Second Life on a Mobile Phone Nii Annan September 2011 Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Master of Science in Information Technology Department of Computing Science and Mathematics University of Stirling
List of Figures 1Introduction
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- Background and Context
- Scope and Objectives
- Achievements
- Overview of Dissertation
- 2State-of-The-Art
List of Figures1IntroductionMore and more sophisticated hand held devices are released nearly every quarter of the year. Most manufactures, programmers and developers have therefore harnessed the idea of developing powerful applications for these devices. These days, one does not have to power up their computer in order to log into just one desktop application, for example Windows Live Messenger. Small devices such as mobile phones have made it possible to gain access to programs which otherwise would have been exclusive to desktops. Mobile phone applications have become popular in recent times. These applications serve as a miniaturized version of a ‘real’ desktop application. Though their functionality is limited to the mobile device they are built for, they nonetheless hold the key or core functionality of the main product. In the next sections and chapters, an in depth discussion will be made on how the idea of mobile phone applications was used to develop an Inter-life application for accessing the Inter-life Island on Second Life. Background and ContextSecond Life is a multi-user 3D virtual world, shared by a number of avatars as shown in figure 1. These avatars interact with each other and their environment through instant messaging and voice communications. Second Life is in a lot of ways similar to the popular online game called The SIMS. 
Avatars interacting with each other in Second Life The Inter-life Island is a private Island on Second Life. For this reason, the number of avatars in world at any given time may be small. Going in-world becomes uninviting and thus overall interest wanes. Section 1.2 briefly outlines the approaches taken in order to alleviate this issue.
The objectives:
AchievementsThis section sheds light on the important achievements made in the project. The next few paragraphs give a brief overview of what was accomplished. A login user interface was designed which collects a user’s name and password. These are sent over a secure TCP connection between the Inter-life application and the Inter-life server for authentication. After authentication, the user is granted access to a page which displays the Inter-life Island map. A refresh button on the map interface when clicked sends a query to the Inter-life server requesting the information of avatars in-world. The information returned includes the number of avatars online, their names and location coordinates. This data was then manipulated in order to plot their exact location on the map. Each avatar’s position on the map is represented by an instance of an interactive miniature button. The properties of an avatar – name and coordinates are “wrapped” around these buttons. Clicking any “avatar button” on the map therefore displays, the avatar name and coordinates in a text block below the map as will be demonstrated in later chapters. In addition to all this, a twitter messaging client was also developed as part of the project. Twitter messages are sent from the application to twitter.com and finally delivered in-world. Messages from in-world are delivered to the users main twitter account. All the designing and coding was made possible using Microsoft's Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone (the main Interactive Development Environment). Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate was also used for generating Use Case diagrams and Class diagrams. Overview of DissertationChapter 2 covers work already done relating to this MSc project in question. It also looks at a few technological advancements developers need to familiarize themselves with before attempting to delve into programming applications for any Microsoft Windows platform. These include understanding what the .Net Framework is. A brief overview of the present Windows Phone 7.5 OS will also be looked at as well past versions and why in the next few years Windows Phone devices will become popular amongst the masses. Chapter 3 takes a deeper look into the software development cycle of the project, covering the requirements for the project, critical analysis of the problem at hand and the design phase. Chapter 4 focuses on the implementation phase of the software development life cycle, testing and maintenance. Chapter 5 mainly covers the conclusion of the project, as well as limitations of the software, recommendations and future work. 2State-of-The-ArtSecond Life™Second Life is a virtual three dimensional world developed by Linden Lab. Free client programs enable Second Life users, to interact with each other through avatars. Users can explore this virtual world, meet other residents, socialize, take part in individual and group events. The age restriction for users of Second Life varies and there are various clauses for people aged, 13-15, 16 and 17 as well as 18 years and over [2]. Second Life was launched on June 23, 2003 and has about a million active users as of 2011 [3]. These client programs have a built-in 3D modeling tool based around simple geometric shapes allowing residents to create virtual objects. A scripting language, known as Linden Scripting Language, can be used to add interactivity to objects [4]. An in depth look at Second Life is beyond the scope of this project. Further information about Second Life can be obtained here [5]. Directory: courses courses -> Algorithms for Register Allocation Andrew Pardoe courses -> Ieor 4600 Mixed-Integer Rounding Inequalities courses -> San José State University Social Science/Psychology Psych 175, Management Psychology, Section 1, Spring 2014 courses -> Kennan's Telegram (Excerpt) courses -> The university of british columbia courses -> A hurricane track density function and empirical orthogonal function approach to predicting seasonal hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin Elinor Keith April 17, 2007 Abstract courses -> Cover page need figure & title by Proposed Table of Contents courses -> Objectives courses -> Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog Download 191.8 Kb. Share with your friends:
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