1 nov: physical virtuality: “what’s the weight of an avatar?”

FEEL the presence of virtual world avatars in a cross-world interactive installation, connecting virtual life to our physical world.

On saturday the 1st of november, visitors of the NEMO Science Center in Amsterdam will be physically connected to inhabitants of the virtual world Second Life through an intervirtual balancing plateau.

The total weight of avatars standing on the virtual side of the plateau will be calculated and processed along with the weight of all people standing on the physical side of the plateau. This outcome will trigger the synchronised real-time movement of both the hydraulic powered and script controlled side of the plateau, resulting in an experience of indirect physical contact between real and virtual beings.

A two way videoprojection will visually connect the virtual and real-life participants standing on the installation.

web-location: sndrv.nl/physicalvirtuality
physical location: Science Center NEMO, Oosterdok 2, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
virtual location: Brooklyn is Watching project space in Second Life. http://slurl.com/secondlife/Popcha/72/140/27

Date/time: saturday 1st of november 2008

18:00 - 1:00 GMT
19:00 - 2:00 CET
10:00 - 17:00 PST

I will be there in real life helping out, come by and say hi.

Dutch court convicts teens for stealing virtual property.

In the Leeuwarden district court two boys, aged 14 and 15 where sentenced to community service for forcing a other boy to transfer Runescape items to the attackers accounts. The 2 boys punched, kicked and threatened the victim with a knife.

The most interesting part of this case was that the issue isn't the assault but if virtual items should be considered goods that can be stolen. The lawyer defending the 2 boys argued that legally the items don't exist and can't be stolen.

The court doesn't agree with that defence and cited a earlier ruling that electricity can be considered a a material object in criminal law and stealing electricity is theft. The same principle applies in this case and stealing virtual items is theft, the court rules.

source: RNW

US Presidential Elections — Debate on Metaverse.TV

Metaverse TV is hosting what will probably be the most interesting in-world debate in Second Life® — a face-to-face between a Democrat and a Republican, discussing the US Presidental elections. If you can manage to attend today (October, 25th) at 2 PM SLT, be there :)

Filter HUD — So easy, so fun!

CodeBastard Redgrave is really, really a clever girl. To aid photographers to do nice special effects when taking their snapshots from SL, without the need of complex post-processing in Photoshop, GIMP, or any similar tool, she released the amazing FilterHUD, which you just attach, add a filter from a selection of presets, make sure that HUDs are visible on the snapshot (these days, in the latest Release Candidates, it's a simple checkbox you can click when you're taking a snapshot), and that's all you need. Adding gore (lots of blood!), light effects, a picture frame, or putting your image in widescreen format now becomes impressively simple and a mouseclick away.

The idea is so clever, but amazingly simple! All the HUD does, in fact, is add a transparent prim covering the whole of the screen. And then it just rezzes an appropriate texture as "filter" on top of it! That's all! But the ingenuity of being the very first to imagine this concept is what really counts.

Codie, I'd take my hat off to you, if I had one :)