Limerick in the NY Times
At Cliopatria, Ralph Luker shared a terrific review by Patricia Limerick of Jean Pfaelzer’s book that appeared in Sunday’s NY Times. Patricia’s work has been critical in establishing the New Western History scholarship that my criticisms of history in the Oregon Trail computer game are based upon.
Anonymous Blogging
For those who followed the story of PhDinHistory, you may be interested in reading Penelope Trunk’s post arguing bloggers should not be anonymous – similar to Dan Cohen’s position. Without injecting myself into a discussion that’s long over, I’ve reaped the benefits of openly blogging, including landing some freelance work and meeting like-minded scholars who have generously helped my research.
Firefox + Second Life = The 3D Web
Linden Lab will incorporate Mozilla Firefox into a future Second Life client, hoping to eventually blur the differences between the 2D web and 3D metaverse. I’m excited about the possibilities of having Firefox in SL – does this mean I’ll be able to use Zotero in-world and grab COinS data from virtual objects? We’ll have to wait and see if the Second Life/Firefox browser will support extensions, but imagine walking through a virtual museum in Second Life and grabbing citations or even copies of objects in that visualized space… it would drastically change the experience.
Japanese firm NTT has unveiled a system that makes three-dimensional images solid enough to grasp. The system combines a 3D display with a “haptic glove,†with no special glasses required. They’ve suggested two interesting uses for the device:
- business people could shake hands from across the globe
- allow museum visitors to feel precious exhibits that are normally out of reach
Is this the future of virtual museums? Backtracking to a previous post on museums in Second Life, a lively debate currently taking place is between imitation and innovation – how can virtual worlds help students learn beyond what already occurs in the classroom? What are practical uses of simulated environments? Devices like this may be the answer to those questions by creating physical interfaces to navigate virtual representations of objects. Normally when you visit a museum there’s a barrier between visitors and artifacts; this device could remove that, and allow museums to be entirely represented in simulated environments. Imagine being able to hold an ancient sword, or object that would normally be encased in glass. It would change the entire experience of museums.
Building physical interfaces for experiencing history may sound familiar – it fits right in with Bill Turkel’s idea of creating history appliances. The article stated that NTT is currently working with the British Museum in London to create a touchable exhibit; the future isn’t that far off.
