I’m off to Memphis tomorrow to participate in the National Conference on Media Reform, put on by Free Press. And as excited as I am to be with 3,000 media activists, researchers and policy-makers, right now I just want me some Memphis barbeque. I have fantasies about making it out to Graceland, but I think…
Category: Travel
Real World Places in Second Life #13: Ancient Rome
Torin Golding’s outstanding sim called simply "Roma" (teleport SLURL) is a feast for the senses and a powerful demonstration of the potential for virtual environments to immerse you in historic places.
Real World Places in Second Life #12: Virtual Morocco!
I just ran across an amazing new build called "Virtual Morocco" on the Casablanca sim (teleport SLURL). Created as an initiative of faculty and students at Johnson and Wales University in partnership with the Moroccan ministry of tourism, Virtual Morocco is one of the most immersive real world places in Second Life that I’ve ever…
“Real Life Places in SL” HUD
I just finished playing with the new open-sourced TourHUD created by the Electric Sheep Company for the GSD&M ad agency. The Tour HUD ("heads up display") is a very easy-to-use tool for creating your own custom tours of various spots in Second Life. There are already two — one for newbie-friendly areas and another of…
More virtual reality coolness from Stephane Zugzwang
And you thought Second Life could not get any cooler? In Kenzo TPed me over to an incredible, enormous virtual reality simulator on Commonwealth Island built by Stephane Zugzwang. You stand on a small suspended, semi-opaque platform high above a mountain range. As you click on a large sampling of images on a floating screen,…
The dirty, decaying, chaotic pleasures of Athens
After the frenzy of the Internet Governance Forum, I decided to spend a couple of days in Athens getting to know the city. Athens seemed like just the kind of place that I would like — full of rich history and urban grit. I had few preconceived notions about Athens, just a desire to see…
Internet Governance Forum, uh, Forums
Rushing rushing rushing to put together the materials I’m going to need for my presentations at the Internet Governance Forum next week in Athens. The main focus of my talks will be on creating new modalities for broadbased participation in internet policy through various communications and information technologies. What is interesting is that there are…
Parioli: immersive Italian-themed sim
Man, those folks over at Parioli sim have created some incredible 360 degree images of places in Italy that really make me wish I was there. I really wanted to walk over to the Coloseum and hang out in the bleachers. This panoramic photo of a plaza in Italy was so real it seems like…
The future of tour guide technology, Part IV
This is the last in a four-part (I, II, III) exploration of guided tour tech. In Part One, I mused about the potential for using ICTs to connect experts in particular disciplines with tourists visiting a particular site on an ad hoc basis. Apparently this coordination problem has been somewhat solved by combining iPods and…
The future of tour guide technology, Part III
As I was posting the previous entry on guided tour technology, I was thinking that it was more than likely that someone had already developed this. I was right. Not only has someone created a prototype of the kind of 3D-imaging, GPS-enabled, context-relevant goggles I wrote about, but they built it specifically for the city…