Congressman Markey’s SL hearing was held Tuesday, April 1st, 9:30 a.m. (6:30SLT)

 

SPNN, Rayburn island overflow room, Second Life – April 1st, 2008

Rep Ed Markey [D-Mass] asking questions.  [latest updates: linked to apparent resolution to LL video misattribution, added links to SL tour vid shown at the hearing and continue to update my notes of other coverage, posted my ten pics of SL side of the hearings at flickr, a ref to Rep Markey's previous inworld appearance coverage by Kat LeMieux, noted Musgrove's WashPost coverage - Apr 10th, 7 pm EST]

Susan Tenby of TechSoup testifying.

Listening to remarks by Colin J. Parris, Ph.D., VP, Digital Convergence, IBM Research, IBM Corp.

We were viewing at the overflow Rayburn isle in SL.  Video link will be released soon  is here with pdfs of witness testimony.  Thanks to Troy McLuhan for spotting that at NMC’s [New Media Consortium] Campus Observer.

*Philip Rosedale said one good use of this sort of networking tool would be to fill gaps of all kinds – geographical, cultural, from differing languages, or lack of information.

*SciLands space and science islands featured heavily in Linden Lab’s [LL] 7 minute SL video from Machinama by Silver & Goldie.  ISM(the International Spaceflight Museum)’s Spaceport Alpha island and NASA’s CoLab, a collaborative RL/SL [real life/second life] effort, as well as NOAA’s Meteroa got screen time as examples of the best that has been done in Second Life up until now.  See the video Second Life^®: Making the Real World a Better Place.  ISM footage was misattributed to NASA CoLab, but Linden Lab and ISM are resolving the mistake, according to Kat Lemieux’s update.  Goldie of Goldie & Silver just informed me that the copy with the corrected soundtrack is now up at their site. 

*This is Congressman Markey’s second official appearance in SL; he attended the UN carbon conference on Bali last Dec, possibly becoming the first US legislator to hold a mixed-reality press conference in SL or any other VW.  Kat LeMieux, who now blogs “about the developing metaverse” & tools for it in her NewMedia On the Go blog, captured the technical newness of last year’s event at her travel blog.

My followup interview with Representative Markey’s office made it clear he wasn’t the first legislator to hold a VW press conference, but is the first to hold a simulcast Congressional hearing in a Virtual World [VW].

Other coverage:

*Benjamin Duranske has a thoughtful analysis at the vr legal site Virtually Blind, and points out in a comment at TerraNova that Philip Rosedale’s prepared remarks were cut short [not allowing for LL vid time].  Be sure to read the pdf of Rosedale’s prepared remarks for the full version.

*Rik Riel posted pics from the SL Congressional room.

*Mike Musgrove’s Post I.T. technology column, Washington Post, April 2nd – Congress Goes Virtual in Online World Hearing

*Representative Ed Markey’s own website coverage

John Zhaoying talks to SciEye: carbon, future trends, & advantages of running VR conferences

This is how a high-attendance area slowly rezzes for a new arrival.

John Zhaoying low-rezzed in my viewer at 106 person Mitch Kapor conf.

And rezzing in …

“SL For Dummies” authors’ SL appearance successful!

Intellagirl Tully & Typewriter Tackleberry with MC Kim Anubis.

Another Wiley production.  Nearly 50 avs attended.

NASA CoLab’s latest machinama vid – rough cut

ISS model in NASA CoLab’s Testbed sandbox, with HQ ring behind it and Geofrank Taurog’s Lunar building looming in the upper background.

I was one of a dozen avs who burned part or all of 4 hours inworld Wed March 19th while Earth Primbee shot footage for his 2nd CoLab machinama vid.  A big thanks to all those who responded!

The 2 minute rough cut is online, as is Earth’s previous CoLab machinama vid, NASA CoLab’s Second Life Mission, with over 36,000 hits at YouTube! 

SciEye at UBM/CMP’s Life 2.0 Spring’08 conference – low-carb(on) diet!

UBM/CMP’s Life 2.0 Spring’08 conference was held last week, starting with Mitch Kapor’s keynote opener on Monday.

Weaving parts of the six days of the 3rd Life 2.0 conference into my free time, around attending group meetings for the three isles & orgs that I help manage (ISM Spaceport Alpha, NASA CoLab, and Spindrift, all in the SciLands), gave me a great week of peering into the near-future of mixed reality events and the now of virtual-only events and conferences.

During one of the last day’s presentations, the speaker was asked about the carbon footprint of the event; the organizer, John Zhaoying of UBM World2World, part of ThinkServices division of United Business Media (formerly CMP Metaverse), had the audited numbers he had commissioned for the Fall ‘07 event available.  He told the audience that CarbonNeutral.com’s figures showed that the estimated 1200 tons of carbon produced if it had been a realworld six day meeting was replaced by 4 tons of carbon – total.  (This is roughly equivalent to six MWh, megawatt-hours of electricity, or to my personal yearly electric consumption of 500 KiloWatt hours a month).

CMP islands 1-4

We expand on this with SciEye’s upcoming exclusive interview with John Zhaoying, John Jainschigg in real life: carbon, future trends, and the advantages and disadvantages of running VR conferences.

“Exclusive interview!?!”  “Yes, it’s the only one he gave at 4am, March 26th.”

The Magicians’ Apprentice & Clarke’s Third Law

I was at Kat LeMieux’s brand new office on Spaceport Bravo last Saturday discussing ISM [International Spaceflight Museum (not part of Nasa!)] business, like the spirited bidding on the latest eBay auctions for the half-year sponsorship rights for ISM AlphaPort rockets, when she got a call from Kim Anubis.  

We flicked to her home – and workplace as one of The Magicians (and the company founder) - on Abracadabra Island.  The isle was gripped in winter snow and cheered by brightly lit tree branches.

Cypress Rosewood’s latest “Planets” concert – Uranus Wed March 19th 7PM

Cypress will perform the sixth of his “Planets” series of Spindrift monthly concerts on Wednesday night at 7PM SLT.  Welcome to join us!

[Update - we drew the usual crowd of 30 to 40 avs, who enjoyed the show.]

recent ‘VWorlds: Libraries, Education, and Museums conf’ now online

Troy McLuhan just posted this helpful info pointer:

“Last weekend, the ‘Virtual Worlds: Libraries, Education, and Museums
Conference’ was held in SL.  Now some of the presentations are
available online.

Some that might interest this group in particular are:

* “Persistent Worlds: Will They Ever Go Away?” Presented by Dr. Susan
Hazan — Slides

* “Virtual Museums: When Do They Become “Real”?” Presented by Annie
Platoff — Slides with lots of text.  She covers the ISM and the
‘Splo, among others

* “An Overview of Science-Related Stuff in Second Life” Presented
by…. me! — Audio and slides, packaged as video [10 mins]

The titles and abtracts are all listed at the URL below.  Some of
them, like those listed above, come with the presentation in some
archival form.

http://www.alliancelibraries.info/virtualworlds/vwlemschedule.htm“

Troy also reviewed the conference at his own blog.  I’ve added Troy’s presentation to the Scilands category on my blogroll – an outstanding quick overview of the history of science exhibits and uses in SL.