segunda-feira, julho 16, 2007

Second Earth: quando o Second Life se cruza com o Google Earth


Imaginem entrar no Second Life com o vosso avatar e voar sobre a vossa própria rua nas imagens oferecidas pelo Google Earth, ou sobre qualquer outro local do planeta representado a 3D no vosso computador. A revista Tecnology Review, do MIT ( Massachusetts Institute of Technology ) traz na sua última edição uma interessante e extensa reportagem (Second Earth), do jornalista Wade Roush, sobre as próximas tendências da internet e dos mundos virtuais. Segundo Wade, parece que a internet caminha rapidamente para representações em três dimensões que permitirão cruzar o mundo real representado virtualmente em programas como o Google Earth com os universos criados por programas como o Second Life. Artigo em inglês, claro. Para ler a revista é preciso fazer um registo (gratuito) no site.

(se aqui forem, não percam este vídeo: Jeff Han on a Better Interface
The inventor of the multitouch screen that influenced the iPhone displays his work
... e há muitos mais.)


Segue-se um breve excerto. (O artigo, em jeito de história, é longo.)
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"A thunderhead towers at knee level, throwing tiny lightning bolts at my shoes. I'm standing--rather, my avatar is standing--astride a giant map [SLurl] of the continental United States, and southern Illinois, at my feet, is evidently getting a good April shower.
The weather is nicer on the East Coast: I can see pillowy cumulus clouds floating over Boston and New York, a few virtual meters away. I turn around and look west toward Nevada. There isn't a raindrop in sight, of course; the region's eight-year drought is expected to go on indefinitely, thanks to global warming. But I notice something odd, and I walk over to investigate.
The red polka dots over Phoenix and Los Angeles indicate a hot day, as I would expect. But the dot over the North Las Vegas airport is deep-freeze blue. That can't be right. My house is only 30 kilometers from the airport, and I've had the air conditioner running all day.
"Any clue why this dot is blue?" I ask the avatar operating the weather map's controls. The character's name, inside the virtual world called
Second Life, is Zazen Manbi; he has a pleasant face and well-kept chestnut hair, and the oval spectacles perched on his nose give him a look that's half academic, half John Lennon. The man controlling Manbi is Jeffrey Corbin, a research assistant in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Denver.
"Let me check something," Manbi/Corbin responds (...)"

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