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…
SL book signing with Play Money author Julian Dibbell
Today Julian Dibbell did an in-world book signing and Q&A for his new book Play Money. In an interesting twist, Julian not only is selling a virtual version of his book in Second Life, he also has a two-for-one deal to get both the virtual and real versions of the book for 6250 Lindens (about…
Mole the Pirate?
We had a little scare with my cat Mole Negro, who has been having problems with his right eye. Ocassionally his eye clouds up and he gets some milky discharge that in the past has cleared up after a day or so. My roommate Paul alerted me that the day before yesterday Mole’s eye had…
What WERE you thinking last night?
I love these kind of community policing / shaming techniques people employ in New York. I have some insanely noisy neighbors in the building next to me, who I have been incapable of convincing to turn down the music after, say, 2am on weeknight. I hope the folks on Elizabeth street had better luck than…
New site provides online tools for human rights defenders
I received in my in-box news about a new online resource for human rights activists called Human Rights Tools created by Daniel D’Esposito , formerly of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The site is basically a set of links and RSS feeds to information useful to human rights professionals in an easy-to-navigate format. …
FCC to review media ownership rules this Fall
The Federal Communications Commission issued yesterday (July 24) their decision on a new proposed rulemaking procedure on media ownership. A press release details some of the key issues to be considered, including: Local Television Ownership Limit Local Radio Ownership Limit Newspaper Broadcast Cross-ownership Ban Radio Television Cross-ownership Limit Dual Network Ban UHF discount on the…
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…
Kaneva entering the MMORPG market
I somewhat randomly came across the "World of Kaneva," a new multi-user online virtual environment still in development (i.e. vaporware.) Kaneva itself is a channel-based hosting service for videos, blogs, photos and other multi-media content, still in the beta-phase. They appear to be trying to dominate various kinds of e-business at the time, going up…
Public Access pitted against You Tube in Florida
Steven Clift linked me to an article in the Gainesville Sun out of Florida on a community’s failed attempts to get a public access channel on their local TV. The paper reported that Alachua County commissioners in June joined the Gainesville City Commission in declining to create a public station. What is interesting / dangerous…
Virtual Relay for Life nets $38,000 for American Cancer Society!
Tao Takashi reports on his blog that this year’s Second Life "Relay for Life" benefit for the American Cancer Society raised more than $38,000 this weekend! That’s a tremendous increase from the $6,000 raised last year! I was super busy this weekend, but stopped in briefly to check out all the fun and drop some…