Metaverse U Roundup

Stanford's Metaverse U conference has been going on this past weekend, and Joey Seiler has been blogging from the event, which has a lot of academic theory, predictions about where virtual worlds are headed, as well as how people are trying to implement some of the theoretical aspects into actual practice. One of the most interesting panels looked to be on avatars, some experiments with virtual reality, and preservation of virtual worlds:

The second day of MetaverseU had much more of the University in it. While the first day certainly had an academic bent, it also featured discussions of technology developments, products, and practices. TL Taylor led the second day with a discussion of online embodiment, ranging across game and social worlds. Jeremy Bailenson took a more quantitative approach, quickly running through 9 experiments and studies, looking at identity, avatars, and persuasion. (Amazing and fast!) Kari Kraus then took the stage to look at how people are approaching the preservation of virtual worlds.

The whole set of entries relating to Metaverse U is great and worth a look through, if you're into that sort of thing.

Liveblogging MetaverseU: TL Taylor, Jeremy Bailenson, Kari Kraus [Virtual Worlds News]

SCEA's Playstation 3 Folding@home project, which went live back on March 22, recently topped one million user, meaning that about 3,000 PS3 users have registered for Folding@home a day since the software went live on the console.

"Since partnering with SCEI, we have seen our research capabilities increase by leaps and bounds through the continued participation of Folding@home users," said Vijay Pande, Associate Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University and Folding@home project lead. "Now we have over one million PS3 users registered for Folding@home, allowing us to address questions previously considered impossible to tackle computationally, with the goal of finding cures to some of the world's most life-threatening diseases. We are grateful for the extraordinary worldwide participation by PS3 and PC users around the globe."

Thanks to all of those PS3 owners willing to tie their console to the network, and pay the resulting electric bill, PS3 users make up about 74 percent of the total teraflop computing power of the Folding@home project.

Well done Sony, well done. Oh, speaking of well done, Team Kotaku is currently ranked number 106 at folding@home. If you haven't signed up (for Folding@home) and own a PS3, you really should.

Stanford Announces Metaverse U Conference

Stanford University Cataloging Huge Video Game Collection

Clips: Dr. Marks Explains Folding@Home

PS3 Distributive Computing Network Hits in March

Just Know That The PS3 Saves Lives