Not Just a Game System

Read the comparison of these competitive mobile (hand-held gaming) devices, providing a variety of entertainments from gaming, music, video, to chatting (phone calls, internet, or my favorite PictoChat):

Nintendo DSi vs. PSP-3000 vs. iPod Touch (or iPhone)
by Ross Miller, Oct 2nd 2008

Differences among these guys are:
• Nintendo DSi is about media entertainment with additional values to enhance social interaction, provide learning experiences, and facilitate healthy lifestyle (innovative hardware - the touch screen).
• PSP-3000 is entertainment, entertainment, entertainment in hardcore style. It has better graphic quality and familiar button interface (trying to go casual).
• iPod Touch (or iPhone) lets you work and play! Also very flexible when it comes to adding new applications (developer-friendly platform). Already MMOs are coming to iPhone.

Also read:
What the Nintendo DSi, PSP 3000, and iPhone mean for MMOs
by Michael Zenke, Oct 2nd 2008 (images with captions)

I somehow still prefer to keep my mobile phone doing any voice/text-related tasks but not anything graphical, leaving that to a more powerful computer with bigger display. But iPhone is such a temptation.

Augmented Reality

A technological architecture that interface virtuality with reality. Examples:

1. smart codes, using code reader software to recognize the codes through video feed. Semapedia lets users create tags which are "cellphone-readable physical hyperlinks", promotes. Information from the Internet was brought to the relevant physical places through these tags.
2. ARToolkit, a software library for building Augmented Reality (AR) applications (under GPL license), was developed at the University of Washington's Human Interface Technology Laboratory.

WebFlock 1.0 (Business Application)

Electric Sheep Company launched WebFlock last year. It provides both product and service to host your own 3D social space that can be customized to create branded experiences and foster community-based online interactions (private virtuality).



Where are we going with the creation of virtual experience in cyberspace?

I think the phase 3D Net makes a straightforward point. In addition to the real-time attribute, spatial dimension + simulated physics allow us to perceive the virtual experience more like our physical reality. Space is able to contain all kinds of objects in life, and probably so does the virtual space to contain all kinds of media and facilitate social interactions. Fantasy also becomes more "real" since there is a total control over one's visual representation.

Based on our basic instincts, design and technology builds many new things:

• People talk to make sure they exist and others exist (Chatting is the highlight feature of WebFlock).
• People play games to survive and understand how to work with other people.
• People read stories to see the world in another perspective and reflect upon it.

Competitor? Qwaq