The Slews - 7/15

Lights dim and music swells….From the top of what rises in the east to the bottom of what falls in the west, covering the metaplace, the marketplace and wherever else inquiring minds are…..This…Is…The>…Slews!

P: Good evening Second Nation & here now The Slews

P: Astronomers say that Saturn’s rings will disappear from view on Earth on September 4, 2009. That is officially before the 2009 SecondLife Convention, think we know where they are heading?

H: No Pooky, The gases, ice, and rocky material that make up the rings will remain in place, but be invisible from the vantage point of Earth, as they do about every fifteen years. The rings are so thin that stargazers will be unable to see them through small telescopes.

P: I always wondered, What are Saturn’s rings made of? Light? Gases? Water and ice? Rock and debris?

H: Rocks to boulder size objects, even up to small minivan size objects, all in orbit around Saturn, & at how many gallons per mile, that takes some Lindens to get there.

P: Until now, astronomers have failed to identify where asteroids come from, because of what happens after the meteorites are ejected from their asteroidal parent body.
Most of the meteorites that we collect on Earth come from the main belt between Mars and Jupiter

H: . Why do we want to know this? Meteorites are a major tool for knowing the history of the solar system because their composition is a record of past geology that occurred while they were still incorporated in the parent asteroid.. Like when I used to live at home.

P: Undersea volcanic rocks offer vast repository for greenhouse gas, says study A group of scientists has used deep ocean-floor drilling and experiments to show that volcanic rocks off the West Coast and elsewhere might be used to securely imprison huge amounts of globe-warming carbon dioxide captured from power plants or other sources.

H: In particular, they say that natural chemical reactions under 30,000 square miles of ocean floor off California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia could lock in as much as 150 years of US CO2 production.

P: Research scientists have now presented a new generation of household robots, the “Care-O-bot® 3”. Stereo-vision color cameras, laser scanners and a 3-D range camera enable Care-O-bot® 3 to register its surroundings in three dimensions in real time. Just like in SecondLife, but I will smack anyone who calls me their robot!

H: If a person moves into the radius of its arm, it stops moving. Another feature of the small, flexible helper is that it can move in any direction. It can also learn to recognize new objects. The user simply places the unfamiliar object in the robot’s hand so that it can gain a three-dimensional impression of the item.

P: However, the new robot does not look like a human being. humanoid service robots were deliberately moved away from, when we designing Care-O-bot® 3,” But can they hold a human hand? Never mind a human heart?

H: A U.S. watch list of terrorism suspects has passed 1 million records, corresponding to about 400,000 people, and a leading civil rights group said on Monday the number was far too high to be effective.

P: President George W. Bush ordered in the current list in September 2003 as a way to wrap several growing terrorism watchlists into a single government database compiled and overseen by the FBI, through a Terrorist Screening Center. Now is we could only get them all into a social network that would be an instant 1 million registered users.

H: Telescopes looking back in time to more than 12 billion years ago have spotted a star factory — a galaxy producing so many new stars that they have nicknamed it the “baby boom” galaxy.

P:The remote galaxy is — or was — pumping out stars at a rate of up to 4,000 per year. In comparison, our own Milky Way galaxy gives birth to an average of just 10 stars per year.This galaxy is undergoing a major baby boom, producing most of its stars all at once,

H: If our human population was produced in a similar boom, then almost all of the people alive today would be the same age.

P: Speaking of babies - A baby’s smile does more than warm a mother’s heart — it also lights up the reward centers of her brain, according to the results of a brain imaging study. The investigators found that when the mothers saw their own infants’ faces, key areas of the brain associated with reward lit up during the scans, suggesting increased blood flow to that area.

H: These are areas that have been activated in other experiments associated with drug addiction, or SecondLife addiction.

P: Cymbals don’t clash of their own accord – in our world, anyway and diaper spelt backwards is repaid. But the quantum world is bizarrely different. Two metal plates, placed almost infinitesimally close together, spontaneously attract each other.

H: What seems like magic is known as the Casimir force, and it has been well-documented in experiments. The cause goes to the heart of quantum physics: Seemingly empty space is not actually empty but contains virtual particles associated with fluctuating electromagnetic fields.

P: However, only virtual particles of shorter wavelengths — in the quantum world, particles exist simultaneously as waves — can fit into the space between the plates, so that the outward pressure is slightly smaller than the inward pressure. The result is the plates are forced together. What about virtual plates?

H: Now, tiny “microelectromechanical” systems — so-called MEMS devices that are already used in a wide array of consumer products — become so small they are affected by quantum forces. More specifically, the finding could one day help reduce what MEMS engineers call “stiction” — when two very small, very close objects tend to stick together.

P: how small do you have to get to be Stuck on you? A new report is the first to describe the principles behind the stability and electronic properties of tiny nanoclusters of metallic gold. The study, which confirms the “divide and protect” bonding structure, resulted from the work of researchers at four universities on two continents.

H: In the Heart of Gold effect – this Study reveals principles behind stability and electronic properties of gold nanoclusters that confirms ‘divide and protect’ bonding structure.

P: BabyCenter.com has launched a social network for what it calls “the largest parenting community online.” many blogs and matching with people who share common interests or childrens’ ages, and tag photos and profiles.

H: I am bit suspicious of anyone who shares that much common interest with a child. But the moms just keep on coming! New moms and pregnant women have over 109 word-of-mouth conversations per week about products, services, and brands, most of them positive and considered highly credible by other moms,

P: Nielsen is expected to announce its long-awaited new service that will deliver standardized metrics for out-of-home video networks. It will deliver free reports to agency clients,

H: Speaking of which, The world’s largest digital sign - commissioned by Walgreens - is nearly completed in Times Square. The sign, which is comprised of 23 synchronized digital screens to create a solid animation, wraps three sides of a 25-story T the building from which the New Year’s Eve ball is dropped.

P: Weighing in at 250,000 pounds, it spans 43,720 square feet making it significantly larger than the old champion from NASDAQ, which covers just 11,000 square feet.

H: More Out of Home marketing! A futuristic, inflatable, transformer-style giant graced New York’s Times Square yesterday. The 60-foot gift monster is heading to Phoenix today, to take its place outside of the University of Phoenix stadium where the Super Bowl will be played in two weeks.

P: In response to the complaints of a pastor of a church in Times Square, a New York state Supreme Court Justice has ordered a temporary restraining order against a company that proposed to put up ads that would have shown naked bottoms with smiley faces.

H: The advertisements for the Washlet - a bidet-toilet seat that uses warm water and air - were to go up July 1 for 30 days on the two sides of the building that houses the nondenominational church.

P: Storage vendors are scrambling to keep up with the demand from Hollywood special-effects houses and surveillance companies. Digital video storage is the single fastest-growing sector in the storage industry and it is being driven by the demand from filmmakers and security companies, both producing thousands of hours of video that needs to be held indefinitely;

H: The first iPhones won praise for their sleek design and elegant touchscreen, but Apple’s latest will be celebrated for the software applications it enables. & sold a million over the weekend.

P: Last weekend there was, an ultra technorati blowout generously sponsored by the folks at O’Reilly Media at their spacious campus in Sebastapol Among them were folk from Get Satisfaction, a site that fosters dialog between companies and their customers. You post questions there, offer advice to others, and when it’s something company employees can address, they respond.

H: Linden Lab also has a Get Satisfaction company listing, with five Lindens interacting. A bit like JIRA, the Lindens’ feature tracking software, but way more user-friendly– and perhaps just as important, publicly viewable.

P: It’s a family Affair! Night Morrisey has a fascinating and keenly observed profile of a Second Life family, seven adult-age Residents who roleplay as a caring nuclear household, with a mother and father, and five kids. I bet there is a lot of smiling going on.

H: The details of their virtual domestic life are intriguing, especially as they relate to their real world identities. MOM & DAD have accumulated I mean adopted, the children, and even extendplay into their real lives with telephone calls- I am sorry Pooky but I think I’m just going to call that a real relationship

P: The mom remembers when her smallest was “three days old, and looked it. So I took him shopping, then home - I wouldn’t take him home with noob hair!”
but he didn’t intentionally become a kid, “I started playing with the slider settings and without realizing it I was making my av smaller and smaller, and it felt more natural to me. He bumped into other kids on a playground my first day as a boy and the other kids there were picked up by their mother, and I immediately knew I had to have that same thing.”

H: I got mine from slexchange, she’s a beauty. And cleans up better than a robot. Will virtual diapers be that far in the future?

P: diaper spelt backwards is..

H: Okay Pooky, we know…..Today was the Tour of the IBM Virtual Green Data Center
& IBM has announced it has accomplished virtual teleportation. That’s correct. The company known as the world leader in supercomputing teamed up with Second Life to make sure that users of virtual worlds can “teleport” their avatars between them.

P: “Teleporting an avatar between platforms has the potential to have a significant impact on the future of virtual worlds. An open standard for interoperability would allow users to cross freely from one world to another in a seamless transfer, just as they can go from one Web site to another on the Internet today.”

H: while Developing this protocol is a key milestone and has the potential to push virtual worlds into the next stage of their evolution.so is getting the teleportation device that transports a real human into Second Life as an avatar, that just might be very worthwhile.

P: I thought that was called logging in? The “Partner” option in Second Life enables you to list another Resident as such in your avatar profile (if that person accepts your proposal, that is), and doing so is a bargain deal, literally costing pennies: listing cost is $L10 (around 3.7 US cents), and L$25, if the couple decides to get divorced. but who gets the kids?

H: The designation means different things to different Residents. Sometimes it’s just romantic roleplay. For others, it’s a connection that’s real in some meaningful way. (The Linden Partner page acknowledges as much, offering it as an option for partnerships that certain real world governments forbid: “Can’t be married in real life? Try Second Life!”)

P: What about polygamy? Is that legal here? Recently CeNedra Rivera ran a survey on her blog, asking “What does ‘Partner’ mean to you in SL?”, 27% said nothing I will never get partnered here, and you dont have to be married to get virtually pregnant either.

H: In other virtual headlines – yes Lively reminds me of something like IMVU, an instant messaging program that enables 3D avatar chat, in that it provides off-the-shelf avatars with teen appeal for socializing.

P: However, imagine if Google Earth became a portal to other virtual spaces. If you were in business mode, you could fly in via Google Earth to check the name of that company whose building you keep driving past, find its real-world buildings, use them to launch its webpage, and then enter its Lively virtual space to interact with some real employees.

H: As a tourist, you could fly into New York, check out the hotels in the area near where your friends live, and then fly your avatar into the hotel’s Lively space to talk to someone about getting a deal on a weekend break.

P: It’s this integration of 2D and 3D which is so powerful, and Google, which dominates the world’s text-based information and has hell of a leg up in 3D via Google Earth, seems to me well placed to create the ultimate mash-up of real and virtual world content. It will be interesting to see how Lively develops, but for now, we don’t need another stand alone virtual space: the real magic will happen when these worlds start to collide.

H: And The perception of most business people (if they’ve even heard of virtual worlds) is that virtual worlds are games. It’s hard for many business people to imagine using them for work.

P: . But with large companies like Diageo, Unilever, BP, IBM and others using virtual worlds the case studies will start to come out and perception will gradually change.”

H: A Gartner report shows that 90% of corporate attempts to use virtual worlds fail within the first 18 months. Despite this finding, Gartner says that virtual worlds could still play a vital role in the future with 70% of organizations developing a private internal virtual world by 2012.

P: The projects so often fail either because they are launched for the wrong reasons

H: for the cool factor or to keep up with competitors, or because they replaced the bright sociable go-getter with the IT guy who has the personality of a mushroom.

P: or because marketers don’t understand at a fundamental level how virtual worlds are different from the rest of the Web (the pages that compose the “2-D Internet”).

H: “Realistic graphics and physical behavior count for little unless the presence is valued by and engaging to a large audience. and unless they smile Pooky, at least somewhere deep inside.

P: yeah & certainly if you don’t have to clean up your room. And that…it…the …slews!

The Slews - July 8th - Pooky & Hydra

Lights dim music swells..from the top of my head to the tip of my tongue,,covering this
Once in a lifetime..beat that will go on in ways too persistent to remember…this….is….The….Slews
P: And good evening Second Nation, Here now The Slews!

H:A boa noite, e é aqui os pântanos

P: Scientists use the Big Byrd Green Bank Telescope to go fishing in a rich molecular cloud in our Milky Way. Seeking to discover new, complex molecules in interstellar space that may be precursors to life. Always that search for life, why don’t they try Google?

H: As molecules rotate and vibrate, they emit radio waves at specific frequencies. Each molecule has a unique pattern of such frequencies, called spectral lines, that constitutes a “fingerprint” . We tune in, and gotcha!

P: For centuries, sailors in the Indian Ocean have told stories of seas glowing with a dim, white light at night. Satellite images now confirm the appearance of what seem to be bioluminescent bacteria, right where a ship’s crew reported seeing the “milky seas” 11 years ago.

H: Scientists say this rare phenomenon could be a way for the bacteria to attract the attention of fish so they can enter their guts and live there. I don’t know about you Pooky, but I don’t eat anything that glows in the dark.

P: Plotting the ship’s course, and then, there it was on the satellite image… “It was one of those chill-down-the-spine moments that you hope to get once or twice in your career,” Scientests said.

H: Yeah like when you eat something that glows in the dark How many bacteria would it take to light up the seas?

P: Four billion trillion.

H: Lets just say a Google. Letting your imagination run away with you may actually influence how you see the world. New research from Vanderbilt University has found that mental imagery—what we see with the “mind’s eye”—directly impacts our visual perception.

P: Imagery leads to a short-term memory trace can bias future perception, definitively showing that imagining something changes vision both while you are imagining it and later on.” Top-down expectations or recollections of previous experiences might shape perception itself.”

H: As long as you didn’t say topless Pooky. And this just in… “Animals wings, unlike propellers, have to keep stopping and starting in order produce lift”" (animals have forgotten to invent propellers, just as they forgot wheels), New research is centering on the compromise winged creatures face between meeting aerodynamic requirements and overcoming inertia in order to generate lift.

P: In the name of science researchers in England are loading wings of racing pigeons with lead fishing weights. This, Dr. Underwood believes should act as a reminder to be cautious in copying nature. There is lots of interest in making micro/unmanned air vehicles that flap, hoping they present all sorts of advantages in terms of maneuverability, speed and so on.

H: He also goes on to say there is a tendency to presume that biology is efficient, and I would say that, even at very small sizes, if you want to hover efficiently, be a helicopter not a flapper…” I would like to see someone put lead weights in his underwear and see how far he gets.

P: In Einstein’s relativistic universe, matter curves space and slows down time, and the speed of light remains the only constant. But those are the big effects. The theory of relativity also includes some more esoteric details, one of which is called spin precession.

H: The idea goes like this: Two massive bodies orbiting near each other will warp space enough to disturb the central axis around which both are moving, causing them to begin wobbling just like spinning tops. Strong gravity creates this so-called precession, and the more massive the objects, the easier the precession is to observe.

P: It’s not an easy theory to test. The lack of candidates and telescopic power had frustrated astronomers for years, until the discovery in 2003 of a particular pair of pulsars. Most important in this case, one pulsar eclipses the other briefly every couple of hours. That’s key to detecting precession, because during each eclipse astronomers can determine the precise angle of the radio signal and therefore the pulsar’s wobble over time.

H: Calculations based on Einstein’s theory predicted it should advance by 5.07 degrees per year, well within the margin of error. “It’s bang-on,” says astrophysicist and Nobel laureate Joseph Taylor of Princeton University. “Einstein’s theory passed the test this time,” agrees astrophysicist Fotis Gavriil of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who praises the study’s “amazing high-precision measurement.” So is Einstein’s reputation secure? Says Gavriil, “Only with experiments like this will we know for sure.”

P: Put some lead weights on him…and see if he flys…Martian soil data collected by five robotic missions indicates that rain fell on the Red Planet billions of years ago. The findings provide no new insight into the possibility of Martian life,(again) but they do suggest that further clues to Mars’s past could be found right here on Earth.

H: There’s little doubt now that Mars once was wet. Yes but did it glow in the dark? less than 2 weeks ago, the Phoenix Mars Lander struck water ice while digging at the north polar region. What remains to be determined is where this wetness came from and how long it lasted.

P: Preliminary investigations by Mars mission scientists, as well as high-resolution images taken by orbiters, have suggested that water on Mars surged up from deep below the surface, sometimes carving extensive channels and gullies, However ther are also indications of rain by studying our own planet’s geochemistry.

H: Analyzing soil samples show a distinctive pattern of chloride and sulfate deposits. In all of the samples, the data show that the sulfates tend to stay nearer to the surface, whereas chloride concentrations increase with depth. That’s the same pattern found in extremely arid places on Earth such as Antarctica’s dry-valley regions and Chile’s Atacama Desert.

P: More than a year after taking a hallucinogenic drug in a carefully controlled experiment, most people rate the experience among the most personally meaningful and spiritually significant of their lives, researchers reported in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. Such findings are helping to renew interest in research with hallucinogens, a field whose reputation long suffered from the psychedelic excesses of the 1960s. When people glowed in the dark with alarming frequency.

H: The researchers monitored the mostly middle-aged subjects while they took a strong dose of psilocybin, the active ingredient in hallucinogenic mushrooms. All of the volunteers had indicated at least some participation in religious or spiritual activities–such as meditating or going to church–and the researchers instructed them to direct their attention inward while under the drug’s sway.

P:None had previous experience with hallucinogens. Over a year later, people continued to rate their 8-hour experience in the lab as similar in significance to life events such as the birth of a first child.

H: A giant rubber snake could be the future of renewable energy. The rippling “Anaconda” produces electricity as it is squeezed by passing waves. Its developers say it would produce more energy than existing wave-energy devices and be cheaper to maintain.

P: I think it might have been part of that Pslocybin experiment. Retired physicist Francis Farley and Rod Rainey dreamed up a flexible tube filled with seawater and sealed at both ends like a giant sausage. The structure streams out in the waves like a windsock pushed by the wind.

H: The passage of each wave squeezes the rubber and produces a bulging pressure wave that travels down its length. When the bulge reaches the end it sets turbines spinning to generate electricity. That reminds me of something but I am not going to say what.

P: IF YOU were unfortunate enough to experience one of the universe’s most powerful explosions up close, you would certainly be doomed. But would the blast obliterate you with jets like something from a flamethrower or with cannonball-like projectiles of plasma? We thought we knew the answer, but now the picture is not so clear.

H: Gamma-ray bursts the most violent explosions in the cosmos, are intense flashes of high-energy radiation. The shorter bursts probably happen when a neutron star collides with another neutron star or a black hole. More protracted bursts release so much energy that only one type of event is thought capable of producing them - the collapse of a massive star’s core to form a black hole or neutron star
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P: Or the collapse of the news as we knew it. The value of 11 newspaper groups that have traded publicly since 2005 plummeted a combined $23.7 billion in the first half of this year. The value fell nearly as much in six months as it had in the three previous years put together,

H: But there is hope in the newspaper galaxy because, In developing countries, newspapers are booming, with circulation increasing in some cases in the double digits, despite the fact that the medium faces near-constant predictions of doom in the U.S. and Europe.

P: Rising literacy rates and an increase in disposable income are helping boost newspaper readership. Anyone who can read or write is still looked at with a bit of awe [in many markets in India.] When people first learn how to read, they want to let people know, and the first thing you want to do is be seen to be reading a newspaper.

H: WSJ.com’s traffic soared an impressive 94 percent in June compared to the same month last year, according to the company’s internal traffic numbers.Rupert Murdoch plans to make access to the Wall Street Journal’s website free. The move will be able to bring in more advertising, as instead of having 1 million subscribers, it will have “at least 10 million to 15 million, in every corner of the earth,” he said.

P: At a meeting with about a dozen senior members of AOL’s staff very recently, Jeff Bewkes, CEO left at least one member of management with the impression that the company is for sale, a source close to the company says.

H: If Twitter had a P2P payments system in place today, it would become the most used mobile payments system overnight. Having the ability to send a message like “p innonate $5″ for that beer I just bought you”, would integrate seamlessly with the way Twitter’s users already interact with their system.

P: Layering on a payments system would not only make the feature instantly used, it would position Twitter to revolutionize how money is collected and exchanged on the Internet. (Think of what Twitter’s done for flashmobs and how it could effect fundraising.)

H: The Senate Commerce Committee’s has rescheduled its online behavioral targeting hearing for July 9. On the eve of the hearing, Public Knowledge, Free Press and the Center for Democracy and Technology will hold a debate contesting the safety of behavioral targeting, It might be putting the Cart before the horse though.

P: One-third of marketers say there are no written goals of any kind guiding marketing strategy. But as marketers begin developing metrics that help plan for future marketing, they are focusing on a variety of measures: brand and customer equity models, predictive models for direct response, working to understand the offline impact of online advertising, and working to understand the impact of experiential marketing.

H: Stop the presses! Word-of-mouth (WOM) happens during actual conversations! Those taking place in person and over the phone are overwhelmingly more prevalent than those online Specifically, content from a spouse, relative or best friend is rated more believable when it is shared offline, either by phone or face to face, than online - via email, text messaging or blogs.

P: Apparently, the value of eye contact, voice and perhaps even nonverbal communication provides a boost to credibility and to the likelihood that we’ll do something about what we’ve learned,” I wonder how the metetrics track for WOM on SL?

H: Especially now that our lips move? Google scored a legal victory in keeping its search source code secret from Viacom, but YouTube users were not so fortunate with their privacy. Well if you put it on youTube, how private is it?

P: A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that the search giant doesn’t have to turn over the code to Viacom, which filed a $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against Google in 2007. In granting Google’s motion for a protective order, U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton in Manhattan agreed with Google’s characterization of the source code as a trade secret that can’t be disclosed without risking the loss of business.

H: New research from Nielsen tracks the top ten sites in the UK in average monthly minutes. There aren’t any virtual worlds on the list–MSN Search, eBay, and Facebook take the top slots–but Club Penguin and Second Life make the up-and-coming list.

P: Tracking their usage minutes from May 2007 to May 2008, Nielsen reports that Club Penguin grew 82% from 23 million minutes to 42 million while Second Life grew a whopping 137% from 125 million minutes to 296 million. My Club Penguin account is UberWaddle.

H: We’ve previously heard about A-SpaceX, a virtual world for intelligence agency collaboration and analysis that lets agents look at data from around the world and across different time frames, but it looks like the project is picking up steam.

P: The Office of the Director for National Intelligence, IARPA, and the Air Force Research Laboratory recently announced an Industry Day for A-SpaceX, that happened today with a simulcast in Second Life & it was all too hush hush to mention.

H: “A-SpaceX is seeking to create an analytic environment where the workspace becomes an enabler for the analytic process – fostering creativity between two key emerging technologies: Virtual worlds, and Workflow management.” a press release stated.

P:In this case, A-SpaceX is planned to include multiple virtual worlds, each targeted at specific kinds of decision making, though the goal is to make them interoperable to allow analysts to jump from one hoop through another.

H: Habbo Hotel announced a partnership with the Matthew Shepard Foundation to bring the “Erase Hate” project to the Habbo.com InfoBus. Foundation staff will lead two discussions each week in the virtual bus on bullying, discrimination and hate–both on- and offline.

P:I remember Sulka Haro explaining that the company had problems opening up its Hotels to international audiences, though, since “only 44% of teenagers had positive attitudes toward foreigners.” Regardless, it sounds like an interesting project and a nice indication of nonprofits reaching out to the youth audience through their increasing involvement in virtual worlds.

H: On24 focus is on events with corporate webinars, but announced yesterday that it had expanded to include virtual worlds for trade shows, conferences, and events with ON24 Virtual Show. Virtual Show targets users looking to avoid travel costs and time as well as extending physical events’ reach with networking, virtual booths, webcasts, and a customizable interface.

P: And San Jose State University, in the heart of Silicon Valley, has built a campus at Second Life, . “I can send a student in to have an experience in an unstructured environment, and then come out and have a conversation about it.” professor Kemp said.

H: Thirty students signed up for Kemp’s 15-week virtual-world class, which includes learning about the application driving the Second Life program.

P: On the 4th Americans celebrate Independence Day, but five years ago, July became a significant month for everyone in Second Life. That’s when outrage against the Linden’s tax policy, which penalized excessive building by deducting L$ from the creator’s account, began festering toward open revolt,

H: Buildings were razed, giant tea crates were deployed, declarations were written (by Fleabite Beach, and within the year, the Lindens had canceled the policy, replacing monthly subscriptions with what we have now: land use fees where building is no longer taxed. Sounds effective-

HP This week Master of Puppets Meets Hands Free: Dorkbot Presents Top Avatar Control Innovators Avatar Puppeteering introduces a completely physics-based means of naturalistically animating the avatar,

H: in which every joint can be pushed, pulled, or rotated in real time for maximum expressivity and responsiveness.

P: Demonstrated this Sunday in a fantastic open comment no=holds barred environment It was a great debut for a possibley soon to be seen flexibility. Every joint has a position and a rotation in 3D space.

H: In the early 1980s, NSF put together NSFNet as a network connecting regional computer networks around the country. The Department of Defense had already created the Arpanet network, which gave birth to many of the tools and techniques used on the modern Internet, but Arpanet traffic was limited to Defense-sponsored research. NSFNet was designed to be open to all users. Happy Birthday Modern Internet

P: & Happy birthday Hydra too! That was Hydras big event this past weekend. CIGNA, , is announcing the development of a virtual health care community. situated on a Second Life® island, where seminars, interactive displays, educational games and virtual health consultations help foster real and sustainable behavior change that improves health.

H: Developed by Method, a brand experience agency, will help us develop nutrition knowledge, learn how to make healthier food choices, manage our weight and understand portion sizes and food labels - Stress, physical activity and sleep zones within the community will be developed following an evaluation of people’s experience with the nutrition zone.

P: Sleep zones ???? Don’t be foolish! – everyone knows that Sl stands for Sleep Less!

The Slews……7/1 Pooky & Hydra at the helm

Lights dim..music swells

From the top of the crown on the Head Lindens Head to the bottom left hand corner of the search for the new and exciting …and going beyond the virtual world for relevant facts and fiction 24/7….in ways to crazy to completely understand…This …is…the….Slews

P: Good Evening Second Nation and here now the Slews.

H: Gutenabend und hier ist jetzt die Durchläufe

P: Although the preliminary findings from Phoenix do not answer whether life ever existed on Mars (or might still exist somewhere underground), an experiment showed the dirt on the planet’s northern arctic plains similar to surface soils found in Antarctica, full of the mineral nutrients that a plant would need.

H: Mars today is frigid and dry, and the surface is bombarded by ultraviolet radiation, making life unlikely, but conditions in more ancient epochs may have not been so harsh.

P: NASA reported“We basically have found what appears to be the requirements, the nutrients, to support life whether past, present or future,” “The sort of soil you have there is the type of soil you’d probably have in your backyard.”for Phoenix scientists that was “like winning the lottery

H: Trying out the new & unusual could be programmed into our hot wiring - Using brain scans to measure blood flow, British researchers discovered that a brain region known as the ventral striatum was more active when subjects chose unusual objects in controlled tests.

P:The ventral striatum is involved in processing rewards in the brain through the release of neurotransmitters like dopamine.

H: Scientists believe the existence of this age-old reward mechanism indicates there is an evolutionary advantage in sampling the unknown.

P: programming into our brains? In the future we could have computers implanted Scientists at the University of Florida aren’t just creating a neural implant that can translate human brain signals, but one that can act independently to increase its efficiency and synergy with the brain as it learns new things.

H: Tests with new evolving brain-machine interfaces using rats have tiny electrodes that capture thought signals.

P:: Three rats were taught how to move a robotic arm toward a target using just their thoughts. Each time they succeeded, the rats were rewarded. Is that like food for thought?

H: You can run but you can not hide -! A new whitepaper reveals how advertising that spans multiple-media platforms drives conversion well beyond the effects of increased frequency, and targeting. With or without brain implants

P: I know if I could shop just by thought it might prove fatal.

H: So if I just thought of you naked would that mean…..never mind….
Driven by market capitalization growth in emerging economies, the wealth of the world’s high net worth individuals increased 9. percent to $40.7 trillion in 2007,

P: The global economy grew at a slower pace but upward wealth will grow to $59 trillion by 2012, advancing at a rate of 7.7 percent per year.

H: ICANN, which regulates aspects of internet use, voted unanimously to relax restrictions on trusted domains like .com and .net, as well as country suffixes like .uk, .it and .fr

P: The decision enables companies to create brand-specific web addresses, and individuals to purchase self-named domains — provided they have a “business plan and technical capacity.” omg.com is still free as of this writing

H: Google on Monday unveiled a new Web-based tool, Map Maker, that lets people add roads, lakes, businesses, and other features to unmapped regions of Google Maps. Just what Google needs, more free stuff

P: What if I build my own island on google map that doesn’t exist yet- will google create it for me? They might not have the money - A technology startup that developed software for migrating data from Microsoft) Outlook to Google Web mail has filed a lawsuit , claiming Google owes the smaller company more than $1 billion for stealing its trade secrets.

H: LimitNone agreed to share its technology with the understanding that it would be kept confidential. “When a mega-company like Google that professes ‘Don’t be evil’ tells you they love your product and says they are not going to make a competing product, you believe them.”
“Don’t be evil”! it should be don’t be a weasel!

P: Stuck in a traffic jam and really hoping you could update your Facebook page? You soon may be able to in a Chrysler. Which will announce a wireless Internet-access option for all 2009 models called UConnect Web —& you can check you that real-time stock quotes now made available on CNBC.com , So you can see how your social profile improves as your stock goes down

H: or vice versa. Yearly online video ad revenue will increase at a compound annual growth rate of 168 percent.

P: A recent report by IDC predicts that Internet video advertising will increase over sevenfold during the next four years, from $500 million in 2007 to $3.8 billion in 2012. Obviously, this is huge and great news for the industry. Get me my agent

H: Wyndstorm Corporation launched Socialframes, which enables users to interact with a social network or virtual world without leaving the website they are visiting. Or their car.

P: be on the look out for virtual salesgirls with a perky names and a handy discounts

H: The virtual associates are built with artificial intelligence software from Justdevelopit, a new company. When the software senses a transaction delay, it launches a chat and offers the customer a privileged discount,

P:but since the salesgirls are so hot they are also inciting emotional relationships- never let a chatbot break your heart Hydra

H: TechCrunch is reporting that Vint Cerf, the so-called “father of the Internet,” says maybe we should think of the Internet as being like the highway system — a public good that should be nationalized. trying to spark a debate about whether the Internet should be treated more like the public resource that it is.

P: I Paramount with Makena, are making thousands of movie clips available on There.com, Visitors who purchase the clips can use them to communicate with others by having their avatar “speak” lines from movies while the actual clip plays in a small window.

H: Cliches made fresh Daily.

P: Slim Jim has launched its own virtual world, Spicy Town, which actually now is the main, official website for the snack food. It’s a pretty basic, Flash-based environment: users can walk around, chat, pick fights, collect Slim Jims, and wreak havoc on the environment. All While they exude the aroma of SlimJims!

H: Not in my car! One of the only steps to the registration process, which is minimal and full of ‘tude, is to upload a photo of yourself, which is then mapped on to the edgier version of you. I don’t think I could stand a spicier version of myself? Could you Pooky?

P: Don’t blame me I was just drawn this way. I am more interested in SeaPals,. I am already beginning to populate my virtual aquarium. I am still looking for a penguin as of this writing. But the chat is only in preset messages with other fish.

H: Instead of going to a site to play a MMOG, RocketON has actually placed a virtual world on top of the Internet. Your avatar can roam the Web with you, inviting friends to join, discuss and interact on any site.

P:, RocketON is super-imposed in the bottom corner of your screen.Then you can chat, play games, and, if the site is a partner, download virtual goods from the site for your ava like GAP outfits, NIKe shoes or virtual coke-

H: I just don’t want one in my car.

P: for HabboHotel The recent milestone of 100 million users is nothing to snuff at. In true Habbo style, they threw a big bash and gave the 100 millionth user a boatload of prizes as a thank you for helping them reach this major goal.

H: Found! Beach ball made by Philip Linden in April 2002 before SL was even launched. In Smoky there is Philip’s handiwork, made in the days before the world was even Beta.

P: Lost! The Garden for the Missing which contains over 170 posters of missing persons from the US. All of the missing persons posters are clickable so that you can read more about their disappearances; In Remora.

H: Profound: Sl5b is SL’s big birthday bash with over 600 exhibits and plenty to look at, anything and everything you might have imagined can and was built. And there were many panel discussions on how here can affect *points behind*

P: Monsters attacking Toxian City’s Exhibit
Toxia is a dark urban live action role playing game. The city’s setting is what’s left of an old port town after major disaster hit. How that helps us I don’t know

H: The ABA’s Conference “Why Virtual Worlds Matter for Lawyers” was held at the Justice Center in (SL). Discussion of virtual reality law issues and the future of law in worlds. As long as they dont sell SecondLife Insurance.

P: Troy Mcluhan’s new exhibition called Lord Rosse’s Monster Telescopes opened on Sunday, on the sim named Space Island,

H: The greatest avatar the world has ever known might indeed be that of Philip Linden. His statue is in the VIP known as the Linden installation where you can actually see the statue . The man has a sense of humor, and we searched the SL5B for evidence of where he might have gotten those flashy pixels which cover his privates.

P: Yes we finally discovered this picture after days of searching –The Hansel & Gretal house & yes it is skittles which are covering his vitals and that is the Slews…