SecondLie on Twitter 07:28 PM April 20, 2008 from web
LMAO
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Professor John Bell said QUT had worked with a Canberra-based company Dyesol, which is developing transparent solar cells that act as both windows and energy generators in houses or commercial buildings.
He said the solar cell glass would make a significant difference to home and building owners’ energy costs and could in fact generate excess energy that could be stored on onsold.
Professor Bell said the glass was one of a number of practical technologies that would help combat global warming which was a focus of research at the ISR.
“The transparent solar cells have a faint reddish hue but are completely see-through,” Professor Bell said.
The solar cells contain titanium dioxide coated in a dye that increases light absorption.
The glass captures solar energy which can be used to power the house but can also reduce overheating of the house, reducing the need for cooling.
Professor Bell said it would be possible to build houses made entirely of the transparent solar cells.
“As long as a house is designed throughout for energy efficiency, with low-energy appliances it is conceivable it could be self-sustaining in its power requirements using the solar-cell glass,” he said.
Australian housing design tends to encourage high energy use because electricity is so cheap.
But it is easy to build a house that doesn’t need powered cooling or heating in Queensland.
Professor Bell said the solar cell glass was the subject of two Australian Research Council Linkage grants to QUT researchers to investigate ways to increase its energy absorption and to reduce the effects of “shadowing”, where overcast skies and shadwos from trees or other buildings can cause loss of collected power.
He said the glass would be on the market a few years.
Source: inhabitat.com/
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Tue Apr 15, 2008 By Eric Reuters
SECOND LIFE, April 15 (Reuters) - Fewer new users are signing up for Second Life, but the faithful are spending more time and money than ever inside Linden Lab’s virtual world.
Source: nwn.blogs.com
Are metaverse development agencies leaving SL en masse? You may think that were you to glance at the headline of a recent Reuters story, “Frustrated virtual agencies look beyond Second Life”. It’s been roughly two years since a May 2006 cover story on BusinessWeek attracted a swarm of interest in Second Life by real world companies, and studios specializing in SL content creation to service them.
Over the last several months, it is true that the “Big Three” of metaverse development companies— The Electric Sheep Company, NWN partner Millions of Us, and the UK studio Rivers Run Red— are moving their primary focus away from Second Life for marketing projects in other virtual worlds. However, I think a fuller summary of the current situation is this:
The largest metaverse companies are expanding their portfolio of virtual worlds, while an explosion of smaller boutique agencies remain focused on Second Life.
Building a 3D World One City at a Time: Google and Microsoft Chip Away at a Global Build
April 16, 2008 — dusanwriterGoogle continues to map its own 3D version of the world, one city at a time, encouraging municipalities to load up databases of buildings in order to gain the benefits of engaging the public in planning, fostering economic development, and more.
Their latest release of Google Earth includes a familiar sort of interface element to those used to the HUD based movement commands of Second Life:
The latest release also includes lighting, so that 3D landscapes can be viewed by time of day. Hardly Windlight, but adds depth and texture:
Meanwhile, Microsoft continues to play catch up to Google Earth in what seems like an ever escalating war to add the best features. Their integration with 3DVIA (similar to Sketch Up but from the same group who brought us 3D XML and Virtools) allows for more detailed texturing of models.
The metaverse isn’t here yet because your avatar isn’t allowed to enter.
credit: geosimphilly.com Found via: Digado
“The terabytes of imaging data are being used to build a 3D model of central Philadelphia, down to the last cornice, mailbox and shrub.”
- A. Eisenberg,
The New York Times
Many Second Life’s users think of “The Grid” to mean interconnected virtual world servers, especially Linden Lab’s grid, this term cannot be trademarked by Linden Lab. Not only has the term been in use to describe the electrical grid and the Internet itself. and then Grid computing (The OpenGrid Forum), there is now from CERN, originators of the Internet their own Grid.
All these Grids have one issue, “The last mile” The Internet service providers, tel-cos, and cable giants with their antiquated equipment and expensive pricing models.
Again this shows that the technology is here now to solve another piece of the LAG and all the client side rendering issues. It is businesses, the economy, the market, and those large companies & industries that hold back change not technology.
CERN Develops Possible Internet Replacement, Unfathomably Faster
source: www.dailytech.com
“Internet up to 10,000 times faster deployed, may see consumer use within a year or two
CERN, the Geneva-based particle physics center which spawned the world wide web in 1989, is looking to create the next internet, and has already laid down the essential ground work for it. Experts say it is sorely needed. Recent industry analysis, such as DailyTech’s recent piece “American Broadband: Pathetic and Disgraceful,” has revealed that most customer languish under poor data rates and high costs.
The new internet from CERN could change all that. The proposed system averages speeds of up to 10,000 times the typical broadband connection today. The new internet is known as “the grid” and could send the entire Rolling Stones catalog from Britain to Japan in two seconds, a scenario akin to the RIAA’s worst nightmare…..”
The TALON SWORDS robots are being shipped back to the lab after field reports that the machines would aim its weapons at friendly argets. (Source: U.S. Army) Just a few weeks back there was a spirited debate over the ethics of deploying war robots in Iraq. The machine gun carrying remote-controlled killing machines, TALON SWORDS robots, produced by the Army, were among the various robotic soldiers being experimentally deployed in Iraq.
Their deployment lead a major anti-landmine nonprofit organization to campaign against the deployment of the machines. The protests were fueled by a discussion with a leading roboticist, Chris Elliot, who proposed that increasingly intelligent robots might be capable of committing war crimes.
