The Metaverse

Semper International Adopts Lively for Hiring and Collaboration

Virtual Worlds News: Semper International Adopts Lively for Hiring and Collaboration.

"To me, it actually makes more sense than using Second Life as a hiring tool. If the point is to find an avatar-based environment for interviews, something simple and Web-based seems, well, simpler than a richer environment that requires a download. The lack of integrated voice in Lively, though, could present problems"

I think this highlights something that is often not realised by proponents of one or another virtual world platform: what is an appropriate level of "virtual" for one application might be less-so for another.

In this case, Lively is probably a better choice: it's simple, browser-based, and offers a good experience in small groups (it's utterly lousy in larger groups - you think a Second Life sim with 30 people in it is bad, try going to a lively room with 10).

Oscar Niemeyer in Second Life

Go beyond the mundane in Second Life, and you can find some really interesting work.

The above is a demo of some work which a team at Tokyo Metropolitan University have done, developing a 3D image database of the work of Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer.

You can read a little more about the project here.

(Via The Arch)