Broadband in NZ– VLENZ Update, No 181, March 13, 2011

The  New Zealand Broadband network Rural Kiwis  probably wont see ‘true’  Broadband  for decades … will Christchurch quake slow implementation of 2nd-best  RBI solution With the government concentrating on the post earthquake resurrection of Christchurch – and the money needed to rebuild that city – one wonders whether the Rural Broadband Initiative which has been [...]

NZVWG – VLENZ Update, No 172, June 03, 2010

Does the Emperor have any clothes? New Zealand’s NZVWGrid  ‘newbies’ get free avatar skins, hair, eyes and clothing A ‘noobie’ appearance is no longer necessary in the  NZVWGrid … free avatarskins, eyes and hair have been made available for users  … New Zealand academics, researchers and  virtual world builders,  using and testing the alpha phase [...]

KAREN, VLENZ Update 171, June 01, 2010

KAREN goes  ‘independent’ NZ high-speed research/education network in new partnership … All NZ education to get real Broadband speeds A year-old YouTube view of the FX Networks network  … 2200 kms of optical fibre and still counting. Heralding a new era for online education and research  in New Zealand, Research and Education Advanced Network New [...]

Life Games, VLENZ Update, No 169, April 17, 2010

Harnessing the power of play Can   games-based learning ‘players’ save  the  world? Jane McGonigal  thinks they can … Jane McGonigal, who  directs game R&D at the Institute for the Future, a US nonprofit forecasting firm where she developed Superstruct, a massively multiplayer on-line roleplaying game (MORPG) in which players organise society to solve the issues [...]

SLENZ Update, No 138, September 22, 2009

Why aren’t NZ  secondary schools using virtual worlds, video games? or are they …  but just below the radar? Ahead of the game …  Christ’s College, one of New Zealand’s oldest schools, is in Second Life. Given the ever- burgeoning popularity of  video games, Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs)  and virtual worlds, or [...]

The SLENZ Update – No 97, June 9, 2009

‘Exciting’ Kiwi development Major New Zealand universities seek  funding to establish  national virtual world grid Proposal pdf here Three major New Zealand universities are planning to establish an open-access, open-source New Zealand National Virtual World grid based on the ONGENS OpenSim grid which is currently under development. The universities are Otago University, the University of [...]

The SLENZ Update – No 37, January 2, 2009

The year that was … I feel sure that during the year a lot of New Zealanders lost their embarrassment over being residents/participants  in virtual world’s like Second Life and began to see MUVEs as part of their “real” world. Although the Lindens do not disclose  the number of Kiwis accessing Second Life on a [...]

The SLENZ Update – No 27, November 20, 2008

Mercy killing gets Lively Google has taken the hatchet to its  virtual world, Lively, after less than six months operation. Initially damned with faint praise and sometimes ridicule the Lively virtual world was launched in July by Google Labs with much overhype “because we wanted users to be able to interact with their friends and [...]

The SLENZ Update – No 20, October 30, 2008

From the top of my head! It might be simplistic but it appears to me that Virtual Worlds, although attracting a claimed 160 million users around the world, need someone to recreate something like the virtual world equivalent of Tim Berners-Lee (Pictured -From Wikipedia) and Robert Cailliau’s 1990 WorldWideWeb browser for multi-user virtual environments to [...]