All about Second Life ...

Hi All, this is "VirtuallyMe Carfield" I have started exploring Second Life(SL) recently. In this post, I am writing about some of the interesting stuffs I found in SL and what are its usefulness other than it just being a sophisticated social networking application.

When did it all start ?

Second Life is a virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. It helps users called residents to interact with each other through avatars providing a feel of physical presence in a virtual world. Residents can socialize, participate in group activities, and even own and trade property and services with one another virtually.

More details about how it all started can be found here.

SL has everything that exists in Real Life(RL). Educational Institutes, Fashion industries, Music, Software Industries and so on and everything works the same way it does in RL, but virtually. When I initially started using it, I got an opportunity to chat many people and I found that, some were using this for their living. I then realized that it is more than just a social networking application and wanted to explore more.

My experience :

I had opportunity to chat with few users in SL. I mainly wanted to know the very purpose of their visit to SL. Some of them said, they were here just to socialize as it is very different from that of any other social networking communities like face book. Some of them said they run a business and make money, Some used it for educational purposes and Some for organizing international meetings and so on. Out of the people I met, I found couple of them very interesting and could think of a RL counterpart of their virtual existence. In the rest of my post, I have summarized couple of my conversations with people in SL.

First Experience - Virtual Education:
I was browsing through some educational sites in SL and found this one very interesting. This would be an innovative step towards education.

In SL there is a very active community of International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). ISTE in RL is a non-profit professional organization with worldwide membership of leaders in educational technology.They extensively form a group in SL and help in Professional Development of the Educators.

I was curious to know how ISTE works virtually, so I joined the group. There are many education groups in SL and they come together and communicate about teaching and learning in SL. They share different techniques and also set standards in teaching. There are many Docents (Volunteers) in ISTE who support and assist educators.

I happened to meet a docent in ISTE. He is an Assistant Dean of Technology from The University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) in real life. His avatar is called "Komputer Merlin" Conversation with him showed a new, innovative way of teaching which UPenn has adopted in SL. I understood how SL can be leveraged to impart knowledge. UPenn has few courses that are completely done in SL and some that are partly held in SL. When asked about the advantage of learning in SL and reason for its popularity, he rightly said that it brings people from different geographical areas together, along with a sense of physical presence.

How/Where are the classes held ?
There are places called islands in SL and each island has a specific purpose and theme. They build classrooms and educational areas on them and conduct classes and perform projects there. They already own 4 islands in SL and are planning to buy a 5th one this week. Cost of owning an island would be approximately $850 for educational institution and monthly fee of $145.
This is very nominal when compared to the infrastructure required for setup of classroom in the RL. But he also agreed that it would not work out for all the courses, and it involved lot of experimentation before deciding the technology. For students to enroll into such course, they have to be regular full time student of that university. Cost of these courses are same as that of regular classroom course. Thus, he mentioned that SL is an inexpensive and a very interesting way of teaching.When asked about how students like this, he said that the response varies depending on the age group.

I found an interesting video which clearly depicted what learning in SL is all about. It shows how schools from different countries came together and worked on a project to learn about Japanese Culture. It is a small video split into two parts, but a really interesting one which shows the complete usefulness of SL in imparting education.





Second Experience - Lunicima, a store in Chilibo region of SL.
Chat with a business man. Yes, virtually making real money !!

Dno Vale, owner of "Lunicima" in SL.

He explained how that store was created, how users buy clothes from his shop for their avatars and how the virtual money is converted to real money. It was very interesting to talk to him.
The picture here shows his store and it links to one of the recent news about Lunicima. The avatar there is me ! :)

Lunicima is built by Dno Vale on the land that he and his wife own in SL. Can you imagine a virtual land and one of us owning it virtually ?. Yes, It does exist and that virtual store makes money. He designs the clothes himself and it is popular among avatars who want to take their appearance to the next level.

I visited the store myself and I found it just like any of our real life stores where we buy clothes and accessories from. Just like we go to the store, look around for clothes and buy things using a credit card, any user in SL does the same. The money that gets credited is called "linden dollars " or "lin dollars" from the users account. The user clicks on vendor and the money gets transferred from the buyers account to the sellers account. Those lin dollars are converted to real money. The conversion rates fluctuate according to the virtual trading market. 1 USD is approximately equivalent to 259 lin dollars.

One more interesting thing I found during my chat was, there are regions called "SandBoxes" in SL. It generally has resources which users can use to design something they are interested in and they will own that after it is developed. For instance, "IBM SandBox" is one such place I visited. Here there are things which we can choose and design our own product from. I saw Dno Vale constructing a PLANE!, Yes you read it right. A Plane, that we could fly. He said it has taken him little over three weeks develop most of it and after finishing it, he would sell it his store. This amazed me more. He has also designed a ship of his own before using the resources available in SandBoxes and that is for sale now.

The following images show the pictures of the plane he constructed and the ship that is in his store for sale.

He was confident that users would buy it. I agree to him as well. Owing a Plane in real life is close to impossible. Then why would I not buy a virtual plane :) ? More than everything, one can earn a living for ones "Creativity", isn't that a cool option?

Other Applications:

Many organizations find it useful for meetings and discussions as it is highly cost effective. It removes travel cost, jet-lags and other hassles involved. They also use it as a podium to showcase their research innovations.
One of the interviews with CEO of Trade Promotion Management Associates (TPMA) can be found here. This was a meet held by TPMA ,where 160 people from manufacturing , retail, and various other industries turned up. This interview shows how second life was efficiently used.
There are also entertainment places like dance clubs, musical shows and so on.

To say it all, SL is not just a social networking community. It is already known for its usefulness.

Some more useful/interesting links I found about SL
Spanish Classes Held in SL
President meets his students in SL
Chinese government -virtual world is vital to the economy.

iPill

Latest technological trends are not only interesting, but also thought provoking. Just like an icing on the cake is learning about the new technological advancements in the field of medicine.

"iPill or Intelligent Pill"
We have heard and read lot of amazing technological innovations in the field of medicine . One such great find is iPill. How does "Intelligent Pill" sound? It sounds like a robot with medicinal power, does it not? Yes indeed , iPill is like a robot.

iPill is consumed like any other pill with food or water. It can be programmed to navigate through the body and deposit medicine at specific spot in the body. It dispatches signals (radio signal) to the doctor as it travels. Thus allowing the doctor to analyze the effect of medicine on the person.

How "big" will such a pill be?

One-third of iPill is medicine and two-thirds of it is made of miniature microprocessor, battery, antenna and other equipments. These are used to track the navigation of pill and capture the signals of body's reaction to the medicine. Inspite of all these, it is as small as a multivitamin tablet!

Why should they design such a sophisticated pill?

It is amazing to know what this small pill can do. One of it being, Localized drug delivery. Dr. Maria van der Shaar, a senior researcher from Netherlands says "Localized drug delivery" has a lot of advantages. She says, Localize drug delivery means smaller doses of drug resulting in fewer side-effects and higher therapeutic value. After reading this article, I thought this sophisticated innovation is worth a try!

Who is working on iPill?

iPill is a product of Philips Research group. This project is listed as, one of their innovative steps to provide better health care solutions. The Chief Medical Officer of Philips, delivered a speech at "State of the Union of Health Care", conference at The National Press Club on February 11th,2009. He mentions how iPill fits in their "meaningful-innovations" in improving quality of health care.

Some more interesting stuffs from Philips
Some of the "real and sophisticated" stuffs by Philips on You tube.

My Views

I being a "techie", am fascinated by the technological innovations we make. But, as a layman, I have certain questions. Can all these be made risk free and affordable? Can a common man consume such a pill? Can all of us accept the fact that, a "robot" can be injected into our body? Can all of us cope with such a sophisticated lifestyle?

Time would be the answer. This project is at its infancy, measures should be taken to root out the questions that would arise in the future, to exploit complete usefulness of the pill.