Second Life and Virtual Worlds
This isn’t domination in the sense of the Brain’s (Pinky and the Brain) world domination. But, it is about the world and Google’s ongoing effort to dominate the market for ‘WHERE” type questions. I think this gives one an interesting view of where we are headed.
See: Google’s Road Map to Global Domination. A New York Times article via Drudge Report.
Numerous people are working on Virtual Reality projects. Here is an example of where one team is.
[youtube B_JpcmSEGzw]
They might have gotten further ahead if they had used Second Life. The world would definitely have looked better.
The last podcast from Metareality was in April. In this cast Kim/Gianna is saying they plan to be back doing more regular casts, back to the weekly format. You can listen to the cast here: Weak Sauce.
This is an uncensored audio. No bleeping, so there is some profane language… actually a lot.
I remind you, my usual warning is: I paraphrase what I hear and make no attempt to transcribe the audio. Listen to the audio before you react to anything I’ve written.
[youtube 9hUUsqhetX4]
02:00 TOS Discussion starts. Karl describes the change as the Lab becoming a co-owner in all that you create and upload to Second Life™. Karl rants a bit, not much, and I have to agree with his points. Spot on little rant in my view.
Windows 8.1 came out recently. For Windows 8 users the upgrade is free. Some of you will see it pop up as a standard Windows update without your doing anything.
Be warned! There are a certain number of computers that cannot handle the upgrade to Win8.1.
About 10/18 Microsoft started receiving reports of the Windows Update pushed out to users was failing. Some of the problems have been tracked to driver issues. The update installs Windows basic divers that are simply not compatible with the hardware.
But, the problem extends beyond just driver compatibility. In some cases systems do not have the hardware to support the new software.
Additionally there is a problem that Microsoft has yet to figure out.
I’m not big into virus warnings unless something radically changes. Well, it has. So, read up and rethink your backup strategies.
There is a new style of ransom ware that has come to America. Europe has apparently been dealing with it for weeks. It is called Ransom Ware 2.0 or CryptoLocker.
To understand what Ransom Ware 2.0 is doing read: Destructive malware “CryptoLocker” on the loose – here’s what to do. It’s a bit techie.
As best I can tell, the program leaves your readable copies of files in place while it makes encrypted copies using strong encryption. When it finishes encrypting your files, it then erases your readable copies and displays an extortion notice. If things go as they planned, you will probably not notice a problem until you see the notice.
Check out the castAR VR system. This is now a funded, but still open, Kickstarter project.
[youtube RmHHGOBOUWA]
This is the one-ups-manship that the free market creates. This combines Oculus, Google Glasses, and shutter glasses.
I’m not sure about the claim of no motion sickness. I think that is likely true in the AR mode. When one changes over to the full VR lenses I would think they have the same problem as Oculus.
Also, I can’t really tell what resolution the glasses are providing.