New and Improved Sims

Using the Sims Online architecture, a development team has launched EA-Land, a revised version of the game that the team says, “has made this game fun again.”

Every Wednesday, the game will be stopped for a few hours, new features will be added, and the game will be restarted, a revolutionary tact. Not only will users have to keep up with the weekly changes to the game, but it also keeps developers in closer contact with community and can respond quickly to its wants and needs.

This newer version of The Sims Online also includes:
- All 12 cities housed into EA-Land
- A Wiki for users can provide input to improve the game
- Customizable content
- A fixed economy
- Web service and social network functions.

Prok had nice coverage of his own return and impressions of the “new and improved Sims” (along with, oh, one or two other thoughts).

San Diego’s Hospital of the Future Gets SL Showcase

An $810-million medical complex will open in San Diego, California in 2011. The center, called the Palomar West Medical Campus, will transform the functionality of a hospital, relying heavily on data connectivity for patient evaluation and treatment, and on a close connection with the natural environment to aid in the healing process.

However, for those who cannot wait for the bricks-and-mortar version, Cisco has created a virtual hospital in SL to preview the center’s unique capabilities.

Highlights of the virtual Palomar West include:

– Cisco TelePresence. Visitors are welcomed to Palomar West in “Second Life” by a virtual receptionist appearing via Cisco TelePresence, a new technology that uses high-definition video and spatial audio to create unique “in person” experiences via the network.

– Advanced Robotics. The simulation shows Palomar West’s operating rooms, which include advanced robotics and functional imaging systems capable of supporting medical procedures spanning interventional radiology, cardiovascular surgery, urology and gastroenterology. An advanced surgical cockpit, from where a surgeon can manipulate robotic systems remotely while viewing vital signs and functional imaging information in real time, is also featured.

– Communication and Collaboration. The simulation shows how the Cisco Unified Communications system facilitates smooth patient and clinician communication. For example, a radiologist can locate specialists, contact them on their phones, laptops or PDAs, and initiate a desktop collaboration session to review and consult on patient scan images thanks to the network that links picture archiving systems with communications tools.

– 3D Holographic Medical Imaging. Palomar West will feature mobile, remote-controlled, 3D holographic whole-body multimodality medical imaging systems that can be directed into any patient room.

– Connected Real Estate. In the real Palomar West, all building, communication, IT, and clinical systems will be converged onto a single Cisco Medical-Grade Network. The simulation shows how nearly all aspects of a patient’s stay (including ventilation, air conditioning, lighting, security, fire and life safety, digital devices, and signage) will be monitored and managed via applications running on a single network, freeing up clinicians to focus on providing the very best care.

– Visibility and Tracking Solutions. Visitors are guided through Palomar West by radio frequency-enabled sensors that enhance security and safety through patient tracking, and that protect hospital property by tracking equipment in real time.

Cisco and Content: The Academy of Digital Signage

Here’s an example of a long-standing technological infrastructure giant getting into the content game.

Cisco is starting up a “new qualification program for media professionals” that will allow people to study the creation, management, and distribution of digital signage.

What is digital signage, you ask? These are those electronic displays increasingly becoming a part of our visual environment. It includes information signs (such as in airports), advertisements, and brand exercise presented in message boards, LCD screens, electronic billboards, scrolls, and something called Organic LED screens. China, for example, according to www.adfotain.com, currently has 100,000 digital displays and a market capitalization estimated to be $10B.

And what’s in it for Cisco? Thomas Wyatt, general manager of Digital Media Systems, Cisco, explains:

“Digital signage is accelerating the momentum of the video revolution, and this program provides us with an enormous opportunity to help train the next wave of innovators and content professionals. Our aim is to help fill the content gap within the current ecosystem. Cisco’s Academy of Digital Signage will give customers a trusted source for trained, qualified media professionals who can create compelling, optimized signage-ready content.”

An example of the bridging from technology to content, content to creators, and while aimed at Cisco’s focus on videoconferencing and streaming (call it what you will), more evidence at the blurry lines across worlds, platforms and media.

Educational Practices Talk in SL on March 13 by Cisco

John Connell, Education Business Development Manager for the Emerging Markets for Cisco Systems, will deliver a “non-tech” presentation in SL that will focus on “the key issues and questions around social technologies and their relationship to the shifts in educational thinking and practice.”

Connell is well-known in Scotland as an educator and blogs frequently on education issues, the Web, and virtual worlds (and also writes a nice travel blog. His presentation is part of Cisco’s series of Learning 2.0 Tech Chats in SL. It will happen on March 13 at noon, Pacific Time. Mark your learning calendars for this one!

Tweaking e-Learning - Web 2.0 and Virtual Worlds

Ran across Enzo Silva’s excellent blog on Web 2.0, virtual worlds, and education. A great read with lots of resources and ideas, including this presentation of David Brear that summarizes practical technologies and approaches:

Healthcare Mash-Up: Imagine Second Life, IBM Avatars and Google Health

Speculation maybe, but hints of things to come in a series of recent announcements in the healthcare field:

* IBM is opening a healthcare sim in Second Life whose purpose is to provide a 3D demo of how its information systems facilitate better patient care and information management. Nothing like walking through a “real” simulation to see the impact of what’s usually invisible, namely technology.

Emotiv Demo at GDC Conference

The Metaverse Journal coverage of the GDC conference included a summary of the Emotiv headset.

One of the news pieces focuses on a demonstration of the Emotiv headset, which we’ve written about before. The piece describes a demonstration at the 2008 Game Developers Conference of a future that is now: the helmet uses 16 EEG sensors attached to the head to detect electrical impulses, which trigger different tools that set off applications to control the game and, the makers say, to be able to control games using thoughts.

Over at Gamasutra, no comment is made on the deeper implications of an interface system that reads emotions and thoughts in order to not only let the user interact with virtual environments, but for those environments to adapt based on the level of user engagement, frustration, or satisfaction. From a more positive angle, however, opening up new vehicles for expression within virtual worlds can have all kinds of implications ranging from therapeutic uses to deeper forms of collaboration.

As they report:

Any “Cognitiv” actions should probably be more properly thought of as more sophisticated and unconventional “super moves” rather than mere strings of button presses. That said, there are various ways of interpreting and integrating actions, from direct interaction (think the bat in Wii Sports) to various scripts (specific thoughts triggering abstract sequences of action)….

It is up to developers to choose the depth of integration, from a surface-level key binding, down through some compromises with certain default settings, all the way to a hardcore, full integration, incorporating training into the game design.Any training might be subtly, even subversively, integrated into the tutorial portion of a game. Since people change over time, it might also be wise to allow the player to train again and “refocus” at will.

“We expect to be amazed,” engineer James Wright said, referencing some of the imagination vacuum in Wii and DS software. “I will be very disappointed if the only ideas [developers come up with] are ones we’ve talked about here in this session.”

MIT Dialogues on Truth, Technology and the Virtual World

MIT has added a videodisk of the Cleveland Public Library’s Lockwood-Thompson Dialogues from 2005 to its collection.

The dialogues, monitored by Jaron Lanier, are titled “Truth, Technology and the Visual/Virtual World.” Participants include DJ Spooky the Subliminal Kid, V.S. Ramachandran, and Bellamy Printz.

“Jaron Lanier, computer scientist, composer, and visual artist from Berkeley, California was the moderator for both programs. In April he held a public conversation with Dr. Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, a scientist interested in art and the brain. The discussion topic was learning to appreciate the brain in new ways because of new technologies for looking at the brain. In October he held a second public conversation with Paul D. Miller, also known as DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid, talking about music and the implications of technology, internet, and digital media on contemporary culture.”