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Jan 14, 2003, 12:25pm

Well, from the pictures you can see that they are using some particle
features in their graphic engine (can be seen eg. at the jetpacks
blast), which will then require a DirectX7 capable graphic card - those
are Geforce 2+ and Radeon 7000+ (for Dx8 it would be GF3+, I think).

In AW, you have as a fallback the software emulation, something they
obviously do not have in There, thus the Dx7 capable cards as a minimum.
However, even the recent onboard chips (which is, btw, the vast majority
of graphic equipment that is sold in the USA) will fulfill Dx7
requirements - how fast it is then, is another question, though...

Whether you have now 800MHz or 733MHz is more or less an academical
question - differences are too small to make a noticeable difference, as
a rule of thumb, a human notices only a double CPU speed as "definitely
faster" (wheras the mainboard settings and drivers alone can make a
bigger difference than CPUs of double/half speed). I'd rather made a
difference in processor architecture, eg. "required Pentium3/500+ /
Celeron xxx+), which would be a more sophisticated and senseful
selection when it comes eg. to SSE/2 processor capabilities or caching
speed and technology.

But anyway - with these requirements, There will neither target the mass
market (which does not have such an equipment) nor the gamers (which
will smile about these requirements and demand a better, actual,
technology), and the number of people in between won't make up the
150,000 customers they need (an amazingly high number, btw, almost
higher than any VR community that has existed yet, but, given the
graphics, it is quite (sub)standard).

The project aims, with no doubt, at ecommerce, and there has not been a
single product yet who even came near a break-even following such an
concept. Potential buyers do not bother to start their computer to go
shopping, neither will they want to pay 10$/month as an entrance fee to
a shop. Funny is their intonation of "women", because they state a well
known fact (for many years, there has been research about it even years
ago already) as a new finding; in ALL interaction-oriented chat worlds,
you will find more women than men, and in ALL competition-oriented
worlds, you will find more men than women - and nevertheless, both types
do not attract the other gender in more than marginal numbers. IMO, a
classic marketing attempt to blow sand into investors eyes.

I had been invited to There many months ago, and the proposal by then
was even more and more open ecommerce oriented; I personally do not like
this (when I want to buy something, I go into a shop, but not into a VR
world where I cannot look close at and touch an article) and so it did
not raise my interest at all. Thinking more about it, there was also a
project of Randy Farmer once which pursued the same goal - I guess some
of those VR projects have started before the ecommerce bubble bursted
and only come now, after years, up with what they were working on. They
will tinker their original ideas to match the current market more, but
basically, these are all still old ideas and won't survive a significant
amount of time in this form.






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Apr 9, 2003, 7:57pm

[View Quote] On the other hand, AW is most likely playing "catch up" with newer start
ups like Plastic Planet and Cyboria who have recently sailed past the AW
browser in technology and features - many of which are from the AW
Wishlist and were incorporated where AW did not.
<<<

I agree. Cyboria, for example demonstrate their forseeing future vison,
extraordinary efforts and innovative technology on their website:

http://www.cyboria.com/

Cyboria has closed. The project was fun while it lasted but the costs to
create the software more than twice exceeded what the software was
bringing in. I may release the source code so that the venture may
continue under some type of open source project. Check back later for my
decision on this matter.
My personal opinion is that all 3D VR Applications are going under. The
only survivors that will lead the market are http://www.there.com and
http://www.thesimsonline.com
I personally will be using both of the above mentioned sites and have
been beta testing both for a while now. Once you see what these systems
have to offer, you will probably agree with my opinion of how they are
going to take over the markets completely.
So much more is available in these new software packages. The market is
in for big changes.
To those that supported Cyboria, I am grateful. Once we review the
source code for the possibility of an Open Source release, we may put
the main server back
online, with all original citizenships still intact.
Thanks,
Cyboria Development Team
<<<

Apr 5, 2003, 8:43pm

According to the public domain registry records, the domain name
aw-europe.com is registered since February 2003 to:

Emmanuel Gruijs
Fazantenkamp 280
3607 Maarssen
NL / Netherlands
emmanuel at emmanuelgruijs.com

By following the links on the website, we learn that he is the director
of

e-mergingeurope.com

and also the owner of the domain

3d-internet.nl

Typing in http://aw-europe.com (slightly misconfigured...) leads you to
the hosting company.

Since the prices for the universes and worlds are about the same as AW,
I would consider this to be an offical universe, especially since they
state:

AW-Europe is official distributor for Activeworlds in Europe.
<<<

(needs to be "a" distributor, since there is no exclusive one)

---------------------

The funny thing is that despite the name "europe" in the name, the
website is in dutch, english and french only, skipping the major
language in Europe (german), and, (looking at western europe only), at
least 2 important others (italian, spanish/portugese).





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Apr 15, 2003, 12:45pm

This has been reported in the beta newsgroup (eg. by Katherine) a couple
of times already. As well as CD does not work reliably (or at all) when
one is not standing on a horizontal ground.



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Apr 15, 2003, 9:18pm

Uninstall and install again, but make sure to run the autoconfiguration
on your connection when you start first.

429 is an "unable to connect" error, either because your internet
connection does not work, is overloaded (eg. when you run a file sharing
program and it takes up all available connection slots) or the AW
program is incorrectly configured (eg. when you need a proxy server and
have to configured it or vice versa).




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Apr 16, 2003, 10:23am

Strange...


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May 7, 2003, 5:25pm

3000 is the right one in a default setting <g>.

Works fine with various dsl lines here, btw. :-)



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May 7, 2003, 8:36pm

Behind a firewall, only one (1) computer will work with the default
setting, for additonal ones, you must enable a different port on the
router and also in the aw program (as in the example, eg. port=877)



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May 7, 2003, 8:37pm

Works for me both on T-DSL and with QSC.



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May 7, 2003, 8:51pm

Hmm, maybe one of the development team can say if the trigger connection
is coming in via another port (similar to DirectPlay8 where you need
effectively 2 different ports forwarded)?





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May 7, 2003, 8:39pm

Did you try to set a different receiving directory? In many cases I had
this until I manually selected a different (non-root) directory. No idea
why it happens, but AW does not like root directories and also
occasionally not ones that worked just the day before fine.




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May 7, 2003, 8:49pm

Also try these programs when you think it is a registry settings
problem, both have proven to be quite useful. :-)

http://www.hms.com/ispeed.asp
http://www.voodooclub.de/dfue-speed.html




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Jul 5, 2003, 1:48pm

The citizen name is not part of the stored information, only the citizen
number. :-)



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Jul 21, 2003, 4:21am

Actually, since the issue was brought up, it is, in fact, a question
which information may and can be logged and stored and which not.

The USA has low privacy and data protection laws, however, the case is
different for countries of the EU on one hand and individual countries
in Europe with even more sophisticated laws on the other hand.

For Germany, for example, I would classify all broadcasting of private
conversation (which is even private conversation held in public places)
WITHOUT the consent of the people speaking, a violation of existing
laws, also the storage of information that can be connected to an
individuum (eg. visitors logfiles with IP number etc.).

If the people give their explicite permission (not implicite by using
the software alone), it would be allowed, though.

So, at least for universe and world owners located in specific
countries, it might be a good idea to inform their visitors that
conversations and dates/times/lengths of visits are publicly broadcasted
and stored - or to refrain from such attempts in general.





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Jul 21, 2003, 1:15pm

Active Worlds is a privately owned company, Also it is a company set in
the US. As long as the software itself isn't breaking any of the US
internet laws then its pretty much anything goes, Country laws don't
apply to the software itself, and what goes on in it :)
<<<

I am afraid not so - and I do not mean the countries who claim
legislative even when an offer is _accessible_ in this country (eg. to
block certain IP numbers for their citizens or pursue offending
foreigners when they should enter the country).

The world _owners_ are _not_ a part of the AW company (except for AW
owned worlds).
The world owners only use the AW universe server to bring their own
offer online (like you use a provider to get online yourself) - in such
cases, for the world owners, the laws of the country, in which they
live, apply.



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Jul 21, 2003, 1:30pm

It would now be different, when we would consider AW to be a private
"club" where only members have access - however, it is not since
everybody who wants it can become a member as soon as he paid the
membership fee.

The problem lies here in the detail - whether it is an publicly
accessible offer or not.

A DIFFERENT thing are, for example, "private" worlds, where access is
granted on a case by case base (eg. available only for certain citizen
numbers) - but even there the condition would be that you inform people
right away about the broadcast and storage of personal data (eg. talks).
When they agree and become a "member" of this world, it is ok - when
they not agree, they would have to be rejected as a "member". Some
countries will here require an explicite, not implicite agreement.

Countries with high privacy and personal rights barriers in this regard
are a couple of European countries, so this does not apply, in this
general meaning, to world located (means: owned and/or operated) in
other countries.

This all is probably an academical discussion and the chance of any
lawsuits is quite minimal, but to be on the "safe" side, inform your
visitors about any recordings or storages - using a bot to simply
transform words without storing them and without broadcasting them to
_another_ world (where people who are not actual members of _this_
world) would not be a problem in this regard, though.

Ultimatively, the world owner must decide him/her/themselves what to do
(and what to risk), as with every guestbook or chat room also - this is
not really a typical AW problem. :-)








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Jul 21, 2003, 4:32pm

Whois info for, twisted-inc.com:

Registrant:
twisted-inc.com
133 N. Wisconsin St
Berlin, WI 54923
US

Domain name: TWISTED-INC.COM

Administrative Contact:
Szatkowski, Lynn ardingcay at msn.com
133 N. Wisconsin St
Berlin, WI 54923
US
920-361-3580
Technical Contact:
Manager, Domains support at netfirms.com
5255 Yonge St
800
Toronto, ON M2N 6P4
CA
+1.4166612100 Fax: +1.4166610700



Registration Service Provider:
Netfirms, Inc., support at netfirms.com
+1.4166612100
This company may be contacted for domain login/passwords,
DNS/Nameserver changes, and general domain support questions.



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Jul 22, 2003, 6:44pm

It is not needed to log telegrams to see who sent when a telegram to
whom, and that is all what needed to be checked. :-)



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Jul 25, 2003, 8:43pm

Even with 9.0a, the gesture buttons flickered when the world attributes
changed (you see it better when you change them every 5 seconds for
example), it might be something that needs to be addressed with the next
browser version.







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Aug 27, 2003, 2:05pm

Current Time: Wednesday, 27-Aug-2003 17:57:47 CEST
Server uptime: 277 days 7 hours 46 minutes 6 seconds

:-)


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Aug 27, 2003, 4:14pm

Actually, it is a celeron 900 with 256 RAM only, runs smtp/pop, dns and
http. In former years I had also P200 and P266 with 64 and 128 MB, which
usually ran without reboot until I had to replace some hardware part
<g>.




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Aug 28, 2003, 10:49am

Not bad at all :-)

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Oct 7, 2003, 3:29pm

As a matter of fact, you can skip the "built timestamp" when saving,
then loading objects, and create a world with all objects missing the
build date <g>, I have not tried yet to leave out the owner (should
default to 0 then) or object name.

You can delete such invalid items also in a text editor (make a propdump
and delete all lines starting with "0 " (which would be owner 0 then) -
for those who do not have a bot who can check automatically.

In the server logfile, you can see who uploaded the wrong objects and
ask them to improve their upload program. :-)



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Oct 12, 2003, 4:44pm

Being able to steal... does not make the theft ok...
<<<

The process of "stealing" requires that the item in question is gone
after the action (in possession of another person), but this certainly
is not the case here.
In this regard, Andras could not have committed any "theft", but has
obtained a so-called "copy", in this case even an identical one.



[View Quote]

Oct 13, 2003, 12:34pm

The system logs every single hit to it. Your ISP is required by law to
provide your personal information to us should we request such.
<<<

Sorry, but wrong again: in almost all countries, only a court order can
do that - and a court order will only be issued when there is ample
proof for any violation (in many countries, simple log entries alone are
*not* considered to proof anything). Not to speak that a serious
offender would use a mixer/proxy anyway.

As with the lawsuits filed by and on behalf of music companies against
users of KAZAA, we may perhaps file lawsuits upon anyone entering our
ASP server unlawfully and using that illegal entry to harass our company
and/or our customers.
<<<

And after that, you declare them terrorists and send airplanes? :-) BTW,
I am sorry to burst your bubble here, but to pursue any copyright
violation, you must be in possession of at least the circulation rights.
Next, simply entering an unprotected website without inflicting damage
does not constitute any crime or even violation in most countries in the
world (copying material does not inflict any damage per se - only for
the holder of the circulation rights).

What RIAA is doing is a different pair of shoes (and has a different
underlying intention) - and it is more than unlikely that they will
succeed in the medium and long term anyway.


Also, what you write about images in a cache is almost nonsense, since
all images used in the AW program are forehand *publicly* accessible
from a website, in fact, they MUST be publicly accessible or they would
not work at all. This how the system works and everybody who uses the AW
program and is aware of that (that it is not *possible* to protect them
and that they *must* be publicly accessible). And this goes double to
artists who will know very well how the system works.
The same is, btw, true for sequences and sounds, for which the system,
in the way it is engineered, does not provide any protection at all and
have, thus, to be considered publicly accessible too.


File by law a copyright form and send each original image to the library
of congress as required by law prior to any publishing!
<<<

Nonsense - see my previous post.

How to have FUN
<<<

YES! We come closer to the point of everything - FUN is the key here for
by far the most people, not commercialism. It should also be realized
that AW in its current implementation is widely NOT MEANT and generally
NOT SUITED to make money by contributing artwork. Nevertheless it can
work, amongst understandeable people who are willing to reward a good
work, but these conditions cannot be considered to be the pre-condition.
As I have written before, striking with a law club will not help at all,
not because of the uncertain legal situation and not because of the
multinational nature.


But, what I am mainly wondering when reading these posts here is why
people constantly have to assure the others how lawful they are
themselves, how meritful and how successful in their commercial ventures
and how bad the others are, how unlawful, how bad, how unethical and
what else there is - and this seems to be what the newsgroup is for (or
has become?).

As if the community of AW has nothing else to worry about, as if the
people who donate time and money to the community would not have other
objectives, and as if the constant struggle about whose sand tower is
the tallest (there is probably even a world "SandGor" who deals with
this topic...) was the most important thing in the world that can be
discussed here.

Everybody is whining that the AW community is detoriating, yet almost
everybody gladly goes the extra mile to hit another member. What about
concentrating all powers to induce improvement, to change things and
make them better? And THEN, AFTER that is achieved, there will be a lake
big and vital enough that everybody can catch all the fish he wants even
without picking on the "competition" or "dear neighbour".

But as I see it, quite a few people are not able or willing to think or
act beyond the next door neighbour and immediately engage in close range
combat whenever another person comes into view.

I think it is a shame, and sadly, there is a lot of truth in the words
of another group member who claimed that the threads here do have an
extraordinary entertainment value.








[View Quote]

Oct 13, 2003, 3:24pm

You fail to be aware of U.S. law.
<<<

Which, apart from considerations of this specific ruling, does not help
when the person in question does not live in the USA (for example,
requests from Verizon to turn over data from an ISP in Germany was not
even considered by the court due to lack of evidence) - or is using a
mixer or out-of-state proxy.

As for copyrights.. It is a U.S. Laws which is adopted throughout
treaties through all free nations.
<<<

Fact is, that the USA respected the international treaties as one of the
last countries - the USA joined the Berner Treaty (const. 1886) eg. in
the year 1989.

I think the U.S. is showing the world it has no limits in reaching out
to defend American's rights.
<<<

Fact is, that more and more independent countries refuse these
(imperialistic) attempts to impose views of an own law system on other
countries. In the medium run already the USA will either have to stand
singled out or find a common sense with other nations (which is what
international treaties are for anyway).

Wisdom dictates not to steal
<<<

Wisdom says also: it is not stealing, but a copyright infringement.
Attempts to shift opinion in a particular direction by words of
obfuscation or newspeak may have a big tradition, but doesn't make a
wrong case right.

Oct 13, 2003, 3:35pm

I bet next thing will be singing in the shower; soon neigbours will
report you to the musiccops, and if you have not paid the fees for the
songs you have sung, you will do time in jail
<<<

I hope you are careful in the public now already, since Big Brothers
eyes portrait you good enough to read your lips, do not dare to even
speak rhymes or other text pieces that are protected <g>.

And for music - over here, there are already large groups of people who
have stopped buying either protected or all music in an act of protest -
the music industry just shot herself in the foot and will not see
revenues considerably raising again. Apart from all other reasons,
people simply have less money to spend (only the wages of managers, but
not the ones of workers raised in the past years, but a manager will not
buy as many CDs as 200 workers, although he earns the same), and, even
more important, spend their money on much more different things than 10
or 20 years ago (eg. portable phones, internet access, branded
mainstream articles).

Oct 13, 2003, 3:39pm

Umm - you are aware, that the USA has them already (latest example: the
challenge of MS about the IExplorer link-start capability)? And, who,
you think, started the initiative to introduce these patents in the EU?
:-)



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Oct 13, 2003, 3:40pm

You are right - I will pull myself right now out of the discussion swamp
and rather enjoy it speechless. :-)




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Oct 18, 2003, 3:20pm

Techno,

I am sorry that I cannot help here and hope that you find support
from some AW community members in your area! I only can assure you
that I have no doubt in that what you reported is correct. I lift my
(virtual) hat before such an amount of kindness and expressed humanity!

I am, personally, fully aware that, what happened, is not typical for
the American police system - however, when I turn on the TV here, it is
very likely, that, when reports about the USA police are shown, an
incident like this will be in the report - and make it, for people over
here, rather a "typical" incident.

On one of my visits in the USA, I experienced myself that (at least the
officers who came after me) act first and ask then - making the educated
and "objective" assumption that this here is a rare exception, a bit
questionable <g>.

I hope that, after all, you will experience justice!

KF



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