If you’re new here and like what you read, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed.
Thank you for visiting!

Two articles surfaced recently regarding Second Life.

First, CNN reports that over 60 educational organizations are using Second Life to explore how to promote learning in the virtual world. Whereas there is a concern that mainstay online education providers do not provide a sense of community or social interaction, virtual, three-dimensional online communities may fill the need:

John Lester, community and education manager at Linden Lab, the creator of “Second Life,” echoed that view. “There is a real human being behind every avatar — the people are very real. It’s just the medium is different,” he said.

Second, New Scientist reports that a flood of self-replicating objects in the online world have created a “grey goo” that overwhelmed the servers:

The trouble began with the appearance of a virtual gold rings in several areas of the virtual world. As users touched these rings, they starting replicating wildly and, eventually, the servers on which the game is hosted began creaking under the strain of the additional activity.

Virtual doomsday, anyone?

NewScientist reports:

Development giants China and India “hold the world in balance”, says a new report by a US environmental think tank.

“The choices these two countries make in the next few years will lead the world either towards growing ecological and political instability – or down a development path based on efficiency and better stewardship of resources,” says a report from the Worldwatch Institute in Washington DC, US.

The solution? A policy based on innovation.

But Flavin says countries like China and India have the chance to develop in a more benign way than already industrialised nations. “[By] leapfrogging today’s industrial powers, they can become world leaders in sustainable energy and agriculture within a decade,” he says.

Read the full article.