Voicethread

I came across this today – basically, Voicethread is an online service which allows users to collaborate on graphics/videos/animations by recording their comments and drawing directly on the item being discussed.

Unlike Adobe Connect or similar products, this app is more like an “Interactive Blog” – it seems to be aimed particularly at education and uses in the classrom. Some of the examples on the site are a bit corney but you’ll get the general idea!

http://voicethread.com/#home

Shane

September 10, 2008 · Filed Under Web 3.0, Web2.0

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Amazingly realistic CGI

The team at Image Metrics – who produced the animation for Grand Theft Auto – claim to have overcome the “uncanny valley” in producing computer-generated animated human faces which don’t weird us all out. The video evidence (see here) is pretty extraordinary but is this just a more advanced form of rotoscoping (it all begins with a video of a real person talking apparently)?

Gearóid

August 26, 2008 · Filed Under Books and articles, CGI, Web 3.0

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Google Launches Lively

In today’s fast moving ICT world it may now be thought a little late in the day to make a posting about Google’s new virtual world Lively (originally launched back at the start of July); there may still be a few out there however (like myself) who have yet to come across it and, given the great degree of interest in the use of Second Life for education purposes (see here for example and here), it may be worth TELCop’s time to keep an eye out on this one. First impressions are that it’s much more basic than Second Life (fewer features, much more basic graphics) and also maybe a little buggy (it seems to keep crashing on me) but rooms can apparently be embedded in a Web page (haven’t got this far yet myself) and there is integration with lots of other web2.0 stuff like Facebook, and MySpace. Some of the features it seems are based on consultation with university students, Google say:

Prior to this release, we worked closely with Arizona State University. Based on feedback from ASU students and with help from the Google Desktop team, we added support for playing YouTube videos in virtual TVs and showing photos in virtual picture frames inside our rooms. Better yet, the gadgets you have in your Lively rooms can also run on your desktop.

Reaction as yet appears mixed but with Google behind it and this kind of clever integration it may be we’re about to hear a whole lot more about the new services within and outside the TEL world.

Regards,

Gearóid

August 7, 2008 · Filed Under Virtual World, Web 3.0

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