|
Title: Second Life's virtual conference rooms might be more useful if they didn't rese Post by: Stephen Taylor on August 12, 2007, 04:15:00 AM Second Life's virtual conference rooms might be more useful if they didn't resemble their real-world counterparts - Erica Naone, Technology Review
MIT researcher Drew Harry flies his avatar into a house in Linden Labs' online environment, Second Life. The avatar passes couches, a fireplace, and a dining-room table complete with red-velvet tablecloth and candles. "Second Life is relentlessly literal," Harry says, pointing out one familiar domestic object after another. Harry designs virtual spaces that don't look like the familiar world--his virtual meeting room looks more like a football field than like a conference room. He says his goal is to stop mimicking the physical world and start creating a new kind of space. "It's not clear to me yet that [virtual worlds] are actually useful," Harry says. They will be useful, in his view, if they can take advantage of not being physical. Read More.. (http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/19035/) |