The tour began with an explanation of how the subjects of the experiment were trained in how to navigate through the Second Life environment.  A maze was created that tested a user’s ability to navigate through the space, once a user was able to successfully complete the maze three times they were thought to have mastered the necessary skills needed to continue with the study.  The hosts of the tour then explained how objects were quickly rezzed so that rooms can be quickly changed into tech-geek or genre neutral.  They made an important point of noting that Second Life is not a photo-realistic environment and that the goal of this project was to make the environment as realistic as possible in the placement of items that were identical to the real-life conditions but not to reach the same level of graphic realism. 

When subjects enter the experiment rooms in Second Life using their avatars a sensor is used to detect what direction they were facing, this information is then emailed to a specific account for data collection. 

Is Second Life even suitable for this kind of research?  The research team found that results from the Second Life experiment were very similar to real-life results.  What does this mean for researchers?  Using a virtual world such as Second Life allows researchers to conserve resources in both finding and building out real-life spaces which costs money and time. 

For more information visits the description of this build available on the NMC web site at: http://sl.nmc.org/2009/10/06/october-vwex/

An article on this study can be accessed at: http://scicom.ucsc.edu/SciNotes/0901/pages/geeks/geeks.html

Story also appears on http://epirate.shu.edu/

Capzles is a relatively new free site that lets you create entertaining social photo story lines very easily.  The site has been running for about a year, and went public a few months back. Since then they’ve been adding capability to the product. It’s looking good. They even have a scanning service to convert all those old prints into a digital stream.

Looks cool and will have to try it out.