Interesting Finds: June 28, 2006 AM edition

Jason Haley — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 18:21:17 GMT

re: To blog, or not to blog....that is the question

Stephen Ibaraki, FCIPS,I.S.P., sibaraki@cips.ca — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 23:49:16 GMT

There's a kind of virtual world Graham called Second Life...click on the link about and explore :-)

Cheers,
Stephen Ibaraki

re: To blog, or not to blog....that is the question

jointer — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 21:20:06 GMT

Stephen,

I looked up Second Life; very interesting. I also read the article in Business Week about it (<a href="http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_18/b3982001.htm">http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_18/b3982001.htm</a>). It reminds me of the critically acclaimed <i>Neuromancer</i> by William Gibson. It is interesting how, over the years, many well known, forward thinking sci-fi writers have been eerily close to predicting a possible future, often many years ahead.

Whilst Second Life is a sign of the times and perhpas a peek into the future (a slightly scary future in some ways), I was referring to virtual reality in the total 'immersion'sense, using a headset for example. I have experienced this wrt plant design in my engineering days. It is frighteningly 'real'. This was at least 10 years ago when Silicon Graphics Unix workstations were the leaders. They had a research facility at Reading in England. I am sure that things must have advanced considerably since then; cpu speeds and graphics engines have advanced a lot in that time.

Perhaps Third or Fourth Life will bring the total 'immersion' experience? I can imagine how exilerating that might be and at the same time the potential for abuse also concerns and frightens me!

Cheers
Graham