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My first book, 'The Entrepreneur's Guide to Second Life,' is published

One of the things that separates the new News.com personal blogs, like this one, or Declan McCullagh's The Iconoclast, or Caroline McCarthy's The Social, from the larger, impersonal News.com blog, is that they are a place for us to write not just about what's going around us, but also what we're doing ourselves that's relevant.

In my case, that's pretty easy because I live a lot of the things I write about. So there's a never-ending supply of blog fodder. And you get the benefits of that. Insert smiley here.

Well, … Read more

Lego fans must not go to Burning Man

If you're the kind of person for whom every year is centered around Burning Man, then there's a certain problem you have with the calendar: you can't go to other Labor Day weekend events.

Not that I would know anything about this, of course, because I only go to Burning Man some years, and it's only coincidence that it's happened 10 years in a row.

But anyway, I noticed today that there's going to be a great Lego fan festival in Washington, D.C., next year, called BrickFair. "Fantastic," I thought, as … Read more

This week in mind-reading

You've been thinking, "Hey, where are all the updates on mind-reading devices?" All the appropriate scientists already knew this, so they decided to give you what you want today.

Here's this week's mind-readers' digest.

Microsoft applies for mind-reading patent: According to this New Scientist blog post, Microsoft applied for a patent in August that would help the company figure out what people really think about its products. The technology in the patent application, titled "Using electroencephalograph signals for task classification and activity recognition," would read a user's brain states while testing Microsoft'… Read more

Episode 581: The final EULA!

Movable Life is a movable 'Second Life' feast

SAN JOSE, Calif.--I wrote earlier that I has asked the super-connected virtual worlds expert Jerry Paffendorf what the best thing he had seen at the Virtual Worlds conference here and that he had pointed me to inDuality.

Not long afterward, I ran into another friend, the also super-connected virtual worlds expert Eric Rice and asked him the same question. He pointed me to a technology called Movable Life, which he proudly said allowed him to run Second Life on his iPhone.

Well, I had to check that out. So a little later, I found my way over to the … Read more

Cool Web front-end for multiple virtual world entry

SAN JOSE, Calif.--I was walking around the Virtual Worlds conference here this afternoon when I ran into Jerry Paffendorf, the co-author of the Metaverse Roadmap report and the current co-founder of a stealth start-up called Wello Horld.

Paffendorf knows all, and so I eagerly asked him what was the best thing he'd seen at the show.

Without hesitating, he pointed me over to a small corner of the expo floor and to the little booth of a skunkworks project called inDuality developed by a company called Pelican Crossing and another known as IBM.

Well, when I finally found … Read more

New 'Second Life' viewer adopted by CBS' 'CSI'

SAN JOSE, Calif.--The Virtual World conference got off to a quick start this morning when The Electric Sheep Company, a leading developer of corporate projects in Second Life, announced that it has released a new viewer for the popular digital 3D social environment.

The idea behind the new technology, which is called OnRez, is that it would allow Second Life residents to use the virtual world through a Web browser-like system. It would also make it easy to buy all kinds of in-world products through the OnRez shopping system, which has been around for some time.

One thing that … Read more

Virtual Worlds conference: Differentiation from 'Second Life'

SAN JOSE, Calif.--I'm down at the Virtual Worlds conference here, and one of the most interesting things I've noticed is that everyone is trying to differentiate themselves from Second Life.

It actually makes sense. The attendees of this conference are largely people who are only recently coming to the concept of virtual worlds, and if there's one everyone's heard of, it's Second Life.

So, this differentiation is happening in two ways.

First, in panels, like the one I'm sitting in right now, titled "Blurring the lines between virtual and real worlds," … Read more

Aeron chairs in 'Second Life' rights showdown

If you've ever sat in an Aeron chair, you know what real office comfort can be like. Plus, they're just great-looking pieces of furniture.

That's true whether you're talking about a real-life Aeron or an Aeron in the virtual world Second Life, where there are plenty of copycat chairs available for sale at reasonable prices.

But now, according to Wagner James Au over at the blog New World Notes, Aeron manufacturer Herman Miller has launched a store in Second Life and is attempting to address the issue of illegitimate knockoffs through an interesting two-pronged approach.

For … Read more

Who will be the 800-pound gorilla of digital convergence?

Way back in the dark ages--before cell phones, reality TV, or social networks--there was big iron. In those archaic times, computers were actually used for computing, as opposed to watching porn or idiotic video clips. The computing giants of the day included IBM, Digital Equipment, Unisys (the marriage of Sperry and Burroughs), Data General, and Wang Laboratories.

The transition to personal computing and networking changed all that. IBM and Unisys survived by refocusing on services. The others didn't fair so well. Markets change. Companies that change with them survive. Those that anticipate change do better still. Those that resist … Read more