VeeJay goes OOC

Don't worry, I'm not getting OOC as in Out Of Character... just have to get Out Of Computer for the holidays. Be back after easter

I think I may have to talk and play with the kids face to face ;)

Eduverse Symposium (1) Introduction

This weeks second cross reality event was held at the exact same spot (de Balie in Amsterdam )as the Fasion show in the previous blogpost. This time it was the massive Eduverse Symposium on Virtual Education.

I had the honour to kick off the 7 hour marathon session with a short introduction on the programme and a couple of brainwaves on virtual education in which I remarked that were still basically dealing with traditional forms of education (i.e. books and classrooms and stuff) which have been around since the 1700's while our life has become more and more digitized in the past ten years. All our ways of communicating, information gathering and learning experiences have been affected by technological advances, but it has barely hit the classroom yet. No wonder that 90% of everything we learn is learnt outside school in our private / social time. Teachers are no longer the authority when it comes to knowing things. They've been substituted by wikipedia.

On the other hand the amount of information we have to juggle is getting bigger and more complex every year. (read some thoughts here) so Education has a challenge. Today was about giving some demo's to get people inspired in thinking about Virtual Worlds as a tool in modelling complex issues and add some playfulklness along the way as well.

We had an impressive list of speakers who gave their pitches from the real life location, from Second Life and through Skype Video on a range of subjects, varying from technology updates to a philospophical session on why we have education anyway.

Augmented Reality

One of the Key Pitches today was in my opinion the one by Jay Bolter (a.k.a. James Lillenthal in SL) from Georgia Tech on augmented reality. At the GT they'd made a little lego room on a table, put a camera on it and we were able to walk into the video in Second Life.

3D Sperms

Another highlight in showing the potential of 3D environments in teaching complex matters was a demo by Dr. D. Danforth of the Ohio State University who build a model of how sperm grows. Apparently this is a very hard thing to explain and visualising this has greatly aided the students in understanding the process.

I'm kind of relying on Rick Cassini from Digado to (cross-)post more detailed information on the demo's.

We didn't fill the hall as much as we'd liked, but what can you expect when you organize an event like this on such short time notice. We got the idea only about two weeks ago. And aside from people being physically present, the event was streamed to about 10 SL locations to start with, each attracting a crows and ending up with about 20 locations as streams got added continuously. The event was also streamed to the web at Meta.Live.Nu and a full replay can be found here at de Balie archives.

ThankU's

A big thanks to Damien Simons of the UptheVortex blog for the pics, and to Bart Bockhoudt of the DutchExchange and DeBalie for sponsoring the event.

Another word of thanks goes to one of the speakers, Dr. Yesha Sivan (a.k.a. Dera Kit in SL) from the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design in Tel Aviv, Israel. He was kind enough to use the MindBlizzard blog as one of his sources in his presentation. It's a funny thing to see when you're in the audience, watching a presentation and suddenly recognise your own writing (though it isn't the first time it happened to me).

Just a quick overview of how widelyspread the symposium was:

The event will be streamed on the web at: http://streams.live.nu/ (UK) http://www.debalie.nl/live (NL) and will be viewable afterwards from De Balie archives
The event will also be available to be seen live in Second Life at these locations:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Virtual+Holland/157/79/23
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon+Eyre/210/203/23
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Groningen+Centrum+ZO/205/208/113
http://slurl.com/secondlife/maya/163/66/24
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Business+Exchange/153/207/32
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Amsterdam+2/205/205/25
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Enschede/133/212/22
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Nuova+Sicilia/88/166/33
http://slurl.com/secondlife/New+Berlin/131/131/31
http://slurl.com/secondlife/New+Berlin/244/166/33
Should you wish to stream it yourself, then it is possible using this url:
rtsp://82.94.217.140:80/balieh264-320x240.mov.sdp
It will also be streamed live simultaneously with the following codecs for low speed internet connections:
http://live.nu/1.ram ( RealVideo)
http://live.nu/1.m3u (Mp3 audio mono)
http://live.nu/1.jpg > http://cam.live.nu/ ( image refresh 'webcam')

Fashion Fusion

Amsterdam is the place to be this week if you want to get a taste of mixed reality so it seems.

First of the cross-reality events this week was the First Fusion Fashion show at de Balie in Amsterdam (Leidseplein), organised by The Artist Advice. The event was simulcasted with a fashionshow in Second Life, by Ewing Fashion Agency with creations Nicky Ree, Aphrodite Outlander, Sysy Chapman and EFA Design Awards finalist Indira Bekkers.

Outside the entrance of de Balie you'd find the red carpet catwalk ending in a big screen projecting the Second Life fashion show. It wasn't 100% cross-reality but it was a good start of the week.

SL pictures by Tillie Ariantho's

ABN AMRO Dances 4 Life

Friday the 8th wil see the launch of a new ABN AMRO venture in Second Life; the Young Professional Island. The opening will be supported by DJ Jesse Voorn, ambassador to Dance4Life with a simulcast or cross-reality concert from the Panama Club in Amsterdam .

In this coop ABN and Dance4Life are opening an island for people at the start of their careers. It will be a place to meet, socialize and relax. The Dutch bankers will organise several events for the community. The island is one of the new builds from the Dutch Lost in the Magic Forest and the Dance4Live club on the island is build by ABN AMRO themselves.

According to Lost in the Magic Forrerst the build is not complete yet, but will be further developed in coop with the YP community.

DJ Jesse Voorn will perform between 00.00 and 01.00 (CET) in both Club Panama as well as Second Life. Jesse is no stranger to Second Life, as he has done a rather succesfull gig earlier this year.

Dance4Life is an international organisation which gets young people together in the fight against hiv and aids. Dance is the international language that binds young people all over the world. Dancing is combined with television programmes, media campaigns and fundraising to benefit projects in areas that suffer strongly under the presence of hiv and aids.

ABN Amro is one of the sponsors of Dance4Life

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/ABN%20AMRO%20YP/128/128/0

Intel makes worlds collide

Intel® Centrino® Duo makes virtual and real worlds collide.October 12-15, 2006

"Can’t live without your laptop? In a 72-hour experiment Intel showed how the power of Intel® Core™2 Duo processors enable you to live life without boundaries. World-renowned virtual builder, Versu Richelieu (inset), created a new masterpiece in the Second Life virtual landscape, using the power and performance of an Intel® Centrino® Duo based laptop featuring the Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor. The world’s best mobile processors1. For 72 hours Versu ate, slept, and lived a completely digital life…all in a store window in New York City!"

The Live Without Boundaries sim still stands though isn't a spectacle anymore. It is a good build, with the Empire State Building towering above the clouds. Intel's strategy on SL is starting to interest me. They've got their usual - ordinary business sim, but rather than staying in one spot they're doing branding with several themes, like this sim and the OCC one blogged earleir today.

It's the event that counts, that draws and as long as the name Intel sticks, it works. And like the OCC thing, Intel sticks to Millions of Us for great builds.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Live%20Without%20Boundaries/105/101/83

Time to Drop In

Well, the Talpa launch (on February 9th) was an event! For the grand opening of the Talpa Dropzone sims a stage was set up where the band 16-down performed in SL -or not?

16-Down actually performed live on stage in Paradiso (Amsterdam) and the concert was live-streamed to SL and vice-versa. Visitors of the actual concert could watch the virtual crowd dance to the beat as well. The Talpa website names it a cross-reality concert.

The Dropzone, aptly named of course, since one really does drop in after a teleport, is created with the help of [Lost in the] Magic Forest.