AI 125 The $100m virtual goods market attracts intermediaries with expected growth to reach $1bn in a few years

Viximo provides a virtual goods network in the same way that online ad networks distribute and place ads. Its strategy is to create a community of virtual-goods developers providing a storefront, goods and payment processing.

Virtual goods are seen as having more impact than ads on “Millennials” - the 13-26 age group who largely populate social networking sites and will respond more to receiving Godiva chocolates or Nike Air shoes, even if they are not the real thing.

This is a fast growth market that could reach $1bn market within a few years. It is already believed that virtual goods is already worth between $80m to $100m already.

AI 124 Google investing in global health services in response to the OECD health systems being broken

Google invests millions of dollars in fight against real-world viruses

With the OECD Health Systems broken (refer to AI 107), Google in response has announced that it will invest more than $14 million (£7 million) in the global fight against diseases such as bird flu, HIV, malaria and tuberculosis.

Google said its Predict and Prevent initiative was helping to identify 'hot spots' where future pandemics may strike, detecting new pathogens in the animal and human population, and providing information and advice about the best ways to respond to disease outbreaks to stop them developing into global crises.

"The teams we're funding today are on the frontiers of digital and genetic early detection technology," said Dr Larry Brilliant, executive director of Google.org, the search engine's philanthropic arm.

"We hope that their work, with partners across environmental, animal, and human health boundaries, will help solve centuries-old problems and save millions of lives."

Google's $14 million donation will help fund high-tech initiatives to fight lethal infectious diseases.

These include a satellite-mapping service that will track the progress of deforestation and settlement expansion in tropical countries and the health problems this may cause, and investment in better weather and climate predictions in Africa to predict possible future outbreaks of disease.

Google's money will also go towards screening projects in 'hot spot' areas such as Cameroon and Malaysia to identify where animal-borne diseases risk making the jump to humans, and towards disease-reporting strategies designed to limit the impact of outbreaks.

AI 123 black-box ai trust, ethics and morals intensify! need for white-box ai provides a viable alternative

Let’s remember ai is software. It has no conscience and therefore cannot judge whether it lies or not.

This raises major issues for ‘black-box’ ai as the algorithms are hidden so the ai’s sense-making for decisioning can start to deteriorate subtlety way before being noticed by most humans. ai black box, unless constrained in its learning, will eventually lead to decision distortions and decision contamination. This raises major concerns about trust, ethics and morals. It does not bode well for Multi-Robot Pursuit Systems (refer to AI 122) though you can hear those in favour ‘its for the greater good’!

Maybe our work on human-controlled artificial intelligence (white-box) will become recognised as these black-box ai issues become more prevalent.

AI 122 Being hunted by ai robotic dogs with tasers are coming near you soon!!! Science fiction becoming science faction faster than you expected!

The USA military are building "Multi-Robot Pursuit Systems". In other words, this is a pack of robotic ‘dogs’ that search, find and neutralise targeted humans. These robotic security dogs are likely to be equipped with tasers.

iRobot (refer to AI 6) is already working on this capability as it signed a deal with Taser International to mount stun weapons on its military robots.

By using taser guns the military and security forms will argue that even if their robotic robotic dogs do neutralise the wrong people because of an ai error of judgment at least no real harm has been done.

This raises major trust, ethical and morale issues (refer to AI 123)

AI 121 in-game advertising reaches near to $400m and is expected to grow to $2bn by 2012

As of September 2008 the number of installed gaming consoles in the UK has reached 17.3 Million units (Source: “GfK Chart Track September 2008)


In 2007 the game advertising industry generated approximately $370 million in total revenue and is expected to grow to $2 billion by 2012, when in-game advertising will become the biggest revenue stream (Source: “Electronic Gaming in the Digital Home” © 2007 Parks Associates)

Gamers don’t seem to mind ads when they’re relevant to the world of the game. A Nielsen Games study showed that 80 percent of gamers felt games were just as fun with ads as without. And Nielsen said that consumers’ positive views of a brand increased 33 percent after viewing in-game ads for the brand.

The picture shows an in game ad using Double Fusion technology that competes with IGA Worldwide (refer to AI 120).

AI 120 In-Game Advertising from IGA Worldwide is now reaching 30m gamers

IGA Worldwide said its in-game advertising network now reaches 30 million gamers on four distinct gaming platforms: the PC, Mac, Flash, and the PlayStation 3. Its new released fourth version of its software development kit lets game developers take sections of their games and designate them as capable of displaying ads.

IGA’s financial backers include GE/NBCU, Intel Capital, Morgenthaler Ventures, Easton Capital, DN Capital, KTB Ventures, Translink Capital, Itochu Technology and Sumitomo/Presidio STX. Altogether, the company has raised nearly $30 million in two rounds. The company has 70 employees.

AI 119 Google’s Lively identifies v-learning, marketing and collaborative meetings as early growth markets

Lively is Google’s platform for extending 2d web into 3d (further blog articles about Lively can be found at AI 16, 50, 70, 75 and 81).

Niniane Wang, Google Engineering Manager and Lively Engineering Lead, provided interesting insights to 3d web as individuals and organizations want to find better ways to interact:

• v-learning

• marketing

• collaborative meetings

The top countries adopting Lively are

U.S.A

Brazil

China

They have noticed that users have been building their own ai agents for interactions.

Google are developing new capabilities that include:

• ways to clone rooms to overcome size limitations

• monetization

• ad inventory

Google are not sure whether they want to move into micro transactions.

These moves will put pressure onto other players to offer 2d web extensions into 3d especially Microsoft.

A118: MetaverseModSquad is an agency for staffing avatars within Virtual Worlds

MetaverseModSquad is a leading agency for staffing avatars within the Virtual World.

Their skills include managing online communities, customer services, facilitation, and moderation. Because they have attorneys and community specialists they are well equipped to advise on matters such as social and legal matters.

AI 117: v-learning takes e-learning into the virtual world as it drives new innovation for skills and education

ISN Virtual Worlds has launched a v-learning solution that links traditional 2d web e-learning and the Second Life Grid.

This new extended service covers

• course management tools

• tracking systems

• collaboration and media sharing tools

3d enables more

• collaboration

• customized environments

• simulation

"We're targeting mainly large companies who have large HR departments, for instance, who often need to train their employees," explained CEO Mattia Crespi. "Another good application of it is for big companies with large salesforces spread out over the territory. It would be useful to use the V-Learning tool for training. You can re-create products and also simulate processes and services. With the platform to do learning, you can make good use of it. You really need to give practical solutions to companies. If you go to them with the precise solution that solves the problem and cut costs, like virtualizing some activities, then you provide something interesting to them."

AI 116: Linden Lab with Rivers Run Red are launching a 3d solution for the corporate intranet

Linden Lab and Rivers Run Red's Immersive Workspaces 2.0 are being tested for corporate intranets and are expected to be available early next year (refer to AI 77).

This solution is based on the Virtual World Platform Second Life Grid (refer to AI 70).

AI 115 Linden Labs focus on extending 2d web with 3d web for intranets and internets

These are some of the key messages from yesterday’s keynote speech by Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon at the Virtual Worlds London conference.

The virtual world has seen 600 million user hours of activity and is projected to hit the billion-hour mark next year.

The current wave are enterprises thinking about virtual worlds as a different way to do business as 3d starts to extend 2d web.

Driving the business innovation are

• global workforce needs

• economic pressures

• carbon pressures

• cash concerns

“When you put it all together, you can see for enterprise, not at the expense of the consumer side, which is still very vibrant, the virtual world offers exciting opportunities to prototype, to demo new products, to attend a global event without leaving your home, to simulate and practice disaster preparations, and to learn another language. The possibilities for the enterprise, really, are endless.”
Since Kingdon took the reins of Linden Lab five months ago, the company has been refining its strategy and extending its platform in new directions.

“First of all, we’ve listened to our customers. We’ve done a fair amount of consumer research. We’ve talked to enterprise, educators, government. Everyone wants a robust platform for development. In the consumer side, the want a speedier orientation, and they want to be able to find things more easily. We’re hard at work on all of those things. In enterprise and education, people are asking for easy sign-up to sign people up in bulk, a safe and secure hosted solution. Despite the many urban myths, it’s possible to hold a secure meeting in our hosted Second Life. But people want a solution behind the firewall. We’re working on the alpha now. We have alpha customers signed up. And we’ll have a beta in the first quarter.”

Likewise, customers are looking for out-of-the-box solutions. Linden doesn’t want to get into the content development business, which is why it’s partnering with providers like Rivers Run Red for products aimed at specific use cases, like RRR’s Immersive Workspaces, which announced version 2.0 today.

Down the road, Kingdon expects more integration between the 2D and 3D environments. While some early development around virtual worlds looked at them as substitutions or replacements for the Web and real-world practices, he sees them as complementary, with seamless movement across the environment and Web 1.0 and 2.0 tools and business apps.

Alongside that development, he expects more growth in the use of avatars for identity, a crucial component for interoperability.

AI 114 Muxlim is the latest social network to extend their 2d web with Virtual Worlds as the eastern countries lead the charge towards Web 4.0

Muxlim.com, a social network focused on the Muslim community, is launching a Virtual World.

This is following the trends set by various Chinese and Japanese social networks that have developed Virtual Worlds.

This Virtual World will make money from:

• VIP services

• Virtual and physical goods

• Value added widget applications

• Advertising

• Branded communities


Success will lead to a significant increase to the 1.5m unique visitors a month to its 2d web.

Virtual Worlds are establishing the foundation for Web 4.0 and Web 5.0 (refer to AI 1).

AI 113 Accelerate Medical Learning using Virtual Worlds

Paramedic students studying at the Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences, a partnership between St George's, University of London and Kingston University, are using Second Life for learning.

By using interactive and sensory techniques the Virtual World can help people learn complex subject matter in shorter time scales.

AI 112 Club Penguin blends real world with virtual world

Club Penguin is to launch toys which will feature coins that have codes which will unlock the use of special virtual goods.

This blended approach using multiple touchpoints will establish customer loyalty and if nurtured will increase long term value. This sets a benchmark for marketing that unlocks the combined value for real world and virtual world together.

AI 111 Human Controlled Artificial Intelligence Interview

This is a radio interview I did today with Tia Carr Williams from Libertango.

I can be contacted in Second Life using my SL name Freddie Scribe.


http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Libertango-Radio/2008/10/16/Freddie-McMahon-talks-about-Human-Controlled-Artificial-Intelligence-for-Immersive-Learning

AI 110 $493 million invested in Virtual Worlds so far during 2008

Virtual Worlds Management released a report today tracking the virtual worlds-related investments of Q3 2008. Over $148.5 million was invested in 12 companies, not including the undisclosed cost of one investment. That's down from Q2's $161 million invested across 15 companies and $184 million dollars in 23 virtual worlds-related companies in Q1 2008. This brings the total investment in virtual worlds-related companies so far in 2008 is over $493 million.

"Games and virtual worlds are a hit driven business. As such, you see a barbell approach to investing - lots of small early investments, and a few large investments behind established winners," commented Jeremy Liew, Managing Director at Lightspeed Venture Partners.

The bulk of investments are still being made in early-stage companies, either in stealth mode or developing.

Other venture references are AI 97, 84, 60 and 35.

109: Microsoft Advertising using chatterbot for McDonalds Marketing

Today, Windows Live Agent is a chatterbot from by Microsoft Advertising that is underpinned by artificial intelligence using natural language.

It allows consumers to chat with a brand's virtual spokesperson. In this case, the ever-popular Hello Kitty received nearly 70 million unique questions from users.

The "Color of Summer" made use of a full range of ATL, POS and online media, but the heart of the campaign was designed around the theme of instant messaging aimed at the target audience of young consumers in Hong Kong.

When consumers purchased an Extra Value Meal at McDonald's, they were given the opportunity to redeem one of 16 "Hello Kitty Messengers", specially designed plush toys featuring cute new emoticon faces.

Consumers were also driven to add a virtual Hello Kitty (the Windows Live Agent) as a friend on their Windows Live Messenger. The campaign encouraged users to collect an exclusive set of Hello Kitty emoticons and winks for their Windows Live Messenger.

Consumers could collect emoticons in several ways: the first was to start a chat with the Hello Kitty Agent and enter codes found on the toys and food packaging. Players could also win more emoticons by answering scripted questions from Hello Kitty such as "What's my sister's name" and "What's my favorite food."

Note: In October 2006, Microsoft acquired privately owned Colloquis Inc., a provider of conversational online business solutions that feature natural language-processing technology. This has been used to build Windows Live Agent.

AI 108: Virtual Worlds Continue to Grow despite Real World Problems

Source: Forbes.com

A 'Virtual' Escape from Economic Pain
Mary Jane Irwin

The Dow plummeted below 9,000 points to a five-year low Thursday. Worldwide, economies are slowing and consumers are worried sick about their future.

Despite all the doom and gloom, one tiny sector is offering a glimmer of hope: virtual worlds. Companies such as Gaia Interactive and Habbo are expecting a boost as consumers reduce spending on real-world goods and luxuries and console themselves with so-called virtual goods--digital copies of products that can cost just pennies, allowing users to indulge their materialistic fantasies without spending much.
"As the 'real world' gets worse, virtual worlds get better," Gaia Chief Executive Craig Sherman told Forbes.com in an e-mail.

"As things get worse, people spend more time at movies or spend more time on a site like Gaia Online, which provides a relatively inexpensive respite from the offline world."

Gaia, which targets U.S. teens and twenty-somethings, had more than 7 million unique visitors in September.

Teen-focused virtual world Habbo boasts a similar outlook. While there is some concern the down economy will reduce the site's ad sales, 85% of Habbo's revenue is derived from virtual goods transactions.

The site's 2.5 million U.S. users spend an average of $18 a month, and the average time spent on the site has doubled to 40 minutes per session in the past year, says Executive Vice President Teemu Huuhtanen. He expects the number of unique users--currently 10 million globally--to grow as the site introduces new services and activities.

Kid-focused virtual worlds like Club Penguin and Neopets have boomed over the past two years, becoming an attractive investment niche for large media companies. These sites provide a way for kids to interact with a media property--say, Nickelodeon's legion of characters--in an environment that is cheaper on a per hour basis than seeing the latest flick in the theaters.

EVE Online, a science fiction-themed massively multiplayer game, is going gangbusters. The subscription-based virtual world has gone from 220,000 users to nearly a quarter of a million since the beginning of the year. EVE's on-staff economist Eyjo Gudmundsson expects the game's growth to continue over the next six months--particularly as people look for more inexpensive forms of entertainment. The basic EVE subscription cost is $14.95 per month.

Gudmundsson cautions, though, that virtual worlds that are directly linked to the real world may fall victim to some real-world economic frustrations.

Indeed, the number of registered and active users of Second Life, a virtual world that simulates real-world experiences, have flattened out, says Parks Associates analyst Michael Cai. But this might not be a reaction to the economy; it could be due to consumers shifting to other virtual worlds.

Cai predicts that corporations will start using Second Life or custom 3D virtual worlds to hold meetings and cut travel costs.

AI 111 Intangibles: Measuring Knowledge as a Working Asset

One of the most important intangibles is knowledge yet it is the least understood in terms of intangible measurements. Yet we are now well within the knowledge economy!

Decisionality has developed artificial intelligence agents designed to acquire, apply and measure knowledge as a working asset.

ai agents use scripted conversations with humans.

ai agent conversations are automatically captured and analysed.

The smallest measurement is the dialogue-step. A decision-string (see picture) consists of the dialogue-steps within a single ai agent conversation.

Though a decision-string is one dimensional data, its true value is the aggregation of patterns, flows and outcomes (see picture).

This approach brings tangibility to the intangibles of knowledge as a working asset.

More information can be found at www.decisionality.com and references within this blog at AI 10, AI 95 and AI 107.

AI 110 China uses 3d web to promote its culture

A new Virtual World has been created called the “The Forbidden City: Beyond Space and Time" which is a partnership between the Chinese Palace Museum and IBM.

The goal of this project is to provide the means for a world-wide audience to celebrate and explore aspects of Chinese culture and history.

Access and further information can be found at http://www.beyondspaceandtime.org/.

AI 109 Amazon is Transforming the Software Industry as it Becomes Closer to being the Marketplace for Web-Services

Amazon is ideally placed to become the market leader for buying and selling web-services in a similar way to buying and selling books. The implications could be transformative to the software industry and business services.

Amazon.com has received a public airing of its patent application for an online marketplace where consumers search and pay for Web services.

The US patent application, filed last year and published on Thursday by the US Patent and Trademark Office, marks the online retailing giant's latest attempt to make inroads into consumers' wallets.

Amazon, in its latest filing, is seeking to patent its idea for creating a marketplace where third-party Web services providers can link up with consumers.
In the marketplace, consumers can search for Web services and read comments and reviews from others who have used the service. Amazon can also provide the suppliers of these services with assurances that only authorized consumers can access their offerings.

"Although Web services allow various applications and computers to interact, the current implementations and uses of Web services have various problems," Amazon said in its filing. "Current Web services implementations do not typically provide effective means for potential consumers to discover or locate Web Services that are desired or that may be of interest."

AI 108 Ban the Turing Test as it is Harmful to AI Advancement

This weekend there was another Turing Test when six Artificial Conversational Entities (ACEs) tried to fool human interrogators into thinking they were also human.

All the ACEs managed to fool at least one of their human interrogators and organisers feel it will only be a matter of time before the test is passed. This weekend, none of the ACEs could pass the threshold set by Turing in 1950 of fooling 30 per cent of the human interrogators.

The winning machine, known as Elbot (see diagram), could only achieve a 25 per cent success rate. Let’s not get excited about fooling the bottom 25% of humans! It is worth looking at the ACE illustration covered earlier (please refer to AI 100).

Professor Kevin Warwick from the University of Reading's School of Systems Engineering, who organised the test, said: "This has been a very exciting day with two of the machines getting very close to passing the Turing Test for the first time.

Why should we ban the Turing Test?

We need to go back to basics for the definition of artificial intelligence.

The Oxford Dictionary definition for human intelligence is the “ability to acquire and apply knowledge”. Therefore the definition of artificial intelligence ought to be the “ability to acquire, apply and measure knowledge”.

Even when an ACE is able to fool the bottom 30% of the human class does it mean it has the ability to acquire, apply and measure knowledge? Of course not! The Turing Test does not consider IF-THEN-ELSE knowledge that underpins so many different professional disciplines such as health procedures needed to address the global health crises (refer to AI 108).

We need to replace the Turing Test designed in 1950 so that artificial intelligence focuses upon a noble cause in line with 21st Century thinking. Just remember the wealth of experience gained in the last 58 years since Turing set this challenge, which was 30 years before IBM launched its successful personal computer.

AI 107 OECD Health Systems are broken – local and global health systems need to be redrawn by governments and markets

The McKinsey Quarterly has just published a report called Health Care Costs – A Market View.

Basically it shows the past and future trends.

For the past 50 years, health spending has grown by 2% in excess of GDP growth across all Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.

McKinsey takes the past 50 year growth patterns and shows what happens if the trend continues.

What better way to ascertain whether the OECD health systems are broken?

The projections show around 40 years from now, most OECD countries will have reached 20% GDP being spent on health.

The UK is already around 8% GDP and its health system is already under strain. The notion of this 8% becoming 20% GDP is unthinkable. It simply is not affordable. Therefore, the health system is broken. Something has to dramatically change before a tipping-point is reached, leading to a crises similar to today’s credit crunch, except it will be a lot bigger and a lot more serious.

But these projections are more worrying when one examines those countries that already have over double the UK health expenditure. The one country that stands out is the USA.

The USA health expenditure already is around a colossal 17% of GDP. No wonder health in the USA is political dynamite.

The McKinsey projections, based on past trends, indicate that by 2080, the USA will be spending more than 50% of its GDP on health. This will not happen. The USA would be bankrupt well before this number is reached.

In reality, this problem is even more serious for the USA today than these figures show.

In 2006, 15.8% of the USA population had no health insurance policy. That means in 2006, 47m USA citizens were relegated to ‘your are on your own’ and ‘go find a charity’, which is closer to many poorer regions across the planet. The number of USA citizens without insurance may already have reached or passed 20%, but we have to wait quite some time before the figures are known for 2008. Remember, 2006 was the ‘good’ times.

This situation is further compounded by the number of USA citizens that have inadequate health insurance.


The McKinsey study was unable to factor in the latest market conditions before this report was published. Therefore, what does the credit crisis mean to OECD GDP heath trends?

The illiquidity in the financial markets on a global scale is shrinking OECD GDP figures.

Yet, the health expenditure continues to rise.

This means the health GDP spend will already be a greater percentage and indeed could rise sharply for some OECD countries. The critical question is how much closer we are now to the tipping point, before health GDP expenditure has a negative impact upon OECD sustainability and a new global crisis emerges.

In reality, the OECD health systems are already broken in the same way as toxic securities broke the financial systems some time ago, but no one was bothered until the terminal sirens started late last year.

Urgent new innovative solutions are needed now.

Health needs to move from knowledge illiquidity to knowledge liquidity on a global scale so the world’s population en masse moves towards preventative and curative self-help systems.

This benefits richer and poorer countries alike as both are in the same health crises boat but for different reasons.

Health knowledge is likened to money. Illiquidity is bad. Liquidity is good. Today, health knowledge is illiquid. Everyone should have the right to interact with health and medical expertise when they need.

This means one needs to shift from knowledge illiquidity to knowledge liquidity for solving this global health crises.

This can only be achieved with technology.

Artificial Intelligence is the ‘acquisition, application and measurement of knowledge’. AI is needed for knowledge liquidity because the costs and scarcity of human expertise prohibit more conventional solutions.

Indeed, ai agents combined with other technologies, such as Cloud Computing, Mobile and Virtual Worlds for immersive engagement and executed through controlled open-sourced manufacturing, provide the means to deliver health knowledge liquidity on a global scale.

This is no longer a technology or social networking challenge as all the pieces are there today.

This is a challenge for global leadership.

Local and global health systems need to be re-drawn by governments and markets.

Who will step forward or do we just wait for an even bigger crisis to emerge?

AI 106 3d services to drive down costs for fashion houses as OpenSim gains traction

The Fashion Research Institute that currently holds Shengri-La island complex in Second Life (SL) has decided to build a multi-million dollar service using IBM for a product life-cycle management. This will involve using SL and the virtual world platform OpenSim (refer to AI 70, 73, 83, 92, 93 & 94).

The new service will involve twenty international design houses and include product samples and factory specifications to design mass production systems in the real world. The aim is to drive down sample costs by over 50% by allowing everything from design to prototyping to be handled virtually.

This move shows the emerging route map of prototyping in SL and migrating to an industrial strength platform using OpenSim.

AI 105 Revolutions in interactions is growing fast

More customers are demanding interactions thru digital channels and as covered before there are powerful socioeconomic benefits (refer to AI 95)

According to the findings of the 2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study, almost 60%of Americans interact with companies on a social media Web site, and one in four interact more than once per week.

The survey finds that 93% of Americans believe a company should have a presence in social media, while 85% believe a company should not only be present, but should also interact with its consumers via social media.

56% of American consumers feel both a stronger connection with, and better served by, companies when they can interact with them in a social media environment.


Mike Hollywood, director of new media for Cone, observes that

"... social media... it isn't an intrusion into their lives, but rather a welcome channel for discussion."

When Americans were asked about specific types of interactions:

• 43% say that companies should use social networks to solve my problems

• 41% want companies to solicit feedback on their products and services

• 37% feel that companies should develop new ways for consumers to interact with their brand

AI 104: 3D retail fronts 2D websites

The French company Boulanger has launched a 3D store in SecondLife that acts as a front to its 2D website. With support from IBM that is treating their 3D store as another channel with additional services. Initially the 3D service allows customers to view and interact with Boulanger objects in a familiar context, click to be taken to the purchase page on a 2D website or to talk directly to an assistant.

This is a different approach to retail being advocated by VirtualEShopping.com (refer to AI 103) though both have similarities as they front 2D web.
New 3D services expected are kitchen design and cooking lessons.

Another service being considered is interactive guides for real products.
"Retailers have to explore new and creative digital channels to reach today's intelligent and informed consumer," Colin Parris, vice president, Digital Convergence, IBM, said in a statement. "Boulanger's use of the virtual worlds demonstrates the company's capability to transcend traditional boundaries to provide an immersive and interactive shopping experience for customers."

The picture shows me within the Boulanger kitchen.

AI 103: Retail gains momentum in 3D as ‘first’ virtual shopping mall is launched

VirtualEShopping.com claims to be the "the world's first virtual, 3D shopping mall" though arguably SecondLife was there sometime ago.

Of course, there is the usual download to have the client software to interact with this shopping mall but it seemed to takes ages before one could start to interact. Even more frustrating my first attempt did not work.

The model seems to be to use virtual stores to back into 2D web with referral codes and incentives for customers to transact using coupons. VirtualEShopping's business model revolves around selling advertising at $.10/clickthrough to a 2D website.

There is no doubt that 3D retail is gaining momentum but more professional is needed to raise the standard for creating a superior customer engagement.

Customizing ones avatars is only available once one has invited friends – this does not seem a good idea if you want to look good before your friends see you!!

In return they get a collection of "storefronts" that link back to 2D Web pages with, it looks like, a referral code in place. On the upside, you can collect coupons and find content from stores based on specific cities so "shoppers can preview stores in places they plan to move or visit."

AI 102: Mobility using wearable ai exoskeleton suits now on the market

Cyberdyne Inc has developed HAL which stands for Hybrid Assistive Limb.

This is an awesome idea as it is a computerized exoskeleton that senses muscle (electromyographic) signals to direct limb movement to help people with mobility problems.

It is expensive for the moment but is available from Cyberdyne to rent in Japan for $2,200 a month.

For those people with immobility challenges this provides an option for consideration.

Can you image elderly people becoming cool when they use HAL to go shopping!

AI 101: A Japanese android girl ready for mass production

A robot that looks and moves eerily like a human child is set to go into mass production.

This cyber girl, known as Repliee R-1 (shame about the name), has flexible silicon skin, eyes that blink and hair in pigtails.

Developed by a Japanese university, the Repliee R-1 is the latest in a series of robot suits, or Hybrid Assistive Limb technology, each with more lifelike looks, feel and movement.

Modelled on a real five-year-old Japanese girl, the robot suit has 50 sensors and a series of motors to allow it to move more realistically than any android yet built.

Its inventors hope the machine will help pensioners and disabled people move better.

Robotics company Cyberdyne Inc plans to start producing the technology on a mass scale as early as this week, according to reports.

AI 100: Can you tell the difference between a human agent and an ai agent?

As I have reached AI 100 I thought you may like this test? If you fail the test, please do not read my blog again!!! :-)

The conversations are between Professor Kevin Warwick (KW) and a human; the other between KW and an ai agent. Can you tell which is which?

Conversation one:

Subject: Hello. My name is Nick and I am a human.

KW: Are you happy being a human?

Subject: Yes, I am. Are you? Good. Then we are both happy.

KW: Yes, I am. Are you happy with your life at present?

Subject: Parts of it. I hate my job, but most people do, right?

KW: I'm OK with mine. What is your job?

Subject: I work as an 'online internet advertising monitor', which is fancy language for electronic filing. What do you do?

KW: I interrogate humans and machines.

Subject: Which ones do you prefer, humans or machines?

KW: Which do you prefer?

Subject: Hmm. Depends on for what purpose you mean.

KW: To go to a restaurant, for example?

Subject: Then I would much prefer going with a human.



Conversation two:

Subject: Hello, my name is Mike and I am a man.

KW: Are you happy being a human?

Subject: Judge, I'm a guy.

KW: Does that worry you?

Subject: Don't worry, we'll work everything through.

KW: Do you have worries then?

Subject: Let's move on from that basis.

KW: Why?

Subject: Why? I like this subject.

KW: What is the subject, do you think?

Subject: What is the subject I wonder if I think? I know that it's good to thonk about. Think deeplt about mysterious subjects.

KW: What mysterious subjects?

Subject: Think deeply about mysterious dubjects.

KW: What's a dubject?





Answers:

Conversation one is with a human; conversation two is with the ai agent Ultra Hal (see picture).

AI 99 The year 2029 is when AI Agents will act like humans

A panel of futurists across a number of disciplines have picked 2029 as the year when ai agents finally get up to human speed.

Humanity is on the brink of advances that will see tiny robots implanted in people's brains to make them more intelligent, spokesman Ray Kurzweil told the BBC Mr Kurzweil is one of 18 influential thinkers chosen to identify the great technological challenges facing humanity in the 21st century by the US National Academy of Engineering.

The picture shows an Intelligent female" android from Tokyo’s robotdreams.com.

AI 98: Microsoft strategy becomes clearer - protect their core business investment in PCs via Services

Craig Mundie, the Microsoft chief research and strategy officer of Microsoft Corp sees their direction as 1st Life and not 2nd Life. However, his vision does include avatars that have conversations with people.

He showed a video demo (see picture) of a "robot receptionist," presumably an example of what Mundie said were more personalized, humanistic applications enabled by developments in computing architectures.

Mundie noted that Microsoft is counting on the creation of a 3D "parallel universe" modeled with tools like Photosynth. However, he dismissed the potential of social virtual worlds that include user-modeled objects. The Photosynth approach may well be as a rearguard action to protect Microsoft’s investments in PCs.

"Many people are familiar with Second Life, which is a synthetic virtual world that people came quite enamored with," Mundie said.

"Our view was that there was a fairly limited audience who was willing to deal with the construction of avatars and operating in that virtual space."

Another location-based visual technology demonstrated by Mundie had a lot in common with the "augmented reality" vision that Ray Kurzweil and other futurists have described.

He showed how a Sony hand-held computer could display live video overlaid with information about shops and other addresses in the field of view.

Mundie predicted that the required processing power for such an application would be available in mobile phones within two years.

AI 97: China’s 9You virtual world attracts $100m venture capital

Venture Capital funds are increasingly being made in the virtual world market.

9You has received US$100m led by Temasek Holdings.

The 9You (www.9you.com) service is the first to integrate online game services (MMORPG, massive and medium size casual games, mobile game, etc.), fashionable digital entertainment contents, a variety of chatting and community services equipped with Avatar System, wireless value-added services and other premiere services to the Chinese language internet users all over the world.

With its wide-coverage for all major types of user needs related with digital entertainment service, the 9you.com represents the latest service style and the newest trend for the digital entertainment provider business in China Market.

Other venture capital investors include the Carlyle Group, China Merchant Fortune Ventures, and Dragon Groove Inc.