Beta Technologies

The Portuguese National Post Service, CTT — Correios de Portugal, have launched their virtual presence in Second Life® today. Their region, dubbed World in Touch, is CTT’s latest project using a vast variety of technological innovations in order to keep in touch with their clients.

Developed by Beta Technologies, CTT’s virtual presence includes a virtual mobile phone from CTT’s daughter company, Phone-IX, a mobile operator in Portugal. The virtual mbile phone will allow two-way text messaging with users in Second Life and real life; it also includes some useful tools as “applets” installed on the virtual phone.

The region “World In Touch” is bilingual (Portuguese and English) and will allow visitors to get a glimpse of CTT’s products and services, spread across six different areas — “The World of CTT”, “World of Philately”, “World of Ecology”, “World of Citizenship”, “Imagination World” and “World of Fun”.

The visitors will land on a central spot, “The World Starts Here” where they are greeted by a message welcoming them, and from where they are able to move to any of the other spots.The  ”World of CTT” features a two-storey building with promotions of CTT products, information about CTT’s services, a visual calculator for parcel costs around the world, and the ability to get a Phone-IX Virtual Mobile Phone HUD.

The “World of Citizenship” completes the information on several panels and will feature information and notices on CTT’s many events. This area will also be open to third-party entities wishing to promote in-world events about citizenship, social issues, or non-profit initiatives.

The “World of Philately” is a building with two floors; on the ground floor, visitors can see and buy (in the real world) stamp collections or philatelic books (another collectable item). These can be browsed inside Second Life and the physical items delivered anywhere in the world — one of the first in-world eCommerce solutions for real items being sold inside Second Life, with L$, and delivered, free of charge, anywhere in the real word.

The “World of Ecology” has two parts. One is a 3D representation of the only cork stamp in the world, which was issued by CTT in November 2007. This representation will allow visitors to “walk inside” the elements depicted on the original stamp. The other part is a labyrinth with a leisure area.

The “World of Imagination” is designed to be a space for simulating, creating, and sharing concepts and innovative solutions, directly or indirectly related to stamps and the postal service, as well as do exhibitions and host contests.

The last area is “World of Fun”, which features an auditorium and some meeting rooms.

CTT/World in Touch also has a companion site, http://worldintouch.sl/. Second Life users can take snapshots inside Second Life and send them by email, using the built-in functions for that, to images@worldintouch.sl. This will allow SL snapshots to be embedded into a postcard or a stamp — a real stamp — which will be printed out and delivered to the users’ home. (Stamps will only be valid for Portugal).

Beta Technologies provided most of the buildings, and all application development for this project, but the island is staffed independently.

Official press release in Portuguese and English.

World in Touch also has a Facebook page.

Video above created by Halden Beaumont for CTT.

King’s College London has released the final report on the Theatron 3 project, which has been mostly developed by Beta Technologies for King’s Visualisation Lab. The report should prove invaluable for researchers and educators willing to engage in long-term projects in Second Life, and it is considered to be very objective, addressing the advantages and some of the barriers to institutional use of Second Life as a research tool.

As part of the ongoing work with CHAIA (University of Évora), Beta Technologies upgraded their long-term project for the virtual recreation of the city of Lisbon just prior to the 1755 earthquake which utterly destroyed most of the downtown.

As further research reveals more fascinating aspects of a Lost City that we don’t know any more, and with the technological advances of both the Second Live viewer (which now allows realistic shadows) and OpenSimulator (upgraded to 0.6.6 for this stage of the project), several old areas were remodelled, and a whole new section added (the Patriarchal Church and its piazza, of which there are no images or engravings from the period, only textual descriptions and some blueprints). Thanks to the untiring work of the research team at CHAIA, and the thorough expertise of Beta Technologies’ modelling team in the area of virtual archeology, the Baroque Lisbon that was lost can be revived in an immersive environment.

The video footage from inside OpenSimulator is amateurish and poor and just meant as an example; Beta Technologies hopes that adequate funding in the future might lead to the development of a professional documentary.

Images can also be seen on our portfolio gallery.

After the success of sponsoring the Hair Fair ‘09 event, Beta Technologies continues to support the space for a fund-raising event for the “Land of Dreams” charity, an organisation which tries to give children and teenagers with terminal diseases a last dream.

This time, on Saturday, July 11, 2009, at 10PM GMT (2 PM PDT), “Land of Dreams” will be doing a real-life Fado concert in a typical club in Alfama, in the old part of Lisbon. The show will be broadcasted live into Second Life, organised and promoted by CCV (Comunidade Cultural Virtual), in a virtual recreation of a Fado house, jointly done by Beta Technologies and CCV.

Second Life residents will obviously be able to contribute with their donations as well.

You can join us by teleporting to Beta Technologies’ island.

In an effort to support more fund-raising events and to raise awareness of Second Life as a very good platform to deploy cultural and artistic events to raise funds, Beta Technologies was delighted to help to promote the CCV project to bring “Land of the Dreams” to Second Life.

Some of the facilities at the Beta Business Park will be used to help the promotion.

About Land of the Dreams

The Land of the Dreams is a not for profit organization of wish granting in Portugal, founded in June 1, 2007, International Children’s Day, by a group of 33 founding members.

Formally, the Land of the Dreams Association (LDA) is a Private Institution of Social Solidarity, which main objective is to fulfill the dreams of children and adolescents diagnosed with chronic diseases and/or in terminal phases.

We believe in the inspiring and transforming power of small unique moments, as a way of improving the quality of life of children, family and friends who live closely with these realities.

On Land of the Dreams we believe the fulfillment of the dreams of these sick children help them to overcome the painfull processes they live in. We believe that “impossible” is a word created by our mind in order to limit our spirit’s actions. We believe in People and in Life.

We believe that all dreams are feasible.

We believe in the transforming power of dreams.

We believe that one child’s smile is worth every effort.”

This is the basic information about the Land of the Dreams Association. For more details, please visit the official website at http://www.terradossonhos.org.

The VCCA (Virtual Cultural Community Association) is preparing its entry into Second Life®, and relies on the help of all friends and all Second Life® communities, not only Portuguese, to collaborate in this project.

About CCV

CCV is a group of people who joined to promote art and culture on Second Life and Virtual Worlds.

This year’s Hair Fair ‘09 — the largest trade and charity fair in Second Life, with an estimated attendance of over 15,000 people, and having the goal to raise US$ 12,000 for the not-for-profit Locks of Love, is being sponsored by Beta Technologies, which has provided four sims for this year’s event, logistics, and a metrics system to keep track of the visitors.

What is Hair Fair?

Could you believe that a sophisticated pompadour, a jazzy bobbed hair or gothic pigtails can become real hair for real childrens?

In the United States alone, 2 million children and teenagers are stricken with diseases that imply partial or total loss of hair.  Alopecia is an auto-immune disorder that causes the hair follicles to shut down and these children end up with partial or total hair less.  Add to these all kids undergoing radiation and chemo treatments, children suffering from ectodermal dysplasia, loose anagen syndrome, trichotillomania, telogen effluvium, and traumatic injuries – and what you get is millions of kids who are deprived of one of the marks of normality – having hair. This is terribly traumatic for a growing kid.

Most adult wigs won’t really do the job – they’re too big and too grown up. So there are specialized wigs for kids – but they cost thousands of dollars. This is where virtual hair comes in.

In Second Life®, the fastest growing virtual world which already counts with 16 million users, economy is brisk. One of the virtual economy motors is the creation of objects for sale. And one of the most desired items is… Hair!  Since you are free to change your appearance, it’s not uncommon that users feature a glorious mane of red hair one day and a short, cosmopolitan blonde the next.  There are hundreds of hairstyle creators in Second Life, and the virtual job has already become a virtual art form on its own.

This is the fourth year in which the hair designers unite in a common event for getting money to sponsor wigs for children – the Hair Fair 2009. The Hair Fair is a 2-week event that congregates all that is Hair! – in Second Life. Spreading over an area of more than 2 million square feet, Hair Fair resembles a business fair… only the theme this year is ‘Candy Land’ and so you will be able to visit a landscape of sweets in which the merchants’ booths are gingerbread houses… all is possible in Second Life!

Merchants donate the proceedings of at least one hairstyle to the Hair Fair. Hair Fair staff is totally volunteer, and all proceedings are amassed and given to charity. To take care of the costs, Hair Fair is sponsored by real life companies doing business in Second Life – this year the sponsors are Beta Technologies, an US-Portuguese multinational virtual developers company, IllClan, another US company that specializes in state-of-the-art virtual video – machinima, and mechanizedLife, who has sponsored some of the intricate programming that the event requires. IllClan has produced the official videoclip (Click here) and Beta Technologies is lending the virtual area and logistics for this event which has taken almost a year to organize.

Hair Fair will open its liquorice gates at Saturday, the 20th of June, and will carry on until the 4th July. Besides all the multitude of hairstyles to see and buy, the Fair will have several events – music, parties – and a special event day – the Bandana Day, in which Second Life users are invited, for a day, to try the traumatic experience of leaving their gorgeous hairstyles in their virtual pockets and pass the day using a bandana on their heads – so that they can experience something akin to the suffering of millions of young lives.

How to reach Hair Fair ‘09?

• http://slurl.com/secondlife/HF%202009/78/223/28
• http://slurl.com/secondlife/Beta%20Business%20Park/195/81/28
• http://slurl.com/secondlife/Hair%20Fair%202009/91/182/23
• http://slurl.com/secondlife/Hair%20Fair/166/135/28

I-Learning Workshops, Immersive Learning for the Classroom and Workplace, is DHR New Media’s division for hosting workshops and seminars using the Second Life® platform for job training.

As part of their extensive area in Second Life, Beta Technologies was assigned to redevelop a Coffee Shop to be used as a scenario for the Talent for Growth language classes. Supervised by professional educators, Beta Technologies’ creative team presented DHR New Media with high-quality, realistic content for this first setting.