secondlife
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The Avatar Project is a Vichealth funded Victoria University administered program researching the mental health of teens in virtual environments, specifically issues such as community engagement, self esteem, and self determination. Over the past three years the Avatar Project has been working with a range of schools and organisations in Melbourne. Many students we work with lack basic literacy skills, are not engaged by traditional classroom teaching and are at risk of not reaching their full potential once they leave school. Taking these students into a virtual 3d environment allows them the freedom to not only express themselves and gain a sense of control over their lives, but also to learn educational skills in a fun way including a wide range of subject matter including maths, science, english, history, art, design and of course multimedia.
The Avatar Project
Finally, A Practical Use for Second Life - ReadWriteWeb
When you think of virtual worlds, the first one that probably pops into your head is Second Life, but in reality, there are a number of different virtual worlds out there. There are worlds for socializing, worlds for gaming, even worlds for e-learning. But one thing that most virtual worlds have in common is that they are places for play, not practicality. (Yes, even the e-learning worlds are designed with elements of "fun" in mind). Outside of some reports that virtual worlds will replace web conferencing in the enterprise, we haven't seen a lot of innovation in this space which would make businesses sit up and take notice. However, that may be about to change thanks to new software that lets you perform data visualization and manipulation techniques within the virtual world environment.
University Park, Pa. -- Second Life, a virtual world created in 2003 by Linden Labs, currently boasts more than 12 million users worldwide who go there for everything from college recruiting to shopping. Now, Penn State researchers are investigating how virtual teams can better solve real world problems by collaborating in Second Life. Nathan McNeese, undergraduate, psychology; Gerry Santoro, assistant professor, and Michael McNeese, professor, information sciences and technology and psychology, all from Penn State; and Mark Pfaff, assistant professor of media arts and sciences, Indiana University-Indianapolis, created an experiment in which students formed teams and were asked to solve a problem, posed by a video, using different meeting styles. The researchers set up 10 teams to work face-to-face, 10 teams to work through teleconferencing and 12 teams to work as groups of avatars in Second Life. An avatar is a computer user's representation of him- or herself.
Penn State Live - Virtual world offers new locale for problem so
Another thread from Robert Bloomfield’s interview with Philip Rosedale covered the investment side of things – interesting insight for operators who have recently embarked on their own virtual journeys. An extract is below (with the full piece here ) and Christian Renaud’s thoughts over on the Technology Intelligence Group blog are just a click away here . PHILIP ROSEDALE: for all the excitement around Second Life, this has been a company thats been well financed. Everythings been done in a simple straightforward way.
Linden Lab: Investor strategies and profitability : Kzero
Second Life » Second Life’s user economy shows strong growth
SECOND LIFE, August 26 (Reuters) - The real-world economy may be slipping into recession, but the global slowdown isn’t impacting Second Life. According to recently released company statistics, Linden Lab’s in-world economy is larger than ever. Over 61,000 avatars earned more Linden dollars (Second Life’s in-world currency) in July than they spent. That’s a 5.7 percent month-to-month gain in the number of profitable in-world businesses and the most on record. User hours grew for the fourth consecutive month to 34.7 million in July, also a new record. However, the user hours number may be unreliable given the proliferation of computer-run avatars, or “bots,” throughout the Grid.
Second Life » High risks, high rewards in virtual finance
SECOND LIFE, Dec 4 (Reuters) - In many ways, the SL Investor’s Bank (SLIB) is like any financial institution, with ATMs, mortgage applications and friendly staff. But the bank offers rates that would make a real-world investor stagger: more than 92 percent annually on a termed deposit. The promised returns assume, of course, that the bank will still be solvent when the investment comes due.Professor Junichi Ushiba from Tokyo's Keio University created a brain-computer interface that offers people with paralysis a 'second life' in online virtual worlds. Players can e.g. move their second life avatars just by thinking of commands. the interface uses electrodes attached to the user's scalp to sense activity in the brain's sensory-motor cortex.
Communist Robot - Where do you stand on the future?
Second Life's 2nd value: Testing ideas - CNN.com
Second Life allows people to lead two lives -- one in the real world and another in the virtual. But in a way, Second Life itself leads two lives. In just fours years of existence, Second Life has moved far beyond people simulating other lives on the Internet. In its first, well-publicized life, it's a forum for residents to socialize, shop and even have sex via on-screen avatars. In its second life, it's a flexible platform for running inexpensive simulations and experiments.
Linden Lab’s Second Life has seen its fair share of controversies in the past; an FBI investigation led to a shut down of inworld casinos, some media reports suggested that Second Life may be being used as a training area for terrorists, and in July there was suggestion that Bestiality may be driven out of the metaverse by a crackdown under a new TOS that banned “Broadly Offensive” behaviour. UK authorities may soon be entering Second Life as part of a crack down on virtual pedophilia following the above report being shown on Sky News. The report investigates an area in Second Life called “Wonderland” where users dressed as children offer virtual prostitution in a space designed to mimic a kids playground. Someone recently said to me at a conference that Second Life’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: pure uncensored freedom; they are completely right.
Virtual Pedophilia Report Bad News For Second Life
If you are like me, you probably have some of your Second Life friends among your Facebook friends. And until recently, we had no good way of connecting the two worlds. But now we can; and there isn't just one, but two Facebook applications that can help you with that. Second Friends The first app (by release order) is called Second Friends and was developed by Art Fossett (I'm using the developer's SL names in both cases) . The app lets you display your avatar name and picture and a list of your Facebook friends that are using Second Friends on your Facebook profile.