Information Technology

This article talk about the partnership of RocketOn, a creator of the Parallel Virtual World Platform, and Animax Entertainment, an Emmy-winning multi platform entertainment studio. The partnership is rather simple, RocketOn will benefit from Animax’s expertise in creating high quality animated content and from its relationships with major brands, media networks & movie studios. Animax and its clients will have access to RocketOn’s Parallel Virtual World Platform(TM) and authoring system, making it easy to rapidly deploy virtual spaces, avatars and games across any website.

Michael Bellavia, the CEO of Animax Entertainment has this to say, “RocketOn is a great way to launch and manage parallel virtual worlds, It enables us to create rich browser-based, virtual environments anywhere on the web without a user download. In a matter of weeks, we can literally build out a virtual space, deploy it on a website and populate it with content.”

Steve Hoffman the CEO of RocketOn have this to say, “Animax has a world-class reputation of building virtual world platforms from the ground up and developing for existing platforms, They have a wealth of creative ideas, talent and experience that will make our partnership a success. We’re looking forward to building parallel virtual worlds together and sharing the benefits”

This article talks about a virtual reality simulation that can simulate any kind of virtual reality environment called CAVE. CAVE can only be found on South Jersey.  NASA will use this system to test their rocket engines before they are bolted onto the rest of the system and launched into space.

Dr. Shreekanth Mandayam a researcher from NASA have this to say, “The CAVE allows us to analyze the data that come from a rocket engine test so we can simulate a what if scenarios, That’s the benefit of virtual reality. It’s much more cost effective to simulate anomalous conditions.” 

This device will also be used by the U.S. Navy, simulating research they would normally do onboard a ship, such as testing for leaks and other catastrophes.

Mandayam said the system has the capability of impacting work force in South Jersey, because students, technicians and engineers can be trained to operate high-tech equipment that’s being used to design aircrafts, automobiles and buildings and will be able to complete such tasks as simulating a building to evaluate its environmental impact before construction.

This Article tells us about a group of researcher from American National Standards Institute that are trying to develop a system that would help tired truck drivers by using virtual reality. As we know truck drivers spend most of his/her days on the road without getting enough rest because of their jobs, this is a big problem because their lack of sleep can make them lose their live and other people’s. Researcher’s believe they can minimize the casualties by using VR system to help the driver by showing them the “way”, literally. They’re developing a system that record the truck driver abnormal and hazardous steering into a VR system, but to do this the test subject must first deprived of their sleep to simulate a couple-of-days-without-sleep-environment.

After their hazardous and abnormal way of steering has been installed unto the VR system, then that system can be installed directly into their vehicle (in this case trucks). When the drivers are back on the road and showing an abnormal driving pattern such as zig-zaging, swerling, and even oversteering due to slower reflexes, the system will then alert the driver via audio and visual cue. Once alerted and possibly awakened the driver can then pull over to safety and rest. But because this system is still in experimental stage, there’s still many flaws and bugs to worked with, and will not be released to the public untill further notice.

According to this Article, a group of graduates from UT Dallas Arts & Technology program created a virtual art learning enviroment where art lover from the Unversity can join and learn about Art Musuem and Gallery around the world. Here are some features that the Virtual world provide:

• Take a two-dimensional painting and create an avatar from painters Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” or Pablo Picasso’s “The Guitarist.”
• Learn how to mount an exhibition of just about any great work of art or historical subject matter that would not be possible in a real-life museum.  For example, the student’s virtual museum exhibition is of a Mayan pyramid.
• Interact with art experts and learn the principles of design, color and light.
• Stroll through a virtual art gallery with works created by UT Dallas students.

A professor of of emerging media and director of the University’s Virtual World Lab, Dean Terry have this for say,”Virtual reality provides new kinds of experiences not possible in a physical museum space”.”Our graduate students have worked hard to think about what it means to create art and express themselves in a digital, virtual environment”

According to my latest post, Virtual world have a lot of uses for people and community around the world. We can built relationship with other people that are half around the world, make business transsaction with other people, and even became a educational tool for teacher to help their student understand real life scenario. But Virtual world also can be a use for promotional uses. One of the uses that caught my interest are the use of virtual world to support a cause. To be more precisely The Tibetan Cause.

Based on this Article, the Virtual World  “Entropia Universe” has make an shooting event that has intrested several team from around the world. The USA Team, Germany, Korean, Italy, and many more including Tibet. During the break period, the player can chat and talk through webcam regulary. With this method Tibetans has acuired support from almost all the country that enter the event. As now from the 32 Team that has entered the event, only 12 left standing with the Tibet team as one of the favourite. 

One of the team, Germany has this to say “On the forums and in the virtual universe people are talking about Tibet. Every day we see teams of hunters with names like ‘Free Tibet’ made up of people we don’t even know. The message is getting out, and that is the most important thing to us.”

Eventhough everybody have big expectation of The Tibet team, one of the player said that even if they doesn’t win the event but they already succeded in making everyone that entered or just watching the event hear their plight to help free Tibet from the “Disaster” that has struct Tibet.

Among all of the Web 2.0 feature, Virtual Worlds is the one with the least usage (other than gaming) if compared with other Web 2.0 features such as Video Blogging and Wikis. But society gradually believe that virtual worlds can be used for other purposes like Education, Business or just to be used for socializing. One of the example of virtual worlds that been used for Socializing is There.com.

Like other virtual worlds, wether its for games or business, to get started we need to create an avatar to represent ourself in There virtual environment. After we create an avatar, we explore There to meet new people, play mini-games, or just to shop for upgrading your avatar looks, such as their hair and clothes. This virtual world also can be used for other purposes not just Socializing, if we had a creativity, we can use this virtual world for educational purposes. The student and teacher can meet up somewhere in the virtual world and can start discussing about assignment.

Of course there other Virtual worlds that have a multifunction like There. So with this growing usage of virtual worlds on the world, i believe we can built relationship, wether its educational or business relation, with other people around the world without having to pay for anything but our internet and electricity bills.

Technological Situation

 Personal Computer

- Windows XP Service Pack 2

- Intel (R) Core (TM)2 CPU 1.8 Ghz

- 1023 MB of RAM

Technological Advantage

- Repairing basic error in a PC

- Took lessons on  how to make flash movies and games

- Took lessons on 3D Design, can make 3D characters and scenery ( still pictures)

- Can use Adobe Photo Shop

Technological Disadvantage

- Too lazy to update Virus Protection Software

- Minimal understanding of  PC hardwares ( as in the graphic card and such)

How I keep up with technological issues

I keep up with technological issue by reading PC magazine and their web site. I also read other people blogs that’s still related to technological news and progress, such as, when is . Other than that I also read forums that discussing things about technological news. I used to read “Jakarta Post” and “Kompas”, most of the times these newspaper have an article about technology that i can read.