Category Archives: General Computer Stuff

Oculus Rift and Marketing in Second Life

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This was planned for release on Monday… but, the blog would not cooperate… I see that Ciaran found the article and reported on it.

Once upon a time manufacturers were thinking that Second Life would be a great way to market their products. A big obstacle to marketing online is letting the potential customer see the product and decide they have to have it. A 3D world moves one closer to the being there.

The immersive nature of 3D with Oculus and other HMD devices is re-awakening those hopes and thoughts. There is potential. The site AdWeek has an article by Christopher Heine titled: How Oculus Rift Is About to Reshape Marketing Creativity.

Second Life has prominent mention in the article. What Christopher does not mention is why 3D marketing in SL failed in the first years of SL’s life.  Continue reading →

Mandelblub 3D and Second Life

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I’m busy with holidays and work, so not much blogging. But, work-wise I came across an interesting program I needed to for making some unique original textures: MandelBlub 3D, a free 3D fractal generator. It is mentioned in the Advanced Photoshop magazine too.

Mandelblub 3D Generated Image

Mandelblub 3D Generated Image

The art I first came across shown on Deviant Art looked like the type of art I needed for a work project. So, off I went to find the software and generate those textures. It occurred to me that some of these could be awesome for use in Second Life, especially since it appears the Lab is never going to change the TOS to something acceptable to CG Textures and similar suppliers of stock textures. 

Getting the program is the easy part. It is pretty much a stand-alone program that does not need to be installed, just unzipped and run.  Continue reading →

Samsung VR Released

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It looks like the Samsung Head Mounted Display (HMD) know as Gear VR is out or almout out for retail sales. The Road to VR has an article comparing the Gear and Oculus. The short story is it appears Oculus is doing software and software tech while Samsung is doing hardware. However that works, it is a device making it to market with the Samsung brand name.

See: Samsung Gear VR Detailed Review: Part One – Design Comparison to Oculus Rift DK2.

See: You can buy Samsung’s virtual reality headset right now for $200.

See: Buy Samsung Gear VR.

 

3D HMD Medical Use

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While I am excited about Oculus Rift and the competing Head Mounted Displays, it seems we may get them about the same time or even after they appear in other fields. Medical uses seem to an interesting use of the new technology.

HMD Use

HMD Use

Atheer Labs (and they do use an ‘S” in their official name) is developing a device somewhat like Google Glass. Their information pages on the device are here: Atheer Labs, where they refer to this as ‘gesture-based 3D augmented interactive reality.’

They have numerous uses that they show for their device. They imagine assembly and repair manuals that superimpose over the object being worked on. Medical imaging (Fox News Video) that displays x-ray, CAT and MRI scans, and anatomy models imposed on the patient’s body.

Some describe the process as Google Glass meeting 3D. Whatever the case, this technology is breaking into mainstream RL uses.

And there is now the Kissing Bug as a hazard in the USA. (Reference) (DDT Safe but Illegal – University of Nebraska at Lincoln)

Second Life: DMCA Abuse – Fight Back

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The Digital Millennium Copyright Act or DMCA is pretty well known and abused in Second Life™. In RL it is also commonly known and abused. The law should be over turned and I expect it would be if it ever made it to the Supreme Court. The law makes people prove their innocence, which is upside down in America and most free market economies. The the reason the law continues to stand is the it favors politicians, big business, and the wealthy. Individuals and small business can’t afford to fight at the Supreme Court level.

Image by: Michael Mandiberg @ Flickr

Image by: Michael Mandiberg @ Flickr

The WordPress organization is fighting the censorship that can be imposed by abuse of DMCA. They wrote about it here: Striking Back Against Censorship. Others are in the fight too. One of those is a company named Automattic. They gained fame when fighting  Janet Jackson’s take down demand. (Reference)  Continue reading →

Second Life’s Ebbe Altberg at Engadget

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This year Ebbe went to New York to participate in an Engadget sponsored get together. Sean Buckley describes the panel discussing VR this way:

All three of the entrepreneurs have wildly different takes on how to use VR — Bell’s Matterport 3D camera strives to capture the physical world and make it virtual; Altberg’s vision for Linden Lab and Second Life is to create a platform for creating new experiences within virtual spaces. Roel’s goals are even further reaching: with projects like the Gender Swap Experiment, he hopes to use VR to help humans get along better. “If you can better understand the other you can better understand yourself,” he says. “We’re even applying it for conflict resolutions with partners in the United Nations and other key people.”

A video shows the discussion. You can find it in the article here. It is an AOL-On video, that is a pain to embed here.

Jo Yardley has summarized the video. See: Ebbe talks to Engadget.

Novel Idea for a Laptop Upgrade

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A significant number of people in the forum ask how to run Second Life™ on a laptop that has ample memory and CPU power but lacks adequate GPU power. The answer is disappointing, your hardware is not gonna cut it.

Now I find there is a way to add a PCI graphics card to a laptop. It isn’t pretty but, apparently it works.

Check this out: EXP GDC Laptop External PCI-E Graphics Card. You could add a GTX980 to a 4 year old laptop.

External GPU Upgrade

External GPU Upgrade

I am not endorsing the product. You are on our own deciding if this is for you. I am just pointing out a possibilitiy.