Virtual worlds with real purposes

Virtual worlds with real purposes

But the creation of a virtual Berlin lets people be in two places at the same time - as 20km of the city has been faithfully replicated into an online world.

By the end of 2008, 50,000 buildings in the German capital are expected to have been copied into the virtual world.

"While Second Life and others worlds offer some stylised versions of cities - Twinity uses the 3D mapping data currently used for things like satnav and Google Earth," said Jochen Hummel, the chief executive of Metaversum - owner of Twinity.

"One by one each building is then made to look as it would in the real world," he said.

Twinity hopes to offer a space for "virtual tourism"

Twinity's Berlin, which it calls a "metaverse" has been created by taking pictures of the city and using them to build 3D facades.

Volunteer developers may soon be encouraged to add their own or adapt existing ones, like users updating and adding entries in Wikipedia.

While many online worlds are put to frivolous uses, Metaversum sees Twinity as a step beyond gaming.

"It's a space for virtual tourism," said Mr von Hardenberg. "The realism of this platform could help you plan a trip here, or just help you get your bearings before you arrive."

So far the closest many come to wandering around the globe is through 3D-mapping applications such as Google Earth that provide a snapshot of places.

Twinity emphasises realism, but the mantra for the virtual world is "be nice".

Mr Hardenberg hopes the platform will gain an audience beyond the core male gamers and attract more women.

"It's a social environment for meeting people, visiting galleries, or online shopping. Users are encouraged to create avatars that look just like them so they'll be recognised and to use their real names," he said.

Twinity has one advantage over reality when it comes to transport because there are no cars and visitors simply teleport to key locations.

Near Global are launching their virtual London next year

Joining Berlin soon is London where another company is re-creating the city not just based on reality, but mapping it by inch-for-inch.

Near Global is launching in 2009 with the promise to offer the most accurate 3D version of a city ever produced as a virtual world.

While Twinity allows any company to buy its shops other than landmark stores, Near Global will offer a faithful copy of what users would find in reality.

GPS phones could be used to map actual movements to this virtual space, or phones could be used to go online into the virtual London to see what's ahead before getting there.

Londoners will also be able to know where to find anything they want by travelling there virtually - if it were to become popular, it might work as a Yellow Pages of its day.

"We don't search for stuff on a day-to-day level, we discover things," said Alex Wrottesley, the founder of Near Global. "Yes some people go out to buy a pair of socks but lots of people go out to look and see what's available.

"Information is not organised like that online and there's nowhere where that's all put together, and certainly not on an interface that's so intuitive to explore," he said.

At the moment only a few streets of the city are rendered.

But he firm hopes once the virtual London is complete real companies will get involved and offer services through "channels" on its website.

These could be free or require subscription, for instance, for entertainment companies offering live coverage of events or London's tourist board offering a Victorian experience of the capital.

Money maker

User will be able to visit galleries in the online London

All users will access virtual London and have the option to visit galleries or clubs like in real life, by paying to get access to the extra layers or "channels".

Companies might then be able to commercialise the opportunities offered by such a detailed virtual world.

Rather than using avatars, virtual London is turning to shards of coloured light.

"If you give people a physical presence in a world, you are asking them to make some very big statements on day one. I don't really want to do that. I don't really want to dress up to go to the shops.

"I want to feel I'm there, not that's I'm creating an alternative persona to inhabit there," said Mr Wrottesley.

Like Twinity where there are no cars and users can teleport to key locations.

Breaking away from reality further, there is no litter on the London streets, although there are litter bins, and again no weapons or traffic - beyond the occasional red bus.

Mr Wrottesley said it took around six months to properly re-create a city centre, and his company's next target was likely to be Moscow.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/7754038.stm

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Digital Entertainment: Virtual Worlds

Avatars a go-go

Do you ever feel like there is something you are missing out on? You know you have those little pangs of anxiety that make you feel like you are on the outside looking in?

Well that's kind of how I have been feeling the last 24 hours when I consider the world of virtual reality. It seems everybody is having a whoop-de-do party and I haven't been invited.

Everyone from Google to IBM has just jumped on the virtual bandwagon in the last day with offerings to unshackle ourselves from the humdrum life we have here on planet earth.

And if you don't believe me that it seems like everyone is starting their own virtual world, then take the word of Virtual Worlds Management. In a new report it says that in the second quarter of this year, $161m has been put into 14 virtual world investments. Add in the first quarter investment and we hit more than £345m. That's a lot of moolah.

Google, who seem to be taking over the world, unveiled Lively, a three dimensional application which lets you enter virtual rooms. The industry watchers suggest that Google's entry into the market place will take the world of virtual reality into the mainstream.

Chris Sherman of Virtual Worlds Management maintains "With a player like Google jumping into this, you're going to see a lot more peole understand this space and pay attention to it."

Second Life, which was out of the gate first, isn't resting on its laurels. It has teamed up with IBM to teleport avatars from one virtual world to another. It's history, not as we know it, but as the world of virtual reality knows it.

In its blog, Second Life owners Linden Lab says "This is a historic day for Second Life and other virtual worlds in general. It marks the first time an avatar has moved from one virtual world to another, an event with implications for the entire virtual world industry."

Am I missing out on something here? That's a lot of hyperbole. They didn't come up with a cure for cancer did they?

Another company that has also just opened its virtual doors in the last 24 hours is Vivaty which is offering users a 3D chat room that runs on Facebook.

Hell's bells, even Britney Spears is getting in on the virtual act with plans to make a virtual appearance on Madonna's upcoming tour. The fact that these two gals are still trading on the "open mouth" kiss they made during an awards ceremony five years ago seems pretty desperate to me. But hey, what do I know? I am just a real life gal trying to get by in the real life world.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/07/avatars_a_go_go.html

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Social Networking: Chat Rooms

Scottish sex predator student faces prison

A student described by prosecutors as one of Scotland's most dangerous sexual predators has admitted 32 charges related to the abuse of children.
Andrew Byrne, 20, used the internet to groom and abuse 19 children, aged between eight and 15, a court heard.
He sexually assaulted some victims and subjected others to indecent behaviour between September 2007 and July 2009. He was caught during a police operation to snare internet paedophiles. Sentence on Byrne was deferred until next month.
The High Court in Glasgow heard how the microbiology student from Glasgow University abused 11 girls and eight boys from across the UK who were aged between eight and 15 at the time.
Byrne, who lived in Glasgow's Byres Road, met the first girl in September 2007 through the MSN messenger service.

Andrew Byrne has been convicted of some of the most damaging and disturbing crimes that prosecutors ever encounter Michelle Macleod Procurator fiscal

He eventually got her to carry out sex acts via a webcam as the youngster thought they were in a "special relationship".
A 13-year-old girl from Manchester then met Byrne through another chat service.
Byrne travelled down twice to meet her in 2008 and 2009 and recorded them being involved in "explicit sexual activity". He later forwarded the images on to nine other people.
Byrne then had sex with two underage girls, aged 13 and 15, in 2008 at a flat in the Glasgow's Bridge Street. He had sex with another 13-year-old girl after meeting her around Christmas 2008 in Fife. Around the same time, he met a third 13-year-old on MSN and they had "heavy sexualised chat".
Sexual clip

Byrne later had intercourse with the teenager at his flat in Bridge Street.

During March last year, Byrne got in touch with a boy and girl, both aged 11, who came from Yorkshire.
He was eventually found with a sexual clip of the friends on his laptop.

Byrne then tried to get a 15-year-old girl to meet him for sex, but she repeatedly refused. Last Easter, he got in touch with a 12-year-old girl on the Bebo social networking site.

In May, Byrne chatted to a 14-year-old boy from Glasgow about having sex with him.

Soon after he was in regular contact with a 15-year-old who has since been convicted of abusing an eight-year-old boy.
The court heard how Byrne would ask this boy, via webcam, to perform sex acts on the eight-year-old and record it. Byrne and the 15-year-old also had discussions about the possibility of raping the teenager's former girlfriend.
Indecent images

In June, he arranged to meet a 13-year-old boy from Edinburgh for sex, but the teenager did not appear.

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A London summit of the International Virtual Global Taskforce also formed plans to work with credit card firms to tackle pay-per-view child pornography.

The Taskforce of international law enforcement agencies aims to make the internet safer for children.

National Crime Squad (NCS) Assistant Chief Constable Jim Gamble said the aim was "reassurance through visibility".

The Taskforce's different agencies will also work together to seize the assets of people profiting from child pornography websites.

Visible presence

The NCS in the UK and the US's FBI are heading the effort, which will utilise different time zones to monitor the web 24 hours a day.

If a paedophile is grooming someone online and this icon appears, how comfortable do you think they are going to feel? Assistant Chief Constable Jim Gamble

Officers entering chat rooms will use an icon to alert other users to their presence.

Mr Gamble said the aim was a visible police presence, similar to officers patrolling the streets, to reassure the public and deter paedophiles.

"The police are going to be there overtly - there is nothing covert about this," he said.

"If a paedophile is grooming someone online and this icon appears, how comfortable do you think they are going to feel? Are they going to continue talking to that child, in case that child says to the police officer: 'This guy that is talking to me is behaving in a very unusual way'?

"There is no 'big brother' initiative here, this is about reassurance through visibility."

People using the chat room would be able to ask the police officer for advice, and efforts would be made to capture the details of anyone acting suspiciously to enable further investigation, Mr Gamble said.

Police sting

Tink Palmer, policy officer at the children's charity Barnardo's, said if paedophiles knew their internet conversation was being observed by a police officer it could stop them "in their tracks".

"If we can get to people who are starting off along this road, then we can work with them before it becomes an ingrained pattern of behaviour.

"People say, 'what about civil liberties?' but you have a virtual world out there - we have to police that to make it as safe as we can," she said.

The NSPCC's internet safety advisor Christine Atkinson said the project was an "important step forward in protecting children".

The National Crime Squad has worked in partnership with overseas agencies to combat paedophilia before, most notably on Operation Ore.

The operation has identified over 7,000 suspects and led to more than 1,200 convictions in the UK alone.

It also led to the development last year of the international police sting known as Operation Pin.

Forces set up sites appearing to offer child pornography.

Users are told they could face 10 years in jail and may have their details circulated to 180 countries.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3789279.stm

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Social Networking: Chat Rooms

'Ban teens from chatrooms'

Children should be kept out of chat rooms, argues technology analyst Bill Thompson.

Do you know who your child is talking to on the net?

It was, it seems, the internet's fault. Young and foolish, 12-year old Shevaun Pennington found a friend online and decided that what he had to offer was more exciting than the boys in school.

She joins a long line of other children who have met people in chat rooms or over e-mail and been persuaded to turn an online friendship into a real-world one, with consequences that will terrify any parent.

The experiences of Shevaun and other children like her have only confirmed my view that kids do not need to use chatrooms to talk to strangers Bill Thompson

I don't propose to do this.

Shevaun's disappearance was the net's fault and we have to accept this.

She would not have had any contact with her 31-year old ex-Marine if it had not been for the easy access to e-mail and chat that today's children seem to demand as a right, and we should not pretend otherwise or blame inadequate supervision.

Certainly, parents need to be aware of what their children are doing online, but none of us is perfect and always alert to danger.

We can restrict their access, or install safety software, but our kids also need space to grow up, privacy from even their parents, and a sense that they are trusted.

Monitoring every e-mail, sitting in on every chat and checking web access logs is not the way, certainly for the over-10s.

While there are significant benefits to being online and to using the resources available on the net, the balance between these benefits and the dangers needs to be better understood, and a new understanding is required.

Part of the problem is that we tend to treat the net as if it is one thing, but of course it is many. The web, e-mail and chat are vastly different tools, used in vastly different ways, and presenting different risks and benefits.

After all, we use radio waves to transmit BBC1 and Radio 4, for mobile phones and walkie-talkies and even for x-rays, and we do not expect one set of rules to apply to them all. So we should not automatically let problems with chat and e-mail change the way we let children use the web.

CHAT ROOMS AND CHILDREN One in five children aged nine to 16 regularly use chatrooms More than half have engaged in sex chat A quarter have received requests to meet face-to-face One in 10 had met face-to-face Source: Cyberspace Research Centre

The major problem is chat, and as far back as February I argued that the prevalence of predatory adult males in online chat rooms had been demonstrated so clearly that it was time to exclude kids from chat rooms where adults might be present.

The experiences of Shevaun and other children like her have only confirmed my view that kids do not need to use chat rooms to talk to strangers.

In the last couple of months my 12-year-old daughter has started chatting to her friends online, and she enjoys the experience greatly. One feature which appeals to her greatly is that she can have a private conversation with her school mates even if I'm sitting in the same room, something that she can't do on her phone.

However we have a deal. She has let me set up her chat service so that only people on her contact list can see she is online or send her messages, and I get to look through her contact list to check that they are all friends I know.

And she doesn't go to public chat rooms.

This is a political, not a technical issue. Whatever age verification schemes we might come up with, a determined adult will find a way around them - or just find a way to steal a child's online identity and strike up conversation in an apparently trustworthy space.

In many ways this would be worse than the present situation, where we can at least ask kids to be vigilant about everyone they meet online.

The only answer is to keep kids out of these spaces - to make them adult-only and require age verification by those hosting them.

If that is inconvenient, then let it be. This is too important. Doing this would at least reduce the number of kids exposed to the danger, and it would not deprive of them of any useful or valuable experience.

Looking after our kids means setting limits on their behaviour to keep them safe. We should not let the net advocates try to persuade us to expose our children to the dangers of public chat rooms.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3077003.stm

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Social Networking: Messaging

Texts used in anti drink campaign

Text messages are being used for the first time as part of Surrey Police's campaign to combat drink-driving.
Calls to 118 118 to request telephone numbers for restaurants, pubs and clubs in Surrey will receive a drink-drive warning message with the reply text.

An image of a car crashed into a tree with the warning "He should have crashed at yours" is also being used by the force to get the message across.

It is being projected on to the outside of the Friary Centre in Guildford.
Bluetooth messages

An image with the message "What's under your tree this Christmas?" is also being used in cinemas and on the social networking site, Facebook.

The images and messages will also be appearing on bus shelters, the Surrey Police and Surrey County Council websites and on posters and credit card-sized advice leaflets.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/surrey/8394983.stm

Social Networking: Messaging

People were stopped from sending text messages last July following riots and demonstrations in Xinjiang.

An official with Xinjiang's regional government acknowledged the texting ban inconvenience people, but was necessary for security.

The ban on sending text messages was introduced shortly after riots and protests in the regional capital, Urumqi, that left nearly 200 people dead, most of them Han Chinese.

At the end of December the government began to restore access to some officially sanctioned sites, such as Xinhua, and allowed a number of other online services.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8464881.stm

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Social Networking: Blogging

What is blogging?

Blogging is a way of collecting links to webpages and sharing thoughts and ideas with people online. Blogs (or Weblogs) are basically online journals or diaries which are great for sharing information and ideas. Blogger.com says: "A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world." As well as text, blogs often contain audio, music, images and video. They're also really easy to make, so you can have one even if you aren't very technical. Anything can be posted instantly to a blog. Why Blog Surfing's no fun if you can't tell people what you've found. How many times have you sent e-mails to your mates with the address of a particularly interesting web page, annotated with your own hilarious comments? Wouldn't it be good to get your own web page where you could publish these comments, plus the links you find, turn it into a daily journal of thoughts and ideas and make the whole thing available to the world? Well now you can, and if you do, you'll be joining the phenomenon that has become 'blogging'. The history of blogs Blogging has become something of a big thing in the last few years, and some of the biggest and best known weblogs attract the kind of traffic that even big name e-commerce sites would be jealous of. Weblogs are more than pages of links - they tend to reflect the personalities of their owners. They are personal web pages, updated very often. They are the product of their owners' imaginations, interests and wit, and it's probably this personal touch which has made them so popular, especially for political issues. The word 'weblog' was coined by Jorn Barger, owner of the long-established and extremely popular Robot Wisdom weblog. You can get a lot more about the history of weblogs from his site at robotwisdom.com Also try del.icio.us if you want to make sharable lists of websites.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/askbruce/articles/browse/blogging_1.shtml

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Social Networking: File Sharing

How do I share music and files?

You can share your music and other files with other people online by installing a P2P program on your internet-connected computer.

Doing this lets other people get files from your PC - and you can get their stuff too.

So if you want other people to listen to the recordings you've made of your kids playing the violin, or have an easy way to get the latest music, P2P is the way to go.

What's P2P?

Whatever browser you use - Netscape, Internet Explorer or Opera - just asks for the page it wants and shows it on your screen.

If you want to have your own web pages then you've got to get a server of your own, or pay someone else to let you use theirs.

With a peer to peer program your computer can get stuff from other places, but it can also hand over files that it is asked for, acting like a server too.

How to choose?

They make your computer part of a worldwide collection of computers which are sharing files.

The UK government has said it will introduce legislation to allow persistent illegal file-sharers to be disconnected from the net.

The government has previously said that it had backed plans to curb piracy.

The creative industries estimate that six million people in the UK regularly file-share copyright content without permission, costing the industries revenue that they cannot recoup.

ISPs have long said they do not want to become the internet police, and have also pointed out that under the law as it stands they are mere conduits of the traffic on the net.

Mr Mandelson has said that the cost of tracking down file-sharers be evenly split between the ISPs and the rights owners.

ISPs routinely monitor traffic sent over their network, for maintenance and security purposes.

But this is a slow, and time-consuming procedure. One solution is to employ deep packet inspection (DPI) to look at the content of the "packets" of data being sent over the net.

The creative industries believe illegal file-sharing is almost endemic while the government has set a target of reducing the problem by at least 70% in the next two or three years.

Countries around the world are grappling with how to control internet piracy.

In August 2009, US student Joel Tenebaum was ordered to pay $675,000 (£412,000) to various record labels after being found guilty on 31 charges of sharing music online.
The French government has also approved a "three strikes" plan that would see pirates removed from the net for up to a year.
There have been protests against similar proposed legislation in Australia and New Zealand.
In response to the French legislation, European politicians ruled that cutting off someone's internet connection could be a breach of their human rights.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8329710.stm

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It suggests they prefer making short postings on social networking sites, and going online on mobile phones.

The increase from 7% in 2007 to 11% in 2009 is believed to be responsible for the prevalence of blogging within the overall adult internet population remaining steady at roughly 10%.

The study released on Wednesday found that blogging had steadily declined in popularity among both teens and young adults to 14%.

One student said teenagers had lost interest in blogging because they needed to type quickly and "people don't find reading that fun".

Ms Lenhart doubts that blogging will disappear. She believes those who blog for personal reasons will instead focus more often on important events such as a wedding, a trip or the birth of baby.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8497427.stm

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Social Networking: File Sharing

Warning letters to 'file-sharers'

Virgin Media has sent about 800 letters to customers warning them that they should not be downloading illegal music files via file-sharing sites.
It is part of a 10-week campaign it is running in conjunction with the BPI to "educate" users about downloads.
The BPI, the body which represents the UK record industry, told the BBC that "thousands more letters" would be sent.
Its stricter stance on illegal downloaders might result in some ISPs being taken to court, it told BBC News.
Refuseniks

The BPI wants all UK ISPs to sign up to a so-called three strikes policy - where users of file sharing networks get two warnings and are then disconnected if they are sharing copyright files.

So far only Virgin Media has officially signed up and it is keen to stress that currently it is running an education-only campaign and that no-one has been thrown off the network.

This would be reviewed in mid-August, said a Virgin Media spokesman.

One customer who received a letter told BBC Radio 1's Newsbeat programme that he was unhappy with Virgin Media.

It is doomed to fail Virgin customer Will McGree Newsbeat talks to Virgin customers

He said no-one in his flat had been file-sharing and that it was possible someone had accessed his wireless network from outside the building.

She said the music industry had to be in a position of offering a viable alternative before it clamped down on the activities of some users.

The music industry says new laws could be introduced

The current system involves the BPI policing file sharing networks. It looks for illegal traffic and identifies the IP address from which it has come and informs the ISP.

"File sharing is very youth-skewed. The BPI isn't going to close the door on the problem but it can get at the families whose kids are file sharing without their knowledge," said Mark Mulligan, an analyst with Jupiter Research.

The record industry has long grappled with how to wrest back control of digital music.

The new strategy will see it negotiating licensed content deals with ISPs who have pursued file sharers.

Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the BPI, said the details of the services were yet to be decided but that there are likely to a variety of models on offer that would be "easy and cheap".

Mr Taylor admitted that the BPI's current campaign was unlikely to stop file sharing completely but he did think the idea that the web was home to free stuff needs to be challenged.

What are Wikis

A wiki (pronounced /ˈwɪki/ WIK-ee) is a website that allows the easy^[1] creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor.^[2][3] Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used to create collaborative websites, to power community websites, for personal note taking, in corporate intranets, and in knowledge management systems.

Wikis may exist to serve a specific purpose, and in such cases, users use their editorial rights to remove material that is considered "off topic". Such is the case of the collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia.^[3] In contrast, open purpose wikis accept content without firm rules as to how the content should be organized.

Published and broadcast information: Newspapers

Much of it is written by former journalists at The Scotsman.

We want them to tell the stories that the churning maelstrom of the old-fashioned newsroom never allowed Stewart Kirkpatrick The Caledonian Mercury

The Caledonian Mercury only has three people on its core staff: directors for editorial, technology and marketing.

Over the last decade, the UK's favourite dailies have lost some 2.25 million readers.

Falling circulations mean less money through the till and newspapers' other main source of income - advertising - is also drying up.

In the last 10 years, ad revenues have fallen by about 20%.

Some within the industry predict that within the next 10 years we could even see one or two of Britain's best loved dailies go to the wall.

Advertising is one of the first things companies cut spending on during a recession and cash-strapped consumers may see newspapers as a luxury they can do without when times are tough.

The world is changing and newspapers have to adapt Rupert Murdoch, NewsCorp

The internet has made it easier than ever for us to find out the news.

"The world is changing and newspapers have to adapt to that."

But it is not straight forward. Online, advertisers have many more spaces to choose from, making the market much more competitive.

But it is not all bad news.

I don't think newspapers will die Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive, WPP

Papers such as The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph increasingly see themselves as online news providers first and news papers second.

The Guardian's website, for example, now attracts more than 20 million users a month.

Newspapers are in a difficult transition.

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  More radio stations: national, local and regional catering for all kinds of interests and groups of people
  
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  LiveText letting you find out what you’re listening to; details of the song/artists along with the latest news/sport and weather headlines
  
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  Easy to use radios with no need to remember frequencies
  
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  You can listen to your favourite stations on the move, in the car and at home
  
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  Better reception: no more hiss and crackle
  
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  An electronic programme guide so you can record your favourite programme and listen when you want
  
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  Some radios even let you pause and rewind your listening so you never miss a single word
  
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  Digital radio is also available via digital television and online