a car wheel and hubcap to shoppers as they fly toward the site.”

4. Tech Digest (UK) - Grand Theft Philadelphia, courtesy of virtual world GeoSimPhilly. “Fancy going to Philadelphia for free? And without leaving the house? That’s the AMAZING FUTURISTIC POSSIBILITY opened up by GeoSimPHILLY - an extremely realistic online representation of Philadelphia.”

5. The University of Texas at Dallas - Students Develop a Virtual World for Art Lovers. “High culture comes to gamers with the help of a group of graduate students from UT Dallas Arts & Technology program. Twelve graduate students have created a virtual art education environment in which art lovers can learn about museum practices and the visual arts.”

6. Fox News - Science-Fiction Writers Help Government Prepare for Attacks of the Future. “magine an attack by a swarm of armed micromachines … or a bioweapon small enough to fit in a suitcase and deadly enough to destroy the human race. It’s the stuff of Hollywood storylines, but to the U.S. government such plots are potentially very real and very dangerous. So the government has turned to an unlikely source for help in identifying these threats: science-fiction writers.”

7. T.H.E. Journal - Children’s Way Beefs Up Security in K-6 Virtual World. “Non-profit developer Children’s Way Foundation has teamed with eGuardian to bolster security on its Woogi World, an online virtual world for K-6 students. The agreement allows Woogi World to incorporate eGuardian’s online verification service as a means of safeguarding kids from online strangers who might be posing as other children.”

8. Science Daily - Virtual World Therapeautic For Addicts: Study Shows Impact Of Environment To Addiction Cravings. ” Patients in therapy to overcome addictions have a new arena to test their coping skills–the virtual world. A new study by University of Houston Associate Professor Patrick Bordnick found that a virtual reality (VR) environment can provide the climate necessary to spark an alcohol craving so that patients can practice how to say “no” in a realistic and safe setting.”

9. Profy.com - Are We Sure About This Virtual World Thing? EA Land Hits Deadpool. “Almost a year and a half ago, Colbert Low posted here on Profy that the future of the Web would be 3D applications, or virtual worlds, with Second Life leading the pack. It’s amazing to me that so much could have changed in such a short amount of time. Today it was announced EA Land, which was formerly called The Sims Online and rebranded only a short time ago, will be shuttering before the end of summer.”

10. IT Business (Canada) - Canadian college turns virtual world creation into real business venture. “After being the first Canadian college with a virtual campus, in Linden Lab’s Second Life, Loyalist College is now starting a commercial venture to help other schools and companies create their own virtual world space.”

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