15 November

Found this news letter in the News groups - love this grass roots.  Jake gives some great insight on the World Trade Organization meeting at the end of the month.  Its the second part of his post, and at the end he also gives you a chance to fulfill a socially conscious act for this moon.  Also loved his attitude about taking everything with a grain of salt, including his own observations.  Here is the link to News Watch for this week

Moonrise   

guild.com is perhaps the best art browsing - I searched "moon" on the site, and this was one of the selections - huge

14 November

More proof the computer interface technology is as ready as you are!  This market is more competitive than we could ever guess (unless you watch the Net for all those clues).  I personally thought this wouldn't be demonstrated for one or 2 more years.  Here it is: the first voice recognition, to translation, to voice.  How soon will we be able to do voice on the net, and talk to others in different languages, and not even realize it?      for the day... when the world listens

13 November

Looks like we are on the eve of going 50-50.  According to this article, the US now stands at 49.5 of the Internet users as women.  Another validation of the Nets viability.  One of the themes of this site, through the Newmoon philosophy, is the positive outlook on "women's only" organizations and web sites.  As their influence broadens, then the Web will have a different look and feel.  And a great influence for the women in suppressed countries to use as encouragement to do the same.              The Eve of revolution

One of our peeks at the geniuses.  The strangest thing about computer technology is how far ahead the researchers in this arena stay ahead of the mainstream tools.  The ability to interface with the machine by facial expression and voice seems to be at the top of the list.  The applications are incredible and will enslave us all to the new ability to explore.  Current web browsing is going to look pretty quaint.

This link will take you to some inputs and outputs by a program to locate the human face in pictures - this will apply to the camera eye on top of your computer tracking where your eyes are going and to relaying your expressions onto your on line persona.  You have to like these guys - they are all smiling                              J          Make a face

12 November

"The Control Revolution: How the Internet is Putting Individuals in Charge and Changing the World We Know" Andrew Shapiro

If the net has one, then here is the age old question:  Is the Net the great equalizer?  This overview of the book  comments on our inherent need to believe new technology, future and past, will bring cultural leveling.

A little worried about conflicting predictions on web speed in the near future and the promise of more multi-media?  Here is a speed killer.  One of those sure things that restore confidence in the savior, technology.  Is there always a way? (a connection to the book overview above)

This article makes you wonder if Net speed is growing at the same rate as the personal computer's speed.

Innovation

11 November

Love to misspell, but as you can tell I play it pretty safe. J

Here is another safe bet.  As an example of how quickly the tools are accelerating in improvement - here is a progression of an idea in just one years time.   The picture below shows the Microscribe.   You trace a stylus over the model and then it becomes a digital model.  Like all tools it is powerful, but has some shortcomings - not quite as easy as it looks.  Well that was last year.

This year we have more products on the next step up.  These may not be new techniques, but the price is reachable - and that is the biggest improvement.  3Scan  and ShapeSnatcher both use video cameras to capture images.  "Old actors never die - they just get digitized."  You could walk to the local museum and capture.  Digital models are given the bone structure you used to get to the museum.  So that digital dragon could become your friend in your own digital adventure or 3D interactive movie.

The before and after from the 3Scan.  which one excites your imagination more?

10 November

In a few quick pages you can come into contact with some world concerns and neglect, as brought to you by Pat Kern, a medic at the US Air Force Survival School.  The details of life in a destitute country like Micronesia, are always surprising, and then enlightening about about our sense of reality.

            Grass roots

Quick blurb on the progress of voice recognition from the land of computer games, but soon to impact all, in every computer application.  This is remarkable - it allows not only voice communication between users over the Net, but allows simultaneous commands to the computer by voice recognition!

             Voice Commander

09 November

Read this article at CNN news - clicking on it will open a new browser window so you can come back and read this editorial  - because I have had more time to think about it than you and that's my job to add the cultural spin on that Net news - Gores Latest Internet Problem

One rule of the business world seems to be that any system has something to offer any other system no matter how disparate.  Browsing the business books shows everything from Tao to chaos theory as models for success.  Remember a popular digital art (already 10 years ago) that looked like fern leaves.  Fractal art was used by chaos theory as indicators of larger patterns.  Any one part of the mathematical product looked like all the rest repeated in larger or smaller scale.  The business world would say "Aha! So looking at the performance in the mailroom in the basement is a direct reflection of the state of operations on the top floor.  So Bush (see below) probably paid for top notch web authoring experts and the Vice-President may have let the enthusiastic community handle his.  Which is smarter and which is laissez-faire?  And does this reflect management style?  Since the Net is the new animal in the political system it may be the easiest indicator of a politicians ability for clear sighted management.

And since CNN's article is slacking in its Net ability - here is the link to Al Gores President 2000 web site, which I could not find by search and had to go through the link pages of several poll sites to find a Democratic link to another link page with Al Gore's.  Bill Bradley's came up as #18 on the first search engine I tried.  And how about George Bush?  With Internet Explorer 5 (hit the help button and then "About..") I click on the address line and then typed in george bush, and guess what popped up on the screen?

Are you a political animal?  Is your one burning question asking, "what is this editors political agenda?"  Well to go with chaos theory my personal philosophy for the last decade is to do every other president as the other party - so its the Republicans turn.  What does history show?  An amazing amount of equal time going back and forth.  It seems to work.  J

08 November

Its our very first daily post! And then in a month or less we will register with the search engines and Net directories.

This is an ironic post - Jack is on my lap (hmm) - as in Jack-o-lantern or Black Jack.   He is a pure black cat just 2 months old or so, who found my step son and I out trick or treating.  He just finished terrorizing my cereal and I, like the little black leopard he is, and now is curled up on my lap while I type out the news of some other cats.  Cats that are seeing our future.

Neuroscientists at the University of California attached electrodes to 177 cells in an anesthetized cat.  Reconstructing the recorded firing pattern of these cells reproduced scenes flashed before the cats eyes.

Meanwhile researchers around the world are using similar techniques to decode higher brain functions, more intricate than the visual system. The possibilities for brain interfaces are unlimited in medical and application.  Bringing vision to the blind and of course a level up on virtual reality, an interface that can touch your sense of smell and emotion.  If every memory really is tucked up there somewhere, then maybe I will get a kick (30-40 years from now?) out of reliving this moment with Jack, to commemorate this first daily post, and thank all those cats.

Here is the article from Wired News - its a month old but a great one to kick off the dailies!

 26 October

The history of virtual worlds took a step yesterday, and it has all the promise to become the defining moment in 3D Net. If that’s the case then we need to fill in some blanks. This will be a long post. Alex St. John A.K.A. the "Evangelist of Microsoft’s Direct X" (type Microsoft and see if your spell checker accepts - then try it without the capital M J ), left Microsoft several years ago but still goes by the moniker "The Saint". Direct X has become the standard by which the 3D interactive industry ties all hardware into interface intensive applications. For instance the next version of Direct X will bring voice communication to the net (or to Windows). The Saint recently resigned from his post at the maverick magazine Maximum PC to pursue further development of his "Wild Tangent" technology, to bring 3D to the net. The promise has turned out to be streaming 3D with interactivity through easy scripting - a low level programming.

Today a shocked Genesis3D community, a hotbed of independent developers, learn Wild Tangent just acquired the, open development project - Genesis3D engine. The engine is on the eve of, not just cutting edge 3D, but also the best editing tool in the industry, allowing the layman to create complicated architecture, and natural rolling terrain.

The combination of the 2 engines means an integration of 3D into the web page, feeding off an incoming stream of data rather than having to wait until all data is received to create a 3D environment.  If you want to see a quick demonstration of this promise see the "Monster Truck Mayhem" demo (a play on Microsoft’s game "Monster Truck Madness) at WildTangent.com.  It looks very crude at first, on standard web speed, but quickly begins to add details while you are steering the truck. The outcome is visually, still only a few steps above the standard web 3D (VRML). But what does it mean for the future? On a cable modem, the future holds a full terrain using the graphics of the cutting edge, ultra fast, heavy detail graphics, of the latest Unreal or Quake game, that will keep loading what ever is around the next corner while you play. The next step is the virtual world.

Being a part of the Genesis community, we were in shock seeing the makers of an engine we all had dreams of using, suddenly picking up and leaving Texas to join Wild Tangent in Washington State. They are still waiting for some answers to the future, but the good news can only be... the combination of the 2 engines and the editing tools to make the interactive 3D environment, and the extra team work, will bring an ultra hyped 3D Net product to all of us, within 6 months. And then the real journey toward virtual worlds begins.  Here is the official Press Release

 8 October

Okay so this site isn't official until Nov 8th but just had to post this.  This shows a great example of the power of the net to communicate through graphics - great impact here.  And your chance to do some of that Newmoon if you haven't done something socially conscious in the last month - by going to the UN hunger site and with one click your facilitating food contributions 

TheHungerSite.com

Thanks Barb! 

Just finished out the 4 part overview for the 4 winds 4 you.  Try one and then see if you want to get to the rest      Art,  WWW,  E-Commerce, Interactive Industry

And Nemo's Mind - the concrete expression of virtualworldnews is ready for its first exposure to the Genesis community - here is a fast link to the Nemo's Mind Project

 25 September

There's a certain beauty to opening this site within the same month of a very significant event in the development of cultural artistic virtual worlds. Go straight to the source or check out our Project page to get the overview

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