Work, Rest and Play project (work in progress)

Money matters in cybercash game

2005-09-20T17:36:00.000Z

Screengrab of Second Life, Linden Lab
Second Life is a virtual playground but also has more serious uses
US bank Wells Fargo has entered the world of online role-playing in an effort to teach young people the basics of managing their money.

In the bank's Stagecoach Island game, players explore an imaginary world using virtual money, which they earn by answering financial questions.

It uses one of the existing massive multi-player environments on the web, Second Life, developed by Linden Lab.

The game lets players create their own characters and interact with others.

A pilot version of Stagecoach Island was launched for young adult Texans in San Diego and Austin over the Labor Day weekend earlier this month. The pilot will run until mid-November.

Learning lounge

Participants in the game can explore a virtual island with many different activities. Some of these are "free" but others, like buying clothes or going to a club, require virtual cash.

Players can earn this by going to the Virtual Learning Lounge and giving the correct answers to trivia questions about saving, managing money and budgeting.

Wells Fargo's chief marketing officer Sylvia Reynolds said the aim was to reach young people who were leaving home and becoming financially independent for the first time.

She described the game as a way of educating them in "a highly interactive, comfortable and fun environment".

Technology analysts say the bank's venture is part of a trend towards using online role-playing games designed for entertainment in a more serious way.

At least two US business schools are exploring ways of using Second Life - which has 45,000 participants - to help foster their students' entrepreneurial skills.

Sphere XP

2005-03-08T20:45:00.000Z

A friend from work gave me this link to this operating system, it quite interesting, it sets out the windows interface into a 3d space which you revolve around, grabbing and pushing depending if you activate them or not, another colleague said that it is based on a apple idea, that they threw out, if anyone can put some light on this - that would be helpful!

http://www.hamar.sk/sphere/

http://www.hamar.sk/sphere/screenshots.htm

2005-01-30T13:35:00.000Z

This is the lastest version of my 'Work, rest and play' Desktop interface
more interfaces to come

File structure

2004-12-06T22:47:00.000Z

hello,
Good news a major problem I was facing I think I have solved, well in my head I have, I need to double check it.
ok let me unveil this problem before I forget it, that is if my operating system works with out folders, and relies on one pool of data that the user chooses to show by sliders and other values to find their files, the question or two I had that stopped me for a while and that is, what happens when you put a cd in the drive!!! And what happen if they contain folders from another operating system!!!
well here’s the clever bit, its based on the window and gmail model, the premise of a no folder structure, so if you are faced with a cd when accessing it will show all of the file with no folders, but each file will be tagged with the name of the folder it was contained in so even if all the files were the same but was separated by their inclusion within their individual folders, they would still be treated separated even though they are the same file only the name tag would separate them, this will be demonstrated with in the project.

Idea(s) in how to demonstrate the project

2004-11-13T20:03:00.000Z

Just been thinking in how to get across the functionality of the projects interface, the best way for me would be to use both user interaction and animation footage, to explain what I mean by this, the project will be delivered using director, the problem I have had is the time it take to code the backend in the time frame I have.
In having the combination of functional and non-linear animation, the user can get a feel of using the interface without the need for complicated code, just area detection and go the frame codes.

Its never too late to write a blog

2004-11-09T06:40:00.000Z

The reason behind this Blog is kind of like a diary for my tutors to read, to demonstrate the thinking behind the Masters project I'm working on. The work has already started and is at a 70% completion, the deadline in for January 2005 and I am hoping to continue the work on a PhD course.

What i have been working on today, been working through the user's journey from opening the programme to creating their profile and up to the first interaction with the main interface, this will be confusing if you don’t know the background behind the project, in coming weeks will give more details and posting samples on my web site.

Last week i put things on hold has one my cousins died she was 39 years old and will be missed.

Ok thanks for reading this I hope you found this interesting,
Lee