Why Have Virtual Worlds Declined?

At http://metaversetribune.com/2013/05/15/why-have-virtual-worlds-declined/

by Sigmund Leominster
Published May 15, 2013

"So little time, so much to do."

In a recent blog post entitled, "5 Reasons Virtual Worlds Died" [1], Simon Newstead, the CEO of mobile games company, Frenzoo, paints a dismal picture of the slow decline in people's participation in virtual worlds. He mentions the Second Life® environment by name and appears to be referring heavily to it in his list of criticism. And if not, he's thinking in terms of the more "open, user-created" types of world, rather than the tightly constrained Halo® or Call of Duty® scenarios.

To summarize, he argues that virtual worlds have (a) no purpose or goals,
(b) no quick feedback, (c) no theme, (d) too much of a learning curve for newbies, and (d) the needs of players in these worlds can be met else-
where.

This may be true of Second Life or OpenSim grids but according to figures published in 2012, the online gaming community is still pretty strong and generating a lot of cash. A report generated by the marketing and consult-
ing firm DFC Intelligence revealed that players of the game League of Legends logged over 1.3 billion hours of activity during the year, followed by a more modest – but still impressive – 600,000 hours logged by World
of Warcraft devotees.

GAME	LOGGED HOURS
League of Legends	1,292,502,456
World of Warcraft	622,378,909
Minecraft	371,635,651
Heroes of Newerth	184,520,156
Diablo III	172,907,605
Battlefield 3	171,852,550
MapleStory	165,503,651
StarCraft II	163,980,293
World Of Tanks	145,702,931
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3	126,754,082
Source: DFC Intelligence Report, 2012.

Meanwhile, during the same period, blogger Daniel Voyager [2] noted a steady decline in the maximum number of people online in Second Life on a daily basis – the "concurrency level." He also points out that the number of regions (land) has dropped from 31,078 in January, 2012 to 28,290 by December. Voyager suggests that people have been switching to the OpenSims grids, where the cost of doing business is lower.  And the recent closing of third-party currency exchanges as a result of changes to Linden Lab's Terms of Service is likely to depress the economy in Second Life as some merchants pull out due to difficulties in cashing out Linden dollars into their local currencies.

The idea that people are switching to the OpenSim environments is an example of another reason why virtual worlds may be declining; the sheer multiplicity of options. As more and more online environments become available, the more likely it is that people will explore those and possibly stay. In the short term, there will be winners and losers as people migrate from metaverse A to metaverse B, but this will only serve to spread people across the worlds and not necessarily increase the overall use of virtual worlds. Just like entropy in the real universe, there will be some local "heating and cooling" in particular spots in the entire virtual universe but ultimately there will be fewer and fewer people in more and more worlds to the point, potentially, where everyone can have his or her private world, waiting for visitors to stop by for a while.

Finally, there is another significant finite resource to consider: time. With only 24 hours in a day, spending 6 hours in Second Life means not spending it in any other place. And the more new options that appear, the less time is available to players/residents. Competition for time continues to grow as new forms of social media present themselves. Newstead makes a crucial point when he says that "needs can be met elsewhere" because people who use Second Life for social reasons can take part in much larger social spheres using Facebook, Twitter, and even Google Circles! And the ubiquity of text messaging is such that for many people under 25 the idea of being in constant SMS contact with your friends is as natural as breathing.

The phrase, "So little time; so much to do" has never... ( more at http://metaversetribune.com/2013/05/15/why-have-virtual-worlds-declined/ )

Sources

[1] Newstead, S. (2013). 5 Reasons Why Virtual Worlds Died. Blog Post, May 12, 2013. http://iteratingfun.com/post/50274986215/reasons-virtual-worlds-died

[2] Voyager, D. (2012). Second Life user concurrency 2012 winter update. Blog post December 5, 2012. http://danielvoyager.wordpress.com/2012/12/05/second-life-user-concurrency-2012-winter-update

Rude and overworked? Blame tech

At http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/052913-blame-tech-270239.html

Mobile devices to blame for a rise in bad manners, CIOs tell Robert Half Technology

By Ann Bednarz, Network World
May 29, 2013 03:01 PM ET

Network World - IT execs say employees are getting ruder on the job, and they're blaming technology for the rise in bad manners. Specifically, mobile technology is leading to more breaches in workplace etiquette, according to survey data from Robert Half Technology.

The IT staffing specialist polled 2,300 CIOs from U.S. companies with at least 100 employees. The CIOs were asked what effect the increased use of mobile electronic gadgets has had on workplace etiquette, and 64% said etiquette breaches have increased. That's up from 51% who said the same thing in 2010. Nearly a third (32%) said etiquette lapses have stayed the same, and 4% noted a decrease.

Work behavior deemed potentially offensive includes: checking email while someone is trying to have a one-on-one conversation; leaving an unnecessarily long voice mail message; paying more attention to a laptop than to a speaker during a meeting; and not turning off a smartphone ringer during an in-person meeting.

Mobile devices have helped people become more productive at work, but also potentially more distracted, according to John Reed, senior executive director of Robert Half Technology (RHT). "If you're not fully engaged in a conversation or meeting, you may spend more time replying to emails than listening," Reed said in a statement. "These devices can also make it easier to mistakenly offend colleagues when you fire off a communication too quickly, or use the wrong medium for the message."

Meanwhile, a majority of IT executives today find themselves working outside of traditional business hours -- a practice made easier thanks to the proliferation of mobile devices. Polled by RHT, 73% of CIOs said they check in with work "often" or "somewhat often" on evenings and weekends. The remainder said they infrequently (12%) or never (14%) check in outside normal business hours. (1% said they didn't know.)... ( more at http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/052913-blame-tech-270239.html )

Ann Bednarz covers IT careers, outsourcing and Internet culture for Network World. Follow Ann on Twitter at @annbednarz and reach her via email at abednarz@nww.com.

19-year-old Dutch engineering student Boyan Slat devises plan to rid the world’s oceans of 7.25 million tons of plastic

At http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/plan-aims-rid-oceans-7-25m-tons-plastic-article-1.1299892

The Ocean Cleanup Array project would then sell the retrieved particles at an estimated profit. But the plan has already draw the ire of some biologists who fear for sea life that may become entangled during the plastic recovery process.

By David Knowles / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Tuesday, March 26, 2013, 9:56 PM

Sometimes it takes big ideas to solve big problems.

A 19-year-old Dutch aerospace engineering student has come up with what he believes is a way to remove millions of pounds of plastic trash from the world's oceans.

Dubbed the Ocean Cleanup Array, Boyan Slat's concept involves anchoring 24 sifters to the ocean floor and letting the sea's own currents direct the plastic bits into miles of booms, or connected chains of timbers used to catch floating objects.

What started out as a college paper earned Slat the Best Technical Design award from Delft University of Technology.

From the start, Slat said he was motivated to get to work by the very scope of the problem facing the world.

"It will be very hard to convince everyone in the world to handle their plastics responsibly, but what we humans are very good in, is inventing technical solutions to our problems," Slat said on his website. "And that's what we're doing."

Powered by the sun and ocean currents, the Ocean Cleanup Array network aims to have as little impact on sea life as possible while sifting out some 7.25 million tons of plastic over the course of just five years.

The bulk of the ray-shaped sifters and booms would be set up at the edges of the five swirling ocean gyres to trap the most plastic particles possible.

Able to function in high seas and rough weather, the booms would trap floating plastic bits, then suck them into a trash sifter. Once the plastic is retrieved, Slat envisions, it will be brought ashore and sold.

"This concept is so efficient, that we estimate that by selling the plastic retrieved from the 5 gyres, we would make in fact more money than the plan would cost to execute. In other words; it's profitable," Slat's website states.

The plan is not without its critics,... ( more at http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/plan-aims-rid-oceans-7-25m-tons-plastic-article-1.1299892 )

People’s Faces Recreated From the DNA Found In Chewing Gums and Cigarette Butts

At http://www.boredpanda.com/stranger-visions-dna-3d-portraits-heather-dewey-hagborg/

This may sound like a science fiction story, but American artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg recreates people's faces from the DNA she finds on various objects tossed away in the streets. For Heather, an old chewing gum or a cigarette butt has the potential of turning into a 3D portrait of someone who used it and didn't bother to look for a trash bin.

Heather extracts the DNA and studies certain regions of the genome that differs for every person. She then sends the results to a lab and gets back what are basically text files filled with sequences of As, Ts, Cs, and Gs, the nucleotides that compose DNA. Then Heather feeds this information into a custom computer program she wrote to parameterize a 3D model of a face to represent... ( more at http://www.boredpanda.com/stranger-visions-dna-3d-portraits-heather-dewey-hagborg/ )

Why French Kids Don't Have ADHD

At http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/suffer-the-children/201203/why-french-kids-dont-have-adhd?fb_action_ids=10200571130493665&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map={%2210200571130493665%22%3A10150652026799798}&action_type_map={%2210200571130493665%22%3A%22og.likes%22}&action_ref_map=[]

French children don't need medications to control their behavior.

Published on March 8, 2012 by Marilyn Wedge, Ph.D. in Suffer the Children

Copyright © Marilyn Wedge, Ph.D.
Marilyn Wedge is the author of Pills are not for Preschoolers: A Drug-Free Approach for Troubled Kids

In the United States, at least 9% of school-aged children have been diagnosed with ADHD, and are taking pharmaceutical medications. In France, the percentage of kids diagnosed and medicated for ADHD is less than .5%. How come the epidemic of ADHD—which has become firmly established in the United States—has almost completely passed over children in France?

Is ADHD a biological-neurological disorder? Surprisingly, the answer to this question depends on whether you live in France or in the United States. In the United States, child psychiatrists consider ADHD to be a biological disorder with biological causes. The preferred treatment is also biological--psycho stimulant medications such as Ritalin and Adderall.

French child psychiatrists, on the other hand, view ADHD as a medical condition that has psycho-social and situational causes. Instead of treating children's focusing and behavioral problems with drugs, French doctors prefer to look for the underlying issue that is causing the child distress—not in the child's brain but in the child's social context. They then choose to treat the underlying social context problem with psychotherapy or family counseling. This is a very different way of seeing things from the American tendency to attribute all symptoms to a biological dysfunction such as a chemical imbalance in the child's brain.

French child psychiatrists don't use the same system of classification of childhood emotional problems as American psychiatrists. They do not use the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM.According to Sociologist Manuel Vallee, the French Federation of Psychiatry developed an alternative classification system as a resistance to the influence of the DSM-3. This alternative was the CFTMEA (Classification Française des Troubles Mentaux de L'Enfant et de L'Adolescent), first released in 1983, and updated in 1988 and 2000. The focus of CFTMEA is on identifying and addressing the underlying psychosocial causes of children's symptoms, not on finding the best pharmacological bandaids with which to mask symptoms.

To the extent that French clinicians are successful at finding and repairing what has gone awry in the child's social context, fewer children qualify for the ADHD diagnosis. Moreover, the definition of ADHD is not as broad as in the American system, which, in my view, tends to "pathologize" much of what is normal childhood behavior. The DSM specifically does not consider underlying causes. It thus leads clinicians to give the ADHD diagnosis to a much larger number of symptomatic children, while also encouraging them to treat those children with pharmaceuticals.

The French holistic, psycho-social approach also allows for considering nutritional causes for ADHD-type symptoms—specifically the fact that the behavior of some children is worsened after eating foods with artificial colors, certain preservatives, and/or allergens. Clinicians who work with troubled children in this country—not to mention parents of many ADHD kids—are well aware that dietary interventions can sometimes help a child's problem. In the United States, the strict focus on pharmaceutical treatment of ADHD, however, encourages clinicians to ignore the influence of dietary factors on children's behavior.

And then, of course, there are the vastly different philosophies of child-rearing in the United States and France. These divergent philosophies could account for why French children are generally better-behaved than their American counterparts. Pamela Druckerman highlights the divergent parenting styles in her recent book, Bringing up Bébé. I believe her insights are relevant to a discussion of why French children are not diagnosed with ADHD in anything like the numbers we are seeing in the United States.

From the time their children are born, French parents provide them with a firm cadre—the word means "frame" or "structure." Children are not allowed, for example, to snack whenever they want. Mealtimes are at four specific times of the day. French children learn to wait patiently for meals, rather than eating snack foods whenever they feel like it. French babies, too, are expected to conform to limits set by parents and not by their crying selves. French parents let their babies "cry it out" if they are not sleeping through the night at the age of four months.

French parents, Druckerman observes, love their children just as much as American parents. They give them piano lessons, take them to sports practice, and encourage them to make the most of their talents. But French parents have a different philosophy of discipline. Consistently enforced limits, in the French view, make children feel safe and secure. Clear limits, they believe, actually make a child feel happier and safer—something that is congruent with my own experience as both a therapist and a parent. Finally, French parents believe that hearing the word "no" rescues children from the "tyranny of their own desires." And spanking, when used judiciously, is not considered child abuse in France.

As a therapist who works with children, it makes perfect sense to me that French children don't need medications to control their behavior because they... ( more at http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/suffer-the-children/201203/why-french-kids-dont-have-adhd?fb_action_ids=10200571130493665&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map={%2210200571130493665%22%3A10150652026799798}&action_type_map={%2210200571130493665%22%3A%22og.likes%22}&action_ref_map=[] )

Scientists supersize quantum mechanics

At http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100317/full/news.2010.130.html

Largest ever object put into quantum state.

Geoff Brumfiel

A quantum drum has become the first visible object to be put into a superposition of quantum states.A. Olsen/iStockphoto

A team of scientists has succeeded in putting an object large enough to be visible to the naked eye into a mixed quantum state of moving and not moving.

Andrew Cleland at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his team cooled a tiny metal paddle until it reached its quantum mechanical 'ground state' — the lowest-energy state permitted by quantum mechanics. They then used the weird rules of quantum mechanics to simultaneously set the paddle moving while leaving it standing still. The experiment shows that the principles of quantum mechanics can apply to everyday objects as well as as atomic-scale particles.

The work is simultaneously being published online today in Nature and presented today at the American Physical Society's meeting in Portland, Oregon¹.

According to quantum theory, particles act as waves rather than point masses on very small scales. This has dozens of bizarre consequences: it is impossible to know a particle's exact position and velocity through space, yet it is possible for the same particle to be doing two contradictory things simultaneously. Through a phenomenon known as 'superposition' a particle can be moving and stationary at the same time — at least until an outside force acts on it. Then it instantly chooses one of the two contradictory positions.

But although the rules of quantum mechanics seem to apply at small scales, nobody has seen evidence of them on a large scale, where outside influences can more easily destroy fragile quantum states. "No one has shown to date that if you take a big object, with trillions of atoms in it, that quantum mechanics applies to its motion," Cleland says.

There is no obvious reason why the rules of quantum mechanics shouldn't apply to large objects. Erwin Schrödinger, one of the fathers of quantum mechanics, was so disturbed by the possibility of quantum weirdness on the large scale that he proposed his famous 'Schrödinger's cat' thought experiment. A cat is placed in a box with a vial of cyanide and a radioactive source. If the source decays, it triggers a device that will break the vial, killing the cat. During the time the box is shut, Schrödinger argued, the cat is in a superposition of alive and dead — an absurdity as far as he was concerned.

Wonderful weirdness

Cleland and his team took a more direct measure of quantum weirdness at the large scale. They began with a a tiny mechanical paddle, or 'quantum drum', around 30 micrometres long that vibrates when set in motion at a particular range of frequencies. Next they connected the paddle to a superconducting electrical circuit that obeyed the laws of quantum mechanics. They then cooled the system down to temperatures below one-tenth of a kelvin.

At this temperature, the paddle slipped into its quantum mechanical ground state. Using the quantum circuit, Cleland and his team verified that the paddle had no vibrational energy whatsoever. They then used the circuit to give the paddle a push and saw it wiggle at a very specific energy.

Next, the researchers put the quantum circuit into a superposition of 'push' and 'don't push', and connected it to the paddle. Through a series of careful measurements, they were able to show that the paddle was both vibrating and not vibrating simultaneously... ( more at http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100317/full/news.2010.130.html )

References

• 1. O'Connell, A. D. et al. Nature doi:10.1038/nature08967 (2010).

Research impact: We need negative metrics too

At http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v497/n7450/full/497439a.html

• J. Britt Holbrook,
• Kelli R. Barr
• & Keith Wayne Brown

Nature 497, 439 (23 May 2013) - doi:10.1038/497439a

Published online: 22 May 2013

Research metrics are ambiguous — a paper may be cited for positive or negative reasons. Funding agencies and universities focus on positive impact in evaluating research, which increasingly includes alternative metrics ('altmetrics'; see Nature 493, 159 and Nature 495, 437–440; 2013). We think that researchers can generate a more complete account… ( more at http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v497/n7450/full/497439a.html )