Second Life - wimbledon

I must prefix this by saying - I do have friends, a family and proper real world interests.

That said - I have been exploring Second Life for a couple of days (my new MacBook runs the software so much better than my old Vaio) - and among some other interesting things I read about this: Second life at wimbledon on a blog kept by one of the IBM staffers.

I chatted to him (in Second Life - or SL) this evening (if you follow the above link he is in the picture on the left and looks like a Predator in SL). He describes himself as a metaverse evangelist, and I believe that is actually his job title at IBM (I kid you not). He also turned out to be a really nice guy who was only to happy to spend time talking to an idiot who was having trouble grasping the concept of what they were doing - despite the fact that he is basically a Predator.

Basically they have linked up Hawkeye (not the bloke from MASH, but the camera/software system that follows the trajectory of the ball) to a simulation in Second Life.

It doesn’t actually work brilliantly (not when I’ve been there anyway) - but it does work sometimes, and they are constantly developing it. You can even see a screen (in SL) displaying the control room in IBM where they are controlling the tennis/SL feed and their avatars in SL. It is, to put it mildly - a head fuck.

Below is a picture of my avatar hovering above the IBM Second Life representation of Wimbledon center court.

Written by exmonkey on June 29th, 2007 with 7 comments.
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