Philips Design Probes - I am becoming my Avatar

After blogging IBM's avances into virtual Fashion , it's yet another Fashion blogpost. This time from Philips. It seems fashion is getting fashionable in the Tech industry.

This time it's not a coproduction, but the presentation of a new Philips Product: Fractal - Living Jewelry.

Why limit yourself to a few beads or earrings when you can slip on a full-body 'living jewelry' suit that also changes in response to your behavior and mood? Introducing Fractal, the latest expression of the Philips Design SKIN Probes program …

Fractal is a stunning, figure-hugging outfit consisting entirely of huge imitation jewels augmented by pulsing LEDs. By incorporating sensors that measure movement, excitement levels and proximity of others - and using this input to alter the intensity of its integrated lighting - Fractal essentially becomes an extension of the body. It also serves as a platform for exploring emotional sensing.

Read more on Philips - Living Jewelry.

Over the course of last year, Philips has organised a number of Design Probe sessions in Second Life, in which they presented a number of concepts they were working on and discussed these with us, see Designing the Future 1a and Designing the Future 1b on this blog for detailed transcripts.

Under the title "Don't predict the Future, design it!" we discussed three themes back in august 2007, which were:

1. The future of self-expression
2. The future of packaging
3. The future of clothing

These brainstorm sessions have been a huge success for Philips, said Slava Kozlov at the 3rd Eduverse symposium last month. Not that we've actually invented new products for them, but as Slava added yesterday on twitter:

"As always in case of probes, it is difficult to point to a direct influence; it's a logical line from earlier 'emotional dress' concept. However, I feel that Second Life in general made a large impact on the designers' way of thinking "

The Electronic Tattoo

It's hard to say if Fractal, or the living Jewelry as you like, fits in one, two or all three of the above categories. A second project has been the Electronic Tattoo, which clearly falls under the self-expression category.

Tattoos and physical mutilation are amongst the oldest forms of personal expression and identity. Subcultures have used tattoos as a form of self representation; a visual language communicating personality and status. Philips Design examined the growing trend of extreme body adornment like tattoos, piercing, implants and scarring.

Read more - Philips Electronic Tattoos, including a cool video about the tattoos.

I am Becoming my Avatar

In Second Life we often see people trying to shape their avatar as much as possible to their Real Life appearance -kinda counts for beach babes and sixpack Joe's I guess) or the other way around, people shaping their avatar in their ideal sort of way and then try to become like this ultimate adonis in real life too. With this combined technology Philips will provide the change to bring this a step closer. Soon we will be able to project those textures and skins from Second Life on our own skins and clothing.

Off course, that is not the idea behind these projects. It is ultimately about sustainability, but also has commercial ends:

The relationship between the human body, apparel and the near environment is seen as one of the next big challenges. That is why explorations in this area can help build up essential knowledge that could serve as valuable input for future business activities. There could even be shorter-term spin-offs. "In Fractal we’re taking LED light, which can feel harsh and cold, and experimenting with it," says Van Heerden. "We pulse it at different speeds, making it appear quickly and fade slowly, and also diffract it through various materials. The result is warmer and more comforting, something that could be very interesting to our Lighting division."

Daletto World

Hello! I'm ak.

First, I'd like to thank to MindBlizzard for inviting me. I'm glad to write about Services, Developers and Trends about Virtual Worlds here in Japan (in Korea and China, maybe).

There are a number of virtual world services which have started here in Japan. One interesting trend is that Video Game Developers are trying to create their own worlds. XBOX live has been getting more social and SONY is testing HOME. Therefore it might be quite natural that others are following. One example is CAPCOM. CAPCOM is a video game developer and famous for "Residents Evil"/"Rockman".

Capcom Co., Ltd. is a leading Japanese international developer and publisher of video games headquartered in Osaka, Japan. It was founded in 1979 as Japan Capsule Computers, a company devoted to the manufacturing and distribution of electronic game machines.

Over the years, Capcom has created some of the biggest and longest running franchises in video gaming history. The company released their first arcade game in 1984: Vulgus. Their early games were mostly arcade games such as the scrolling shooter 1942. [Wikipedia]

One of their latest projects is the launch of "Daletto World". "Daletto World" is a browser based world using ActiveX components. You can walk around the world, enjoy chatting, but can't change position/angle of camera, can't create something like buildings or clothing.

Several real stores put their virtual stores on "Dalette World". "BEAMS", a popular clothing store in the real world has their own store selling shirts/pants for avatars.

TSUTAYA, a chain of DVD rental stores, has their virtual store, too. At the store, you can search DVDs and make a purchase.

I'm a little bit disappointed because there's no Residents Evil or Rockman in "Daletto World". CAPCOM seems to attract non-game-users via their own world.

Levi's Extraverse

In October Jeans tycoon Levi's launched its own extraverse, Levi's World, in Hong Kong, a branded virtual world dedicated to Levi products. It's first live hours saw over 6.000 registrations with eager fashion addicts and pretty soon we'll see the English version go live.

The campaign for Levi's World has been created by TEQUILA Hong Kong (TBWA) and OMD. Their view basically comes down to:

"Are you fed-up of Facebook, sick of Second Life? If so, then you may be interested to know that Levi’s are claiming to have ‘disrupted the convention’ of such social networking sites with the launch of the first ever (do they really think so?) branded virtual world. No prizes for guessing what it’s been called, though"

Levi's weren't the first to go extraverse, but it is a logical step. Throughout the Metaverse you see people paying a lot of attention to their avatars, with clothing being a hot marketing item.

First images do not show this world as able to create realistic avatars and environment, but a bit more cartoonesk graphics. The world is aimed at 15-25 year olds and has a free membership model. However, economy and marketing comes into play as you're able to buy your Levi stuff and can obtain vouchers which can be used at Real Life Levi stores.

Here's a YouTube movie about the launch:

To go from scratch to a dedicated extraverse is a giant leap, but Levi's has got several years of experience in the Metaverse which they started to explore as early as 2003. Along with Nike, Levi's was one of the main sponsors that pushed the launch of There.com.

"27,000 There
There launched its beta-test form -- 27,000 users have already entered the There world -- in January, with Nike and Levi Strauss & Co. among marketers who partnered with the firm to see how their wares fared in a virtual marketplace. Both brands will continue their relationship with there."

Full There.com launch article here.

Armani drops more than a stitch

On august 9 I wrote this:

Next stop on the mediterranean tour is the rumours of Armani coming to SL, supposedly at this island. If it's true, they will have to compete with several 'impostors' as there are many Armani, Emporio and other related groups and shops in Second Life.

Well, my guess was right. Armani has immersed at that location a little while back. This time I went to see what it looked like. The Armani venue is based upon it's Milanese main store on the Via Manzoni. The build looks solid, yet somewhat empty. It's only the Armani store, no further context. Even the subway entrance is there, but that's about it. Underneath no spectacular fashion show, just a big black hole.

Upon entering the store my line of sight was sometimes a bit blocked by various columns and walls. Even though the store seems quite large and well build, I'm under the impression that the scale is a bit off for a virtual world, perhaps a tad larger than the real life venue, but too small for this virtual world.

Now this is nitpicking of course. Every bit of criticism would have been out of the question when you could come to Armani in Second Life and buy top of the bill clothing. In the Real World, Armani is a wanna have commodity. In virtual world, clothing is considered to be a valuable commodity as well. Armani would probably have made it to the top of the traffic lists when it had opened up shop in Second Life instead of show. Buying exclusive Armani clothing to dress up your avatar would have worked. No other real life commodity has as much value in a virtual world than clothing.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/ARMANI%20via%20Manzoni/128/128/0

NB: Allesandro Manzoni was a Milanese poet and author of several tragedies.

Second Life gets style

Next to Microsoft is a sim that looks terribly underdeveloped running by the name "Style" I took a peek and... yeah I'm positive again. It must be some itch to get rid of the Visa taste in my mouth.

As I said, it still partly under construction -and they're subcontracting, but the basic setup is... stylish. The main building is build around a catwalk. Fashion will be this sims prime style event, but Aimee Weber, partly responsible for the build, also put in a lot of stylish furniture.

The downside is, it appears to be a house of fashion, main event a fashion show... but I couldn't find a schedule or billboard for the next event, and I sure don't have time to browse the classifieds for a fashion show.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Style/146/192/30

Adidas awareness

I'm just realising I left out an important blogpost. I've blogged Reebok and BBH earlier this month, but forgot to blog their neighbour, Adidas. I visited the sim, took a few snapshots but completely forgot to post it. There are two plausible explanations for this omission

1. It was way past bedtime when I blogged Reebok and BBH
2. The Adidas sim was just not good enough to be blogged.

Well, to be honest, I wasn't very enthausiastic about it. It was pretty much the same as Reebok, a shop with some shoes and nothing much of a so desired experience. When I think of Adidas I think of Steffi Graff sweating on Roland Garros or some other sporty event...

The reason I've added this post now is because there is something funny about Adidas. KZero blogged about brand perception in SL, based upon a research done by Reperes, a french market research agency (the one from the desing competition). The most remarkable result is that Adidas has scored highest with a 69% brand awareness.

Anyway, Adidas was brought to SL by the inevitable Rivers Run Red. However, it could be a German build as it is almost as white as the BMW and Toca Me designs.

SLURL:http://slurl.com/secondlife/adidas/128/128/0