virtual worlds

Virtual worlds are 2008’s ‘breakthrough technology’
Author: John Riley Posted: 12:33 02 Nov 2007 BP, ABN Amro and Diageo have revealed details of the ways they are working in virtual worlds.

Joe Little, who works in BP's chief technology office, said the company has identified 3D interactive web and virtual worlds as the breakthrough technology for 2008.

The company is using virtual world environments for strategy planning, global collaboration and anonymous counselling for staff.

Speaking at the Virtual Worlds Europe conference this month, Little said, "BP is engaged in virtual worlds because of our dispersed workforce, team members working on several global projects, periodic travel restrictions, an ageing workforce with a lot of knowledge to impart and a tough graduate market."

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By mid-2008 BP executives hope to increase the use of virtual worlds, especially for collaboration, marketing public education, mentoring, learning and development and refining business processes. Other opportunities include using virtual worlds for process safety training and educating consumers in alternative energy concepts, Little said.

Dutch bank ABN Amro is using the virtual world Second Life for recruitment and for one-to-one meetings with prospective employees.

Daan Josephus Jitta, ABN Amro's senior vice-president, direct channels and innovation, said, "The 2D internet is excellent for simple ­human-machine interaction, but the 3D social internet enables ready human-to-human interaction, or anonymous avatar-to-avatar communication."

He said future uses of virtual worlds would include customer contact, consulting and financial planning. However, financial services would not yet be offered through virtual worlds because of the need to resolve regulatory, ID management and security issues.

Drinks manufacturer Diageo has piloted a Second Life events-based programme to boost creative productivity among its global research and development teams. The teams are using the technology for brainstorming, co-development and training, said Dele Alanda, Diageo's global digital marketing business partner.

However, Dutch drinks group Heineken backed out of Second Life following regulatory uncertainties over the ability of people aged under 21 in the US to view drinks advertisements.

Here are a few ways to keep fit using the latest body conscious technologies.

Exergaming - Get Fit by Playing Your Favorite Video Games

XR STATION is a video game console that burns calories and builds muscle with isometric resistance.

Dance Dance Revolution® (DDR) a popular arcade game, is now available at home. This game features a platform with four arrows: up, down, left, and right. Players move their feet to the instructions they receive on the machine.

EyeToy® technology (for PlayStation 2), features motion tracking, light-sensing technology and a built-in microphone to record and detect audio. It can function as a photo and video camera, snapping photos, recording video and placing players on the TV.

Guitar Hero® - Strap on your custom guitar shaped controller and find out how much energy it takes to be a rock star. This game is totally awesome, but I am not sure it qualifies as exergaming.

Wii® - Wii is a gaming system by Nintendo that can definitely keep you moving.




Robotic Pets

Robotic pets have the potential to be useful in many ways. Some robot pets are used to remind the elderly to take their medication. In Japan, robot pets are being used as companions for humans and for real pets.

Robotic pets



Printable Power

Solar cells convert light to electricity. Until now, solar cells have been developed mainly on glass, making them easily breakable and expensive.


Konarka Technologies, Inc. has developed organic photovoltaic cells on lower cost, lightweight, flexible plastic substrates rather than on glass.

Power Plastic®



Meet Nobel Prize Winners

This web site presents original video interviews of Nobel Laureates in physics and chemistry. Learn first hand of their achievements and what they could mean for the future. The site could be an inspiration to any student interested in physics or chemistry and the one minute video section was perfect for my limited knowledge and short attention span.

Honeywell Nobel Interactive Studio



Inspired by Nature - Biomimetics

Nature is the ultimate engineer. Billions of years of
“natural R&D” have resulted in effective, optimized
biological solutions that really work. By studying and mimicking nature’s processes and structures, scientists and engineers can develop nature inspired
solutions that are far more effective than solutions conceived and developed exclusively by man.

This field of study is called biomimetics, which falls
into two distinct areas:

1) mimicking of natural creation of chemical compounds

2) imitating mechanisms found in nature.

Other examples of biomimetics:

Velcro® – inspired by seeds' clingy burrs
Low-friction ship hulls – inspired by shark skin
Morphing aircraft wings – inspired by bird wings
Temperature-adapting fabric – inspired by pinecone
Dirt and water-resistant paint – inspired by the lotus flower
Neuromorphic computer chips – inspired by neural networks

Source: Qualcomm



Time to Invade Your Privacy

Designed with a built in voice recorder, an innocent looking wrist watch can secretly capture hours of conversation.

Future Technology Predictions

Artificial Intelligence

Intelligent machines
Computers that predict the future
Original music from software/machines
Biology/biotechnology/medicine

Extended/eternal life
Synthetic life
Repairing/manipulating DNA
Organ replacement / growing organs
Designer babies / designer bodies
Personalized drugs
Gene therapy/manipulation
Biostasis - Cryogenic sleep
Human cloning
Virtual/robot medicine
Instant pain relief
Bionic implants to allow for extreme strength
Morphing of the human body
Age reversal
Creation of organisms
Synthetic organs
Enhanced senses
Bionic arms and legs
Brain

Download your memories/brain
Complete digital record of your life
Mind/emotion control devices
Dream control devices
Brain enhancement implants - memory, telepathy
Transfer of information into the visual cortex or subconscious mind
An implant to alter physical things with your mind. Artificial telekenesis.
Chemistry

Replication and/or transformation of one chemical element to another
Super lubricant
City

Megacities/entire world is one city
Moving/floating/underwater cities
Underground cities
Large city-like hydroponic & aquaponic structures
Cities/houses could be one huge organism which can repair itself
Self-constructing buildings, built on demand
Anti-seismic buildings
Communication

Instant information
Virtual presence
Wireless everything
One small mobile device does everything
Virtual reality
Internet-connection implant
All media (movies, tv shows, etc.) on-demand
Holographic messages
Language translator implants
Telepathy
Phone implant
Computer

Computers equivalent to the human brain
Nanoscale computers everywhere
Optical computers
DNA computers
Quantum computers
Global network
Computers that animals can use
Self editing software
Faster than Light or Instant Data transfer
Earth

Weather control
Abundant food and water supply from technology
Eco-manipulation (deserts into forests)
Production of precious materials like gold
Electronics

Printable/paintable/flexible/see-through electronics, screens, touch panels, solar panels
Invisible video/sensor surveillance
Holograms
Holographic tv on your wrist
Voice/brain command over computers and appliances
Contact lens displays
Glasses that can see different wavelengths
Nuclear powered devices
Holodecks
Nano devices
Energy

Eco-friendly fuel
Unlimited renewable energy
Wireless energy
Energy force fields
Alternative nuclear energy (fusion, antimatter...)
Home

Printable/self constructing homes and buildings.
Eternal beer fountain (Uncle Walt's prediction)
Smart homes
Self washing, drying, and folding clothes
Intelligent/adaptable fabrics and clothing
Personalized ergonomics
Ultrasonic "showers"
Replicators
Nanotechnology

Manipulate matter at the atomic scale
Custom molecules
Intelligent/adaptable materials

Self replicating machines
Desktop nano-factories build anything
Physics

Artificial black holes
Artificial worm holes
Traveling faster than light
Invisibility cloaks
Robotics

Personal/care giving/cleaning robots
Nanobots
Robots perform majority of labor jobs
Robot partners (wife/husband)
Exoskeletons
Sentient robots
Robotic prosthetics
Robots controlled remotely with mind link
Society

Digital money
Language translators
Anti-technology groups
Transhumanism
Identification/credit card implant
Cashless society
Paperless society
Personalized advertising
Compatibility testers
Mental entertainment
Bio-identification
People can encode themselves and live in a computer's memory/program (matrix)
Space

Space elevator
Alien contact
Colonizing space
Planetary/terra formation
Orbital stations
Translight transportation (starships)
Transportation

Self-driving cars on smart-highways
Flying cars - Anti-gravity devices
Teleportation
Time machine
Inertia dampeners, anti acceleration or anti breaking devices
Ion or electromagnetic propulsion
Flying boots
Boots with turbo and wheels
Underground highways

Top 10 Inventions Needed - Future Technology

By Mary Bellis, About.com
See More About:modern inventions21st centuryThis was a wish list that was originally intended to provide inspiration for inventors. First written in April of 1997, I thought it might be fun to follow-up each year and find out if anyone has been working on these ideas for future technology. I have included websites for you to "check out" inventions that are, are close to, or kinda close to what I am hoping will soon exist in the technology available to us presently.

1. Future Technology - Free Energy
I want my energy bill to come only once, not every month. So be it solar or electro-magnetic, please make it personal and portable with batteries that keep going and going.
Check out - D.O.E. Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

2. Future Technology - Transporter
What kind of technology is required to scramble a person's atoms and send them for regrouping in foreign lands all in the blink of an eye? Imagine, I could work in Tokyo and sleep in Paris. Beam me up.
Check out - Quantum Teleportation or Scientists Report 'Teleported' Data

3. Future Technology - Replicator Technology (Stuff for Free)
Every time I saw Captain Picard (Star Trek Next Generation) ordering his Earl Grey Tea or Councilor Troy getting a triple alien fudge dessert from one of those replicators on the Enterprise, it made me jealous. I imagine you could send the dirty dishes back to the void where they came from. BTW, a replicator is a device that uses transporter technology to dematerialize quantities of matter and then rematerialize that matter in another form.

4. Future Technology - Universal Communicator
Forget long distant bills and roaming charges (especially with me working in Tokyo and sleeping in Paris). I want a very small device that lets me talk and see anyone, anywhere and anytime. All for the price of the device and please throw in the ability for universal translation for a modest surcharge.
Check out - Not quite what I meant however, there is Intel's Universal Communicators

5. Future Technology - The Cure
For you name it.
Check out - Curing Brain Diseases by Growing New Cells?

6. Future Technology - Fountain of Youth
As a woman I consider this as a no-brainer desire for future technology. The "Fountain of Youth" was a legendary spring that renders anyone who drinks of its waters permanently young. What is the real future technology that will extend our lives and keep us looking youthful without surgery?
Check out - Scientists discover cellular 'fountain of youth' and Anti-Aging Medicine or Longevity and Anti-Aging Medicine.

7. Future Technology - Protective Force Field
To shield me from the sticks and stones.
Check out - A Force Field for Astronauts?

8. Future Technology - Flying Cars
I want a smooth ride all the way and I hope it's a convertible.
Check out - The Skycar, How Flying Cars Will Work, Flying Cars Ready To Take Off, Flying car more economical than SUV, or Retrofuture.

9. Future Technology - The Battery Operated Butler Did It
What can I say - housework sucks.
Check out - Robotics and Robots

10. Future Technology - The Time Machine
I have a few famous inventors I would love to meet in person and the idea of messing with the time-space continuum is exciting as well.
Check out - Attention Chronic Argonauts and fellow Time Travelers

Postulate

THE NEW LUDDITE CHALLENGE

First let us postulate that the computer scientists succeed in developing intelligent machines that can do all things better than human beings can do them. In that case presumably all work will be done by vast, highly organized systems of machines and no human effort will be necessary. Either of two cases might occur. The machines might be permitted to make all of their own decisions without human oversight, or else human control over the machines might be retained.

If the machines are permitted to make all their own decisions, we can't make any conjectures as to the results, because it is impossible to guess how such machines might behave. We only point out that the fate of the human race would be at the mercy of the machines. It might be argued that the human race would never be foolish enough to hand over all the power to the machines. But we are suggesting neither that the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor that the machines would willfully seize power. What we do suggest is that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines' decisions. As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decisions for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better results than man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won't be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.

On the other hand it is possible that human control over the machines may be retained. In that case the average man may have control over certain private machines of his own, such as his car or his personal computer, but control over large systems of machines will be in the hands of a tiny elite - just as it is today, but with two differences. Due to improved techniques the elite will have greater control over the masses; and because human work will no longer be necessary the masses will be superfluous, a useless burden on the system. If the elite is ruthless they may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity. If they are humane they may use propaganda or other psychological or biological techniques to reduce the birth rate until the mass of humanity becomes extinct, leaving the world to the elite. Or, if the elite consists of soft-hearted liberals, they may decide to play the role of good shepherds to the rest of the human race. They will see to it that everyone's physical needs are satisfied, that all children are raised under psychologically hygienic conditions, that everyone has a wholesome hobby to keep him busy, and that anyone who may become dissatisfied undergoes "treatment" to cure his "problem." Of course, life will be so purposeless that people will have to be biologically or psychologically engineered either to remove their need for the power process or make them "sublimate" their drive for power into some harmless hobby. These engineered human beings may be happy in such a society, but they will most certainly not be free. They will have been reduced to the status of domestic animals.