KillerApp Sightings

Internet gambling...online dispute resolution...community review of patent applications. These classes aren't just about the law of the virtual world, they're taught in the virtual world. The New York Law School opened its State of Play Academy this fall, using software from There.com, a teen-oriented virtual world.

During the fall of 2006, SOPA offered 10 free online classes, in which participants were represented by avatars and the virtual campus consisted of a classroom, library, coffeehouse and courtroom. Instructors and attendees communicated in real time, using There.com's voice and text chat features. Next year, the law school will hold several for-credit classes in the virtual world setting. They'll also use the platform as a place for students to meet with their alumni mentors.

Posted by Editor at 12:32 PM | Permalink

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego are getting ready to test a new application that will decipher the genetic code of microbes in the world's oceans. This tool will help scientists understand how microbes function in their ecosystems, find out what effect humans are having on those ecosystems, and possibly learn more about the evolution of life on earth. But the application, known as "CAMERA" (short for Community Cyberinfrastructure for Advanced Marine Microbial Ecology Research and Analysis), makes use of enormous datasets in many different places. It's going to rely on the National LambdaRail, a high-speed academic network, to tie them all together.

Posted by Editor at 5:04 PM | Permalink

Even if sports fans are leading the stampede toward high-definition TV, it turns out that there's more you can do with your new 50-inch plasma screen HDTV than just watch the Super Bowl.

For example, you could create a home art gallery.

Gallery Player sells high-definition collections of fine art and photography from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, and other museums and publications. (The Degas pastel drawing shown above is from the Musee d'Orsay, Paris.) The collections, which are available via broadband, Comcast video on demand and DVD, play on your television screen with a musical accompaniment. Pictures rotate every few minutes so you won't burn a hole in the screen.

Posted by Editor at 11:39 PM | Permalink

Videoconferencing can make a significant difference in the fight against global warming, says a report from the World Wildlife Federation and the European Telecommunications Network Operators Association.

Based on experience in Germany, the report estimates that reducing European business travel by 20 percent is a realistic goal that would save 22 million tons of carbon dioxide per year. How to achieve this goal? Replace corporate travel departments with corporate meeting departments that evaluate which meetings need to be held in person; hold decentralized conferences that take place in several cities at once.

The chart below shows the potential for reducing carbon emissions in Europe through videoconferencing.

Source: ETNO/WWF

Posted by Editor at 3:34 PM | Permalink

Ultra-broadband networks like Internet2 open up new artistic possibilities. Here, improvisational groups at UCLA and Stanford work together in a joint theatrical performance. The high bandwidth of the academic network made it possible to achieve exceptional video and audio quality without any perceptible lags in the timing. A group of theater sound design students from UCLA worked on the sound environments and sound effects for the performance; designing the sound to be engaging in both locations required rethinking traditional theatrical sound design methods.

Posted by Editor at 5:11 PM | Permalink

Got a great business idea? You have until February 15 to pitch it to top Silicon Valley venture capitalists and win six months' free office space as well as networking and mentorship contacts from leading venture firms. The pitch must be in the form of a 30-second video that you shoot and upload from your mobile phone. You can also have your friends and colleagues upload video votes and testimonials in support of your business concept.

The contest is sponsored by MyWaves, a service that delivers video to mobile phones over 3G networks. MyWaves provides as many as 10,000 video channels that consumers can subscribe to, ranging from the sublime (religious services) to the ridiculous (college-boy humor), with everything from cooking lessons to dance concerts in between. MyWaves is free to consumers.

Posted by Editor at 11:48 AM | Permalink

Dash Express won't be here for a few more months, so we haven't officially sighted it yet, but it sounds promising: the first Internet-connected GPS device. When it's installed in your car, it automatically receives updated maps and software over a wireless connection, finds destinations and creates routes.

Unlike standard GPS, Dash is a social application. Dash drivers can share their speeds and locations to create a data base of travel times for various road segments. When a driver requests a route, Dash presents up to three options, with drive-time forecasts based on the collective experience of the other drivers. Since the data base is updated in real time, current road conditions can be taken into account -- the application doesn't assume that there's always one best route from Point A to Point B.

Posted by Editor at 5:24 PM | Permalink

Civil War buffs will soon be able to tour Pennsylvania's Civil War battlefields via Google Earth. The State of Pennsylvania hopes the virtual tourists will then be inspired to visit these scenes in reality.

The state is giving $285,000 to Google Earth, Carnegie Mellon University, NASA, the Pennsylvania Tourism Office and the National Civil War Museum to develop software that will display and promote Pennsylvania's Civil War trails. (The technology could potentially be used for other Pennsylvania sites as well.) Users will be able to see a panoramic view along a trail, zoom in to read the inscription on a monument, or go back in time to witness the change of seasons on a historic battlefield.

The technology funded by the state grant is called Gigapan, short for Gigapixel Panoramas. It combines thousands of digital images to create a panoramic image with more than a billion pixels. When the panoramic images are combined with time-lapse, users can explore the space through time as well.

Posted by Editor at 5:24 PM | Permalink

At an open-air market near where I live, a man sits all day long demonstrating a kitchen tool that dices, slices and chops vegetables. He must use up enormous quantities of vegetables each day, but he never fails to draw a crowd. As much as Americans love gadgets, we seem even more fond of watching gadgets in action. On Expo TV, you can see almost any kind of product -- from crib toys to home fitness gyms to, yes, slicers and dicers -- reviewed and demonstrated by someone who has bought them. These "videopinions" don't just tell you what the reviewers love or hate about the product, they show you.

If you're out of ideas for holiday gifts, check out Expo TV's holiday shopping guide featuring members' gift-giving recommendations, along with holiday buying tips from the staff.

Posted by Editor at 2:28 PM | Permalink

As the holiday season approaches, we can't help but notice how Web-savvy Santa Claus has become. Not content with delivering bandwidth-gobbling devices to everyone on his list, he's now making personal appearances online. Internet-connected children can follow his progress courtesy of NORAD, which diverts its high-tech equipment from missile defense to Santa tracking for a brief period each year. NORAD says it uses radar, satellites, jet fighters and especially its Santa Cams to capture real-time video footage (hoofage?) of Santa and his reindeer.

Santa also appears in the online "Shave Santa" contest, where viewers (who must be 18 or older, which seems to eliminate many of his fans) can compete to reshape his beard, mustache and bushy eyebrows. The winner will receive a Remington electric shaver.

Finally, Cisco, for the third year in a row, is giving hospitalized children a chance to see and speak with Santa through its Internet video telephones. Children in Canada, Germany and the United States will be given access to special videophones with a one-button connection to the North Pole. The children and their families will gather in hospital common areas where the videophones will be set up; in most of the hospitals, the phones will also be brought to patients' rooms so that even children who are too sick to leave their rooms can participate. Santa's gifts for the children will be delivered courtesy of Cisco and Mattel.

Posted by Editor at 11:10 AM | Permalink

Are you yearning for the simple life? You can get away from it all (for a little while, anyway) at Farm.TV, a Web site dedicated to Canadian farming. Nearly all of Farm.TV's content, which showcases farms for sale, farming equipment, agricultural businesses and farming news, is in the form of short video clips that you can download or stream. In addition to glorious pictures of the Canadian countryside, the site features a series of poetry readings by a "well known Cowboy Poet in southern Alberta."

And of course, if you actually are a Canadian farmer, Farm.TV has plenty of useful information for you, presented in a clear and accessible fashion.

Posted by Editor at 2:16 PM | Permalink

How do you know whether a lawyer is the right one for your case -- or whether a law firm is the kind of place you'd like to work? Law firms have traditionally been more concerned with their clients' public images than with their own, but now many of them are posting Web videos to let people know what they're really like.

Legal Insight is a company that specializes in helping lawyers make their own cases. They produce Web videos and podcasts that law firms use in recruiting and business development. The company offers a choice of a traditional video or a one-minute audiocast with photo and music, called a "vignette."

The vignettes, which are unscripted, are recorded by phone from the lawyer's office, and typically take less than 30 minutes of the lawyer's time. The videos, which are longer, use more graphics and feature multiple speakers.

Posted by Editor at 3:18 PM | Permalink