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Latest Term: Viseme

A viseme is the most basic level of mouth and facial movements accompanying the production of phonemes visually. 32 visemes are required in order to produce all possible phonomes with the human face.

Visemes can help with understanding speech – if the phenome is distorted or muffled, the viseme accompanying it can help to clarify what the sound actually was. Thus, visual and auditory components work together when communicating orally.

Visemes are starting to be utilised in facial animation in virtual environments to counterpoint speech for this reason, and because they enable viable lip reading as well.

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Worldlet Reviews >> World Review: My SecureCyberspace
(added 06/05/2008)
My SecureCyberspace is the product of Carnegie Mellon University. Designed as an environment for children to learn responsible internet habits from, it is a single-user, flash-based environment. Not a virtual world as such, it is more of a game, which teaches responsible, safe behaviour when in multi-user virtual environments.


Inspirational Fiction >> VR Cultural Icons: Max Headroom
(added 06/05/2008)
Max Headroom, star poster-child of VR in the mid 1980s. A supposed AI talking head who hosted music videos and a movie.


Battlespace >> SWORDS – Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems – & Robotic Warfare
(added 05/05/2008)
Whenever you ask someone about robots being used to kill people, they almost without fail, think of the Terminator movies. Those few that don't, usually think of Star Wars droids, or other humanoid killing machines. Currently, we barely have two legged robots that can handle office buildings or race tracks, so these fantasies are still just fantasies. Robots deployed in war, to kill the enemy, that, is not a fantasy, and more are being produced every year.


Artificial Intelligence >> Book Quotes: The upcoming Idoru and Synthespians
(added 05/05/2008)
Synthespian creation work is now leading to the creation of the first real Idorus. Robotic pop stars are starting to emerge, which have their own in-built, if still rudimentary AI, stars such as the South Korean EveR2-Muse and the Japanese Kyoko Date (DK96).

Replacing the Classroom >> U.S. Spies Use Custom Videogames to Learn How to Think
(added 29/04/2008)
Using virtual gameworlds, in order to train the US intelligence service, is a surprising move for the US govt. What is less than surprising of course, is the evidence that it is working far better than classroom lectures ever did.


Telehealth >> RFID-Assisted Wireless Sensor Networks for Cardiac Tele-healthcare (PDF)
(added 25/04/2008)
A PDF thesis describing the ongoing work at Rochester Institute of Technology, to work on integrating RFID technology with cardiac sensor networks used to monitor patients' heartbeats.
PDF size: 1.38Meg


Alternate Lives >> Avatars consume as much electricity as Brazilians
(added 25/04/2008)
Nick Carr's infamous blog posting on the electrical consumption of SecondLife and each avatar within it, breaking down their carbon emissions to be the same, roughly, as each person in Brazil.


Haptics >> Research Behind MUCI Armbands
(added 25/04/2008)
A PDF released by Microsoft Research, entitled “Demonstrating the Feasibility of Using Forearm Electromyography for Muscle-Computer Interfaces” details the science behind utilising muscle control as an alternative, viable input system to gesture recognition or spoken commands.
PDF size: 1 meg