Costa's New Flagship Costa Serena Launches in Second Life Europe's Number One Cruise Line Costa recently launched their new flagship, the Costa Serena, which is 114,000 gross tons, 292 meters in length and features accommodations for up to 3,780 Guests in 1,500 cabins. From PRNewswire:

"Costa is the first company in the world to host a virtual inaugural in "Second Life" simultaneously with the ship's actual inaugural ceremony," said Daniele Mancini, Director of E-Business for Costa Crociere. "This project represents the beginning of a series of new projects in which the user is the center of all communication. Web 2.0 will now allow Costa's satisfied cruise customers to reach beyond friends and family to the entire Internet."

Over the next 10 years many people will spend a lot more time in 3D virtual worlds using them as a platform to meet, communicate and shop, to participate in virtual 3D events and to conduct business on a level of interaction we have never experienced before. Blurring the virtual and physical worlds just makes me think of how many business opportunities and of course challenges will occur...

• Teleport yourself into SecondLife (you need SecondLife)
• Virtual Inaugural Event
• Costa Serena Photo (Reality)
  

Labels: 3D, bizdev, networking, web2.0

  ¶ 'Costa's New Flagship Costa Serena Launches in Second Life' posted by eA : 2:05 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Second Life Casinos in the Headlines According to eCOGRA people say 'the best things about Internet gambling are ‘convenience and accessibility’ and ‘fun and excitement’, while ‘losing’ and ‘financial implications’ came top of the worst things.'

• Betting and Gambling Safe Online with eCOGRA

According to Reuters it seems like 'wannabe casino-style operators' have invaded SL and attracted the attention of the FBI probing Second Life gambling casinos. From Reuters:

'Hundreds of casinos offering poker, slot machines and blackjack can be found in Second Life.'

• In legal limbo, Second Life poker rakes in profits
• FBI probes Second Life gambling

Immersive environments like Second Life create an even more exciting 3D experience and people are using them as a platform to meet, communicate and shop, to participate in virtual 3D events and to conduct gambling on a level of interaction they have never experienced before.

• Second Life
• Areae
• There

Labels: 3D, entertainment, markets

  ¶ 'Second Life Casinos in the Headlines' posted by eA : 7:24 PM  0 comments links to this post

  New Deal: Berlin in 3D on Google Earth After the Bavarian State Library and participating publishers announced to cooperate with Google to digitize copyright-(free) books and make them available through Google book search it's now Germany's capital Berlin to make a 3D model available to the global audience on Google Earth.

For the instance it can be seen via this link (requires Google Earth) or as a wmv video (Windows Media Player).

From Berlin 3D:

'The model consists of some 44,000 buildings in the centre of Berlin shown in rudimentary detail (level of detail - LOD - 1). Of these, about 500 particularly significant buildings have been assigned photos of their respective façades.'

From Google Earth Blog:

'Buildings that are further away automatically disappear (so they don't use too much memory, and so you see more detail when you are closer to the buildings).'

As processor, imaging and data communication technologies become more powerful and cost-effective over time including emerging cinematic experiences and immersive technologies to create a compelling 3D model becomes more exciting.

• Web Vision of a World in 3D

Labels: 3D, markets, visualization

  ¶ 'New Deal: Berlin in 3D on Google Earth' posted by eA : 7:40 PM  1 comments links to this post

  Fascination of Immersive 3D Experiences Immersing oneself in scuba diving is not only a passion or a lifestyle, it's a great opportunity for self improvement, to meet a lot of great people, to share that experience with others and to help to preserve that experience for the future.

Immersing oneself in virtual worlds to explore new places and opportunities is an exiting new trend and engagement that may represent the next steps in the evolution of the Internet complementing that of ubiquitous computing.

• 3D Panoramic Spheres in Google Earth
• Web Vision of a World in 3D
• Online Multiplayer Games - Expanding the Market

Currently there is about 12 mio people who participate in and with MMOG's regularly, every second is involved in WOW and assuming that an average player is about 30 years old and spends more than 20 h a week participating in his favorite experience immersive 3D experiences represent attractive new business opportunities.

Why I'm fascinated? Because I like diving...

When I started scuba diving more then 10 years ago I remember my motivation was to explore new places and experience a different world with new colors, shapes, textures and creatures in clear, tropical water staying underwater for periods of time greater than human breath-holding ability allows. I followed several PADI courses and 100 dives later I passed the instructor level with the leading organization Euro Divers Worldwide.

Labels: 3D, entertainment, lifestyle, markets, visualization

  ¶ 'Fascination of Immersive 3D Experiences' posted by eA : 4:50 PM  0 comments links to this post

  3D Panoramic Spheres in Google Earth As processor, imaging and data communication technologies become more powerful and cost-effective over time including emerging cinematic experiences and immersive technologies to create a compelling 3D model becomes more exciting. I just discovered these panoramic views in Google Earth:
Blurring the virtual and physical worlds just makes me think of how many business opportunities and of course challenges will occur.

• Web Vision of a World in 3D

Labels: 3D, google, visualization

  ¶ '3D Panoramic Spheres in Google Earth' posted by eA : 12:38 AM  1 comments links to this post

  Enertegic Ideas for a New Way of Participation Second Life and There make interaction commercially successful establishing a well functioning economy without crashing and burning involving users to create wonderful things. Spending time and energy creating compelling content is an exiting user-trend today and becomes even more popular participating in online multi-player games and communities like mentioned below.

A logic consequence would be that online communities continue to increase in popularity and become more and more technically advanced through easy to use tools and applications meeting the different levels of user-expectations and activities.

I'm exited how a new concept code-named 'Spore' will perform customizing a user's experience in a new participation era. It's a question of balancing communications, content, commerce and search to create a customer-centric product or service for digital markets.

Labels: 3D

  ¶ 'Enertegic Ideas for a New Way of Participation' posted by eA : 5:48 PM  1 comments links to this post

  Web Vision of a World in 3D With more than 6 million paying subscribers 'World of Warcraft' has proven to be the most played 3D massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) worldwide and it still continues to grow rapidly with players participating in the virtual community in creative ways producing international appeal and publicity.

With Google Earth and SketchUp, a 3D modeling software, Second Life, a commercial virtual 3D community and maybe Croquet, a platform to create multiple-user online applications (just to name a few) the next era of online collaboration and participation has started now.

I think that over the next 10 years many people will spend a lot more time in 3D virtual worlds using them as a platform to meet, communicate and shop, to participate in virtual 3D events and to conduct buisiness on a level of interaction we have never experienced before. Blurring the virtual and physical worlds just makes me think of how many business opportunities and of course challenges will occur...

Labels: 3D

  ¶ 'Web Vision of a World in 3D' posted by eA : 8:57 PM  0 comments links to this post