blog@Yantrajaal

James Cameron's Avatar is old wine in a brand new and spectacularly brilliant bottle. There is nothing new in the plot -- especially for those of us in India who have been following land acquisition battles in the tribal belt -- that pits the indigenous people as the underdogs who are battling to save their forest-based way of life from the clutches of a global ( universal ?) megacorp. Latched on to this main plot is a cameo sub-plot of a cute little love story between two individuals Jake Scully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) from the two opposing camps, which again is nothing to write home about. But what makes the movie remarkable and memorable is the concept of transferring identity and consciousness ( "soul" ? ) across two bodies -- one of which is a genuine human and the other a synthetic Na'vi humanoid. Cameron has referred to this synthetic humanoid as an Avatar which periodically receives -- and is animated by -- the hero, Jake's soul. The...

Massively multi-user on-line role playing games (MMORPGs) may, in India today, be restricted to teenagers who have access to broadband but there are two powerful reasons why this is about to change : first – broadband is becoming ubiquitous, more so with 3G and WiMAX on the horizon and second – the teenagers themselves are becoming adults and hence significant ! But the advent of MMORPGs like World of Warcraft and EverQuest are harbingers of a far more subtle but significant shift in the way we humans perceive ourselves and the world around us. If you think that social networks like Orkut, Facebook, MySpace and professional networks like LinkedIN have changed the way people know and keep in touch with each other then 3D virtual worlds like Second Life represent the next generation ( or the third generation !) in relationship management. Based on the technology that is responsible for the intense and immersive 3D experience of MMORPG, and offering the flexibility and personalisatio...

I had the pleasure and privilege of speaking at INFOCOMM0809 Conferance organised by Ananda Bazar and Business World at the ITC Sonar @ Calcutta Imagineering - Virtual Worlds View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: virtual worlds )