The Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, is one of those New York cultural treasures that I've been hearing about for years and years and just never got around to visiting. First off, it's in Queens, which is still somewhat opaque and mysterious to me. Secondly, uh, it's been a busy 15 years. And…
Tag: virtual worlds
“The Lifecycle of Software Objects”: Intriguing Free Novella about Digital Lifeforms and Virtual Worlds
"The Lifecycle of Software Objects" is a fun and thought-provoking novella that should captivate anyone who is interested in artificial intelligence, virtual worlds, or robots. A near fiction story by Ted Chiang about a young zookeeper who is hired to help develop a line of new digital pets in a virtual world. Things are going…
“Dimension 11”: Creating Machinima on the Edge of Reality
I touched base with my friends Paul and Kerria about their new venture called "Dimension 11." As we previously reported, Ill Clan Studios (where I briefly worked), last month morphed into two entities: Pixel Valley Studios and Dimension 11. Here's what Kerria and Paul say about their new biz: After creating award-winning animation for film,…
Ill Clan “morphs” into Two New Virtual World & Animation Shops
My friends at the award-winning machinima crew Ill Clan Studios tell me that they have "morphed" the company into two different concerns: Pixel Valley Studio will focus on real-time machinima animation and traditional 3D digital animation Kerria Seabrooke and Paul Jannicola will specialize in virtual world builds, experiential design and artistic machinima Not much more…
Global Kids Professional Development: Learn how to engage youth on global issues using virtual worlds, games and machinima
You might not know, but my organization Global Kids not only does some of the most innovative virtual world, serious gaming, and digital filmmaking youth programs out there, but we also help other educators adopt our methods for their kids. Global Kids offers a range of professional services and professional development including standards-based training for…
Announcing Betterverse.org: Covering the intersection of the public sector and the metaverse
It has been a long time coming, but I have finally decided to launch the new website Betterverse.org, dedicated to chronicling the burgeoning nonprofit and public good sector in the virtual world. I have been involved in various nonprofit experiments in the virtual world since 2006, and have been astounded by the incredible diversity, creativity…
Simulcast of Barack Obama speech in Ghana into Second Life and Metaplace! (video)
This morning, President Barack Obama gave an address in Accra, Ghana, which was simulcast into both the virtual worlds of Metaplace and Second Life. I, like many other virtual world explorers, logged into both Metaplace and Second Life, as well as posting to Twitter, adding pictures to our Flickr photostreams and taking machinima video of…
Obama’s Address in Ghana Tomorrow: Participate via Twitter, Second Life or Metaplace!
Tomorrow, Saturday July 11th, starting at 8am EST, President Barack Obama will be giving a historic address from Ghana. For the first time in a US presidential address, you can participate in a global conversation with other people from around the world using SMS text messaging, Twitter (using the hashtag "obamaghana"), and from with the…
Visiting the Traditional Marriage Support Center in MetaPlace
Virtual worlds draw folks from all sorts of religious, cultural and political backgrounds. And the more broad-based they become, the more diverse they'll be. As an example, today I found the "Traditional Marriage Support Center" in Metaplace, created by user HoneyBeeRose. The info desk helpfully defines "traditional marriage" as "a marriage between one man and…
Machinima tour of MacArthur Island led by Mac President Fanton! (video)
For those of you not in Second Life, here is a lovely video tour of the new MacArthur Island sim led by the avatar of MacArthur Foundation president Jonathan Fanton. I love the production values of this machinima, and how it encapsulates in seven minutes the broad range of projects being supported by the MacArthur…