Infinite Mind Moving to SL

Wanted to pass along an announcement about the national public radio program, Infinite Mind, and its plans to move its operations into Second Life (permanently, apparently).

The Infinite Mind launches in 3-D cyberspace

John Hockenberry hosts live broadcast featuring Kurt Vonnegut, Suzanne Vega, Howard Rheingold

Cambridge, MA – The Infinite Mind, public radio’s most honored and most listened-to health and science show, is opening a virtual world headquarters and broadcast facility in the 3-D virtual world Second Life. “This represents an unprecedented leap forward for broadcasting into virtual reality and 3-D on-line communities,” said Bill Lichtenstein, president of the Peabody Award-winning media company Lichtenstein Creative Media, which produces The Infinite Mind. “This first step ‘through the looking glass’ into the virtual world, will allow The Infinite Mind, through its on-line facilities located on an expansive virtual complex, the opportunity to reach a vast new global audience.” Visitors will be able to listen to audio and video, attend live mixed reality events, and participate in interactive community education and outreach. The one-hour weekly public radio program explores the art and science of the human mind, brain and behavior. The Infinite Mind is the first regularly scheduled national media broadcast to establish an ongoing presence within 3-D web space.

(Full disclosure: I was asked by the Infinite Mind folks to be interviewed for a program about virtual worlds leading up to the launch of their sim and its accompanying broadcasts. I was impressed by their un-MSM approach to what virtual worlds are and can be. Information about where to find their broadcasts in meatspace can be found here.)

Comments

[Jerry Paffendorf]

1.

Awesome. A little whle back public radio's Radio Open Source program recorded an episode live inside Second Life. There's a short piece of machinima about it here.

Anecdote: I met one of the Infinite Mind hosts during the recent SL Relay for Life (that raised US$40,000 btw, for those who missed it), standing in an Irish bar in a recreation of Dublin, listening to an avatar on stage who was streaming live guitar-playing and singing into SL. So cool how tangled and accessible all these efforts are right now. It's good times.

[Jerry Paffendorf]

2.

BTW I can't wait to see Vonnegut inworld. I'm totally showing up as a Tralfamadorian!

[Magister Foran]

3.

I'm quite excited to see that... and I can see this as one of several media companies doing a similar move in the future, including filiations of the biggest players.

Moot courts like the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court will be next.

[Thomas Malaby]

4.

Update: The Infinite Mind is now doing a series of broadcasts about Second Life and virtual worlds in their regular weekly NPR show. They can be heard here.