Hack a Day » SecondLife

Lively, Google’s stab at Second Life

Juan Aguilar — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 02:00:00 +0000

Google has just released their own avatar based social arena a la Second Life, which is called Lively. It will require a client download and install like the popular MUD, but after that it can be accessed via IE and Firefox.

Lively allows user to create their own online spaces that can include natural or human-built settings and customize their avatars (which are relatively cartoonish in comparison to SL avatars). Google’s engineering manager for Lively [Niniane Wang] explains that they wanted to create a more socially rich environment than was possible with emotes and other chatroom features.

Lively’s core functions are not particularly novel, but it does innovate with various web integration features. Videos and images from the internet are viewable from within Lively, and users can embed their own personal Lively areas into their blogs or websites (hello VRML).

Lively is not nearly as expansive as Second Life yet, with no form of currency included and only stock items, clothes, avatars, and geometry to choose from. What’s more, it is only available for Windows XP and Vista, with no other OS support announced. We can see this getting better in the future, but those of you who’s lives are so great that you need a second one (or a third) will probably want to jump on this now.

Wii Fit World of Warcraft

Juan Aguilar — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:15:00 +0000

By now you’ve probably seen the video of two researchers from the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) navigating through maps on Google Earth by using the Wii Fit Balance Board. They’ve gone even further now by using the board to navigate World of Warcraft. It’s obvious that the board is usable with any 3D environment. The hack is entirely software based, as the board is completely unmodified. It relays data to a laptop via Bluetooth, where the pressure data in converted to directional instructions by their custom app written in C#. No notes on the project are available on DFKI’s site, but we’re betting they’ll release the software to the public once all the kinks are worked out.

[via Balance Board Blog]

Alternative 3D controllers

Sean Percival — Sat, 31 May 2008 06:00:00 +0000

There are several very nice 3D mice out there for navigating services like Google Earth or Second Life. 3Dconnexion for example makes a whole line of devices for 3D navigation. Their compact units offer 6-8 degrees of freedom with several customizable options. The company has an SDK available and many of their devices are natively compatible with Linux (or available for access through an XInput driver). So while that is all well and great, lets look at some alternative ways people are navigating 3D spaces.

We are glad to see it didn’t take long for someone to figure out how not to get healthy with a Wii Fit. The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence turned one unit into a global surf board. Using the Bluetooth connection of the Wii Fit they developed software to port the user’s motion back into Google Earth. The result, surfing over the alps to 90s techno music. They also briefly demo using the balance board to walk in Second Life.

Why use any input at all when you can use your face? The Human Media Lab has developed software that allows for hands free navigation of Google Earth simply by moving your face. The software is free (although a download link is missing) and currently only available for Windows. They do appear to be using OpenCV as part of this package which is open source.

Lastly from the virtual world of Second Life we have navigating with your mind. This brain-computer interface (BCI) was developed by Japanese professor Jun’ichi Ushiba of Keio University in Japan. The user wears a headpiece that monitors activity in three areas of the motor cortex, where movement signals are processed. A user simply thinks about the direction they want to move and the avatar responds accordingly. Still under development, this device is aiming to recognize more complex movements and gestures in the future.

Flying RC penis violates chessmaster’s airspace

Sean Percival — Tue, 20 May 2008 00:52:00 +0000

A speech by famed chess player Garry Kasparov was interrupted Saturday by a remote controlled flying penis. Since many of you are at work or school we’ll leave all the pictures, videos, and tasteless jokes after the break.

LOLDongs definitely aren’t the main order of business in this office, but we have to admire the child like glee the builder of this contraption must have experienced. RC helicopters definitely are our expertise as we’ve covered several mini RC helicopter projects before: using an IR camera for position tracking, quad-copters at CCCamp, and basic building tips, but never anything so… turgid.

While first watching the video, we too were struck by the similarities to the infamous griefing attack on Second Life land baron Anshe Chung in 2006. While there doesn’t appear to be any hard evidence this was inspired by its virtual counterpart it is interesting to see the crossover into the real world. In both cases, the end result is the same: a room full of chuckles, an embarrassed speaker, and the blogosphere suddenly becomes dick pundits. At least we can agree on this: some things just weren’t meant to be airborne.