Check out Hippasus, an MMO where magic is done via math (shades of DeCamp & Pratt’s Compleat Enchanter). The goal is explicitly to teach math, apparently; you earn power and respect by mastering mathematical concepts in a world that mirrors classical antiquity.
Gotta love a description like this:
Different areas will be culturally, behaviourally, visually, and mathematically distinct to allow for an enhanced user experience.
Looks like the OpenCroquet project is coming along nicely: they just today announced the release of Croquet: Croquet SDK 1.0.
Croquet is aiming to be as much a computing environment or operating system as anything else. It’ll be interesting to see what people do with the SDK.
We’re all too ready to do things in familiar ways. You know, when we were working on music systems for Galaxies, we thought very much in terms of loops and whether we could get all the sound to synch up. But maybe this video of the Reactable music prototype shows that instead, a multiplayer music system might be better suited towards soundscapes.
When I look at what they did here, I say to myself, “they exploited the uses of a table.” What are core characteristics of a table? It’s usually large enough to handle multiple people. It is a surface on which objects are placed, and interesting things happen in terms of what objects, where, and how they are positioned relative to one another. Using the traditional metaphor of musical instruments would never get you this instrument. Instead, you’d end up with light-up piano keys on the table surface.
What are the core characteristics of virtual worlds, and how do we exploit the space in a way that simply wouldn’t otherwise?
Lots of juicy stats, and good insight into why the sites are so sticky. Check it out here.
Everything dies. We all know it: whether it be the sickly sweet smell of something small somewhere under the bushes in the front yard, or the more leisurely and somehow more dramatic deaths of institutions, houses, entire countries. Baghdad has been where it is for a few thousand years and once was renowned for its greenery; no doubt it rests on the bones of itself, in ongoing self-renewal.
As you might guess, this here is a grim little poem. 🙂 The original draft dates back to 1990.
