| V1 no.2 - Land in Tavarua, Demo May 21-22 | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: innerlife (innerlife gaeabooks.com)
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| Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 19:26:50 -0700 (PDT) | |
Hi folks,
This is Volume 1, Number 2 of our occasional InnerLife newsletter, in which we attempt to help people keep up with all the happenings at the InnerLife project.
++++ In Second Life ++++
** Vote for Prop 203 - Support Local Devices Beyond Mouse & Keyboard! **
We've been able to bring in biometric data via XML-RPC, but the inherent latency in that system keeps us from getting a response better than one packet of data every 3-4 seconds -- hardly what we would need for an immersive game experience. But if enough Second Life residents vote for Prop 203, we could have a high-speed channel to bring biometric data in directly through the client, just as mouse and keyboard data are delivered currently -- possibly as early as this summer, when 1.7 is due to release. (Ok, we'd still suffer from lag upon occasion, but at least some of the time it would work well!) If you are a Second Life resident, please cast at least one of your 10 votes for this proposal at http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=203 - and thanks!
** Land in Tavarua **
We are pleased to announce that we have made arrangements to rent an InnerLife project building area on the private island of Tavarua! Several of our main developers have grouped together to cover the rental fee. If you are interested in participating in early InnerLife development and can help us cover the fee, please contact Nekokami Dragonfly in Second Life.
In this space, we'll be working to further refine our existing Light Stone XML-RPC integration with Second Life, plus exploring new hardware. We'll be creating sample activity areas which InnerLife members will eventually be able to help us test.
There may be other building projects also related to InnerLife, but this is our main development area for now. We are very excited about this new opportunity, and we hope you are too.
** Shop in Luna Gallery **
We also won a small shop lease in Luna Gallery, in a prime location facing the telehub. Right now there's a vendor pointing to the Wild Divine website so people can check out the software and Light Stone, that being the only hardware we have working at this point. We also have a Quicktime movie configured to play, again from the Wild Divine site. If anyone knows of other good Quicktime-compatable short clips on biofeedback, let us know and we'll configure them. We are still pursuing other types of hardware to support, and as soon as we have more hardware working we'll have links in-world to direct people to sources. As we develop more demonstration activities in Second Life, we'll also have landmark vendors in Luna so more people will be able to find us more easily in Tavarua. And speaking of demonstrations....
** Live Performance in Edgerly May 20-21 **
Meanwhile, if you haven't yet seen one of Komuso Tokugawa's demonstrations of a biofeedback-driven event in Second Life, check out the Mandala Bead Games DreamTime Art Performance coming up on May 20 and 21, 4:00 to 8:00 AM PST (Second Life Time), every hour on the hour, in Edgerly. Our own Paul Cohen/Komuso Tokugawa, an Australian audiovisual instrument builder/artist, blows wonderful rainbow clouds in the air with his shakuhachi (bamboo flute). In his SonicViz Performance the sounds, colors and shapes depend on his bio signals, streaming realtime into Second Life. See http://www.mandalaweb.net/english/secondlife/slarttour.htm for more details.
++++ At the Website ++++
** Discussion on Skin Conductivity (SCL/GSR) Events **
In our last poll, regarding preferred types of biofeedback, very few people selected skin conductivity (SCL/GSR), yet most people who responded to our earlier poll indicated that the piece of biofeedback equipment they already own is the Wild Divine Light Stone, which provides skin conductivity and heart rate/coherency measurements. I wonder if this is due to some confusion about the value of skin conductivity as a biofeedback measurement?
SCL/GSR (Skin Conductivity Level/Galvanic Skin Response) doesn't get as much press attention as EEG/brainwave input, for example, but it's actually one of the more commonly used biometric measurements of stress. It can be difficult to design good hardware which electrically isolates the user properly from the computer, and on the software side, one needs to distinguish the changes in SCL during an activity from the broader changes that happen day to day due to temperature, metabolism, etc. But SCL is available via several comparatively low-cost devices, including the Light Stone and the Thought Technologies GSR2 (using the CalmLink cable to transmit the signal to the computer). SCL input can be used to measure the effectiveness of breathing techniques, imaging exercises, and many other stress-related techniques at a quarter the cost of EEG devices or less.
I'd be interested in hearing from other members of our InnerLife community on what you think of SCL/GSR input, how much value you place in it, how you'd like to see it used in the InnerLife project, etc. Feel free to add your voice to the forum area of our website.
** New Poll - How often do you play online games currently? **
We're interested in knowing how many of our InnerLife friends already play online games, such as Second Life, EverQuest, EVE, The Sims Online, There, etc. Whether you've never tried them or you're hardly ever logged out, please respond to the poll.
** New Links - Second Life Future Salon **
Jerry Paffendorf wrote a nice blog entry about us at the Second Life Future Salon, which I've added to our Links library, along with a number of other new links.
** Google Finds Us **
We now show up in a Google search on "InnerLife." (But most of the results of the search have nothing to do with us -- we are not a music band or a health clinic or a religious organization.) I did find a nice blog entry about us at Clickable Culture which I added to our links section. :)
++++ That's all for now ++++
I hope to "see" you all in Tavarua soon!
Peace,
Elizabeth/Nekokami
This is Volume 1, Number 2 of our occasional InnerLife newsletter, in which we attempt to help people keep up with all the happenings at the InnerLife project.
++++ In Second Life ++++
** Vote for Prop 203 - Support Local Devices Beyond Mouse & Keyboard! **
We've been able to bring in biometric data via XML-RPC, but the inherent latency in that system keeps us from getting a response better than one packet of data every 3-4 seconds -- hardly what we would need for an immersive game experience. But if enough Second Life residents vote for Prop 203, we could have a high-speed channel to bring biometric data in directly through the client, just as mouse and keyboard data are delivered currently -- possibly as early as this summer, when 1.7 is due to release. (Ok, we'd still suffer from lag upon occasion, but at least some of the time it would work well!) If you are a Second Life resident, please cast at least one of your 10 votes for this proposal at http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=203 - and thanks!
** Land in Tavarua **
We are pleased to announce that we have made arrangements to rent an InnerLife project building area on the private island of Tavarua! Several of our main developers have grouped together to cover the rental fee. If you are interested in participating in early InnerLife development and can help us cover the fee, please contact Nekokami Dragonfly in Second Life.
In this space, we'll be working to further refine our existing Light Stone XML-RPC integration with Second Life, plus exploring new hardware. We'll be creating sample activity areas which InnerLife members will eventually be able to help us test.
There may be other building projects also related to InnerLife, but this is our main development area for now. We are very excited about this new opportunity, and we hope you are too.
** Shop in Luna Gallery **
We also won a small shop lease in Luna Gallery, in a prime location facing the telehub. Right now there's a vendor pointing to the Wild Divine website so people can check out the software and Light Stone, that being the only hardware we have working at this point. We also have a Quicktime movie configured to play, again from the Wild Divine site. If anyone knows of other good Quicktime-compatable short clips on biofeedback, let us know and we'll configure them. We are still pursuing other types of hardware to support, and as soon as we have more hardware working we'll have links in-world to direct people to sources. As we develop more demonstration activities in Second Life, we'll also have landmark vendors in Luna so more people will be able to find us more easily in Tavarua. And speaking of demonstrations....
** Live Performance in Edgerly May 20-21 **
Meanwhile, if you haven't yet seen one of Komuso Tokugawa's demonstrations of a biofeedback-driven event in Second Life, check out the Mandala Bead Games DreamTime Art Performance coming up on May 20 and 21, 4:00 to 8:00 AM PST (Second Life Time), every hour on the hour, in Edgerly. Our own Paul Cohen/Komuso Tokugawa, an Australian audiovisual instrument builder/artist, blows wonderful rainbow clouds in the air with his shakuhachi (bamboo flute). In his SonicViz Performance the sounds, colors and shapes depend on his bio signals, streaming realtime into Second Life. See http://www.mandalaweb.net/english/secondlife/slarttour.htm for more details.
++++ At the Website ++++
** Discussion on Skin Conductivity (SCL/GSR) Events **
In our last poll, regarding preferred types of biofeedback, very few people selected skin conductivity (SCL/GSR), yet most people who responded to our earlier poll indicated that the piece of biofeedback equipment they already own is the Wild Divine Light Stone, which provides skin conductivity and heart rate/coherency measurements. I wonder if this is due to some confusion about the value of skin conductivity as a biofeedback measurement?
SCL/GSR (Skin Conductivity Level/Galvanic Skin Response) doesn't get as much press attention as EEG/brainwave input, for example, but it's actually one of the more commonly used biometric measurements of stress. It can be difficult to design good hardware which electrically isolates the user properly from the computer, and on the software side, one needs to distinguish the changes in SCL during an activity from the broader changes that happen day to day due to temperature, metabolism, etc. But SCL is available via several comparatively low-cost devices, including the Light Stone and the Thought Technologies GSR2 (using the CalmLink cable to transmit the signal to the computer). SCL input can be used to measure the effectiveness of breathing techniques, imaging exercises, and many other stress-related techniques at a quarter the cost of EEG devices or less.
I'd be interested in hearing from other members of our InnerLife community on what you think of SCL/GSR input, how much value you place in it, how you'd like to see it used in the InnerLife project, etc. Feel free to add your voice to the forum area of our website.
** New Poll - How often do you play online games currently? **
We're interested in knowing how many of our InnerLife friends already play online games, such as Second Life, EverQuest, EVE, The Sims Online, There, etc. Whether you've never tried them or you're hardly ever logged out, please respond to the poll.
** New Links - Second Life Future Salon **
Jerry Paffendorf wrote a nice blog entry about us at the Second Life Future Salon, which I've added to our Links library, along with a number of other new links.
** Google Finds Us **
We now show up in a Google search on "InnerLife." (But most of the results of the search have nothing to do with us -- we are not a music band or a health clinic or a religious organization.) I did find a nice blog entry about us at Clickable Culture which I added to our links section. :)
++++ That's all for now ++++
I hope to "see" you all in Tavarua soon!
Peace,
Elizabeth/Nekokami
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