Earnest Candour's Blog

I'm Speechless....

2007-07-05T22:26:00.000+10:00

As announced on the official Second Life blog, the Voice feature is now integrated into the main SL client. Voice is one of the new features I have been eagerly awaiting since having experienced a taste in the beta testing phase way back in March.

Even Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale showed up.

Back then, even though still in beta, the quality was almost as good as Skype. There has been negative reaction from some quarters of the SL community towards the introduction of voice, but I for one look forward to it, largely for the following reasons.

1. It will speed up many content creation activities; specifically the process of building (typing and building at the same time is difficult)

2. Communication with people who speak foreign languages will be easier (for example, Its easier to understand spoken Japanese than written Japanese)

3. Those who's typing speed is slow or who are dyslexic will be able to participate in discussions to a greater extent

4. I believe it will increase immersiveness

To prove my point about increased immersion try out the Holophonic exercise below (requires headphones):

Since its official launch however, Voice hasn't worked for me at all, though it has for some of my colleagues.

EC:/>

Omni-directional Treadmill Walks All Over VirtuSphere

2007-06-03T18:33:00.000+10:00

More immersive, virtual world related technology courtesy of Virtual Space Devices. Seems to have the advantage over the VirtuSphere of both having a flat surface to walk on and also being more compact.

EC:/>

Invite yourself to Joost

2007-05-09T23:55:00.000+10:00

If you are like me and have been trying to secure an invite to the Joost Beta recently, only to be confronted with the 'ask a friend-watch the blogs' suggestion, or find that you've arrived too late on a limited invitation thread, then you may be interested in this link which I found on Mashable.com. This should allow you to sign up to Joost directly.

So does Joost live up to the Hype? At the moment the number of programs and channels are limited but the potential is sure there and the quality is great. Sign up for yourself and see what all the fuss is about.

EC:/>

Test of BlogHUD Pro crosspost

2007-05-08T22:44:00.001+10:00

This is a first test using BlogHUD Pro to crosspost to my external blog, with photos of course. EC:/>

posted by Earnest Candour on IIA Island using a blogHUD : [permalink]

Sculpted Prims set to transform SL building

2007-04-29T12:51:00.000+10:00

A post by Torley on the official SL blog has announced the introduction (in the near future) of prims whose shapes can be altered by the textures that are applied to them. This should allow much more complex and varied objects to be made, and possibly even reduce the number of prims used. A video demonstration is below:

Taming Gaming in your Home

2007-04-27T20:14:00.000+10:00

I know true Virtual Worlds are not games, however there's some interesting debate in this video.

Courtesy of Fora.tv

VirtuSphere Rolls Onwards

2007-04-27T00:09:00.000+10:00

Its been a while since I had a look at the VirtuSphere website and it definitely looks like they are getting a lot more press coverage than previously. With governments around the world increasingly worried about obesity resulting from long periods sitting in front of a computer screen, this piece of kit could take off. Maybe..

Either way the video below is worth watching:

Totally Immersed

2007-04-26T20:05:00.000+10:00

I've been pretty impressed with the product demonstration videos coming from AR company Total Immersion lately. A sample is below. There's plenty more videos on their site, which also shows some of the real world applications for this technology.

Outdoor AR

2007-04-26T19:41:00.000+10:00

I thought I'd kick things off with a link to the a_rage site, after all it was when I was researching mediated reality that I first stumbled across Virtual Worlds. This appears to be a spin-off company from the University of South Australia's Wearable Computer Lab. Apparently a_rage stands for augmented reality active game engine. There's some videos of the technolgy in action (first person shooters for example). I recall reading that the graphics of the games are low quality in order to make them contrast with the real environment in order to make development easier. The final product will have higher quality graphics I'm sure. Whether you call it Mixed Reality, Mediated Reality or Augmented Reality, its a further blurring of the line between Meatspace and the Metaverse.