By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Pelican Crossing Releases Blink 3D 1.1
I'm not sure what to make of this - maybe that the difference between 1.0 and 1.1 is better publicity. Still, despite the lack of an open source version, the concept is too nice not to pass along: an application that is (according to the press release) "a complete system for creating interactive, animated and chat enabled multi-user 3D Web environments easily and without the need for programming skills." The White Paper, White Paper: The Metaverse 2.0, is certainly worth a read. The video is less impressive (you've seen one 3D scene, you've seen them all). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. DSpace ArchReview
The DSpace review is out and probably most deserves props for process. Not only is the report available online in three formats (.doc, .pdf and .ppt) the entire process was captured in a wiki displaying the process and issues, community review group membership, surveys, pre-readings, brainstorming, and five full days of discussion notes. Though I have been critical of customer-driven design in the past (which results in bloatware), this process makes me think it can work. Maybe. Anyhow, the outcome of the review is to call for basic improvements, such as making the software more modular and enabling it to scale to 100 downloading users at a time (made me think of my own problems, heh). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Creating Second Life Content
The idea is good, and the web page links to tutorials on how to build a chair in Second Life, how to build a create a teleport link in Second Life (so ironic - in the old days of MUDs, teleport links were called 'portals' ("step through he portal to get to fantasy island"), which is where the idea and name of web-based 'portals' came from - now back in the multi-user environment they're called 'teleport links' again - with no sign of a name change in sight. Anyhow, the author should have used Flash video (or YouTube) instead of unreliable .mov videos. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Flickr Contacts
Hey Flickr, if my account is so disabled you won't even allow me access to it any more (not until I get some gawd-awful username from Yahoo and sign up for their email spam service) why am I still getting email from the account when, say, people create new connections (p.s. hiya Stephen Grobe, nice to meet you, I can't sign on to verify)? P.S. in case you haven't noticed, I am still very upset with Flickr for simply deciding what identity I'm going to have - here's a better idea, Flickr - support OpenID and quit trying to pull me into the Yahoo Walled Garden. Same goes for Google and Blogger, in case you haven't been reading my complaints about that debacle. Come on guys, get with the program. More...