How many of us have actually wondered how it would feel like be in another person's shoes, or how would it feel like to be a completely different person altogether? With today's advances in the gaming industry, that possibility has now become a reality.
In 2003, a company named Linden Research Inc. developed a "game" that might have changed the future of interactive gaming. Second Life is an Internet based Virtual World, where users can socialize, connect and create using voice and text chat. Users are able to interact with each other through motional avatars from which they can explore, socialize with other users, participate in individual or group activities and create and trade items and services between one another.
While Second Life is sometimes referred to as a game, this description does not fit the standard definition. It does not have points, scores, winners or losers, levels, an end-strategy, or most of the other characteristics of games. It's a stretch to call Second Life a game because the "Residents", as players prefer to be called, create everything. Unlike in other virtual worlds, Second Life's technology lets people create objects like clothes or buildings from scratch, LEGO-style, rather than simply pluck avatar outfits or ready-made buildings from a menu. There is no set storyline, and players are free to do as they wish.
While Second Life may spark a revolution in the Gaming industry, what social repercussions will come about as a result? As it is, there has been much concern about addiction to online games. Children and adults alike can sit in front of a monitor for hours at end, playing multi-player games such as World of Warcraft for example. A certain few have speculated that this surge in online gaming/interaction would result in the weakening of social ties and relationships as it would decrease human interaction. At the end of the day, it is at the discretion of the individual, if it should be used or abused.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Brief History & Evolution Of The Internet
The Internet (Information Network) has now become a "network of networks" that consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government networks, which together carry various information and services alike. But how exactly did this vast network come about?
In the 1960's, the Department of Defense wing of the United States government sought to create a network that would still function in the event of a disaster, be it natural or man-made. It sought to create advances in the field of information storage and retrieval. With the assistance of some graduate students, ARPANET, the world's first operational packet switching network, and the predecessor of the global Internet, was soon developed. Packet Switching, a communications paradigm,allows a system to use one communication link to communicate with more than one machine by assembling data into packets. If information could not be sent directly, it would navigate around traffic to find an alternate route.
TCP/IP the first two network protocols to be defined, emerged in 1978. Consisting of a set of layers, each layer solves a set of problems involving the transmission of data, and provides a well-defined service to the upper layer protocols based on using services from some lower layers. By 1982, the U.S. Department of Defense made TCP/IP the standard for all military computer networking.
It is generally agreed upon that the turning point of the Internet began with the introduction of the Mosaic web browser in 1993, which was a graphical browser developed by a team at the NCSA. Mosaic's graphical interface, which was primarily text-based, became the preferred interface for accessing the Internet. It was eventually overtaken by Marc Andreessen Netscape Navigator, and then was soon displaced with the development of Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
Today, the Internet has become part of everyday life. It has grown to include more services, e-mail, online chatting and file-sharing among the few. As of 30th September 2007, it is estimated that 1.244 billion people now use the internet regularly.
In the 1960's, the Department of Defense wing of the United States government sought to create a network that would still function in the event of a disaster, be it natural or man-made. It sought to create advances in the field of information storage and retrieval. With the assistance of some graduate students, ARPANET, the world's first operational packet switching network, and the predecessor of the global Internet, was soon developed. Packet Switching, a communications paradigm,allows a system to use one communication link to communicate with more than one machine by assembling data into packets. If information could not be sent directly, it would navigate around traffic to find an alternate route.
TCP/IP the first two network protocols to be defined, emerged in 1978. Consisting of a set of layers, each layer solves a set of problems involving the transmission of data, and provides a well-defined service to the upper layer protocols based on using services from some lower layers. By 1982, the U.S. Department of Defense made TCP/IP the standard for all military computer networking.
It is generally agreed upon that the turning point of the Internet began with the introduction of the Mosaic web browser in 1993, which was a graphical browser developed by a team at the NCSA. Mosaic's graphical interface, which was primarily text-based, became the preferred interface for accessing the Internet. It was eventually overtaken by Marc Andreessen Netscape Navigator, and then was soon displaced with the development of Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
Today, the Internet has become part of everyday life. It has grown to include more services, e-mail, online chatting and file-sharing among the few. As of 30th September 2007, it is estimated that 1.244 billion people now use the internet regularly.
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