Posted in Business, Design, Virtual Communities on Jul 9th, 2008
Larry Dignan and Tom Steinert-Threlkeld’s Between the Lines blog on ZDNET had a posting today titled, Virtual World Tipping Point: Is there an Enterprise Use?, They point out Google’s recent entry (Lively introduced yesterday), Second Life’s quick rise to success, and IBM is working with their own virtual world engine designed for corporate use. They […]
Posted in Business, Design, Virtual Communities on Jul 9th, 2008
Google recently entered the virtual world market with Google Lively. Similar to other entrants, you can design your avatar, construct your own room, and interact with others.
Posted in Design, History, Live pets, Plush Pets, Robotic Pets on Jun 15th, 2008
A recent front page Wall Street Journal article, “When Dogs and Robots Collide, Somebody Needs a Talking To”. Wall Street Journal. 11 June 2008. Page A1 by Andrew LaVallee talks about the interactions of “real” dogs with robotic dogs, and with Roomba vacuums. In response to this article, we created a page, “Pets and Other […]
Posted in Business, Design, History, Virtual Communities on May 30th, 2008
“Fans Resist End of Virtual Disneyland.” Wall Street Journal. 20 May 2008. Page B1. Reports Disney’s Virtual Magic Kingdom launched in 2005 as part of the 50th anniversary of Disneyland. The free game allowed users to create avatars and explore an interactive version of Disneyland. Now Disney wants to pull the plug. Some think to […]
Posted in Business, Design, Virtual Communities on May 30th, 2008
“South Korea’s Nexon Paves Way in Selling Virtual Gear for Free Games.” Wall Street Journal. 23 May 2008. Page B1. Reports Nexon Holdings is doing great in Korea with a free game called Kart Rider, The game is free, but users pay to customize vehicles and their avatars. Later this year, Nexon plans to release […]
Posted in Business, Design, Virtual Communities on Apr 11th, 2008
Disney previously launched a site young girls could use to build their own Fairy (DisneyFairies.com). Since then over 4.5 million fairy avatars have been built. Per a 19 Feb 2008 press release, Disney is now in process of opening an online world called Pixie Hollow (PixieHollow.com) in which young girls can actually fly around as […]
Posted in Design, Plush Pets, Robotic Pets on Nov 26th, 2007
Back on 21 June 2007 Ugobe launched PleoWorld.com to continue ramping up interest for their interactive dinosaur to be released late this year. Pleo is a realistic robotic dinosaur that will evolve through life stages and and develop a unique personality based on your interaction with him. He is modeled after a one week old […]
Posted in Design, Plush Pets, Robotic Pets on Nov 26th, 2007
Wowwee’s “Alive” series includes a Chimpanzee “So Real, He’s Unreal” per their website. The chimp is actually a bit of a talking head (the product is a model of a chimp from the top of the shoulders up.) It features realistic animal behavior, mood dependent behavior, and responds to stimuli with mood specific animations and […]
Posted in Design, Robotic Pets on Nov 26th, 2007
RoboPanda takes the traditional teddy bear look and turns it into a robot. It is intentionally designed to look robotic. Capacitive touch sensor technology combined with a sonic sensor allow his eight motors to operate without use of a remote. With RoboPanda’s realistic actions, an interactive personality, advanced artificial intelligence and awareness, Wowwee has made […]
Posted in Design, Robotic Pets on Nov 2nd, 2007
Bandai is preparing to launch Tachikoma (from Ghost in the Shell anime) in February 2008. The robot will be controlled a via a USB port per their 10 Oct 2007 press release (in Japanese). Ghost in the Shell is also known as “Mobile Armored Riot Police”. The anime strongly influenced the popular U.S. movie, The […]
