Avatars for those going mobile
In Second Life, I'm Markbaard Meredith, a pale, pointed-eared chap with a Captain Kirk tunic and acid wash jeans, who puffs a Dunhill pipe while shopping for new threads.
Fellow in-worlders, I am also looking for an airship to call home. Let me know if you want to sell.
For now, I am still able to push away from the Linden Lab's addictive metaverse, and reenter RL (real life) when supper's on.
But once virtual worlds hit mobile phones, perhaps no one will escape from a "life" free from foreclosures and inflation.
Punch Entertainment's Ego is a virtual world for teens already hooked on their mobile phones. The software is available to T-Mobile, Virgin Mobile, and Sprint subscribers, among others.
You can also play with your Ego "super-avatar" on the Web.
Unlike the highly articulated avatars of Second Life, Egos look like Tamagotchi Virtual Pets, with outsized heads. They employ very rudimentary animations.
You can change the clothes and jewelry your super-avatar wears. You also get your own room to decorate.
Rather than inhabiting your Ego as a parallel you, you raise it up as you would a virtual pet.
Through games of rock-paper-scissors and fights and debates, your Ego gets ahead of others in Punch's social battlefield.
The games win you social points, which unlock new characteristics and emotions. Punch calls these features "archetypes."
Your Ego grows up, passing through what the developers consider typical developmental stages: "High School, College, Professional, Career, and Enlightened."
No need to spoil the fun with Old Age, Viagra, and Death.
Punch plans to add new groups, sure to appeal to teens, with names like "Fight Club" and "Love Lounge."
A virtual store, for tricking out your Ego even more, is also in the works.
I expect I will have trouble keeping the new Solio Magnesium Edition hybrid solar charger away from my eco-conscious friend Kathy.
Kathy already powers her phone with a Solio charger. But the $200 Magnesium (Mg) provides more power than the original Solio, for the same amount of time in the sun.
Say your iPod kicks-off during an outing in the Blue Hills. If you fan out the handheld Mg while hiking along the Skyline Trail, above the tree line, an hour of sunlight will give you an hour of iPod play time.
An hour of sunshine on the Mg also yields 25 minutes of cellphone talk time.
The Solio comes with a bunch of adapters, so you will likely find the one you need to power your own handheld gadget.
The living room in our Milton saltbox home seemed stuffed with iPod docking stereo systems last week.
Two of the systems I looked at will make for decent dorm room and kitchen counter listening.
But neither will satisfy audiophiles with the space and the funds to accommodate higher-end systems.
I do have some love for the latest boombox from iLuv (i-luv.com), the i399.
The i399 (about $230) emitted a slight hiss from its speakers while I was playing with it last week - no matter what I did to try to isolate the box from interference, real or imagined.
The i399 has one useful feature: It comes with a Bluetooth module you can use to make the box double as a hands-free speakerphone.
You can also pair the i399 to your MP3 player, or your PC's music library, using the module, called a BluePin.
I also liked the i399's "ground effects" lighting.
Another system, the Tango X2 from XtremeMac (xtrememac.com), might be a better deal for the dorm. While not as good-looking as XtremeMac's other Tango and Luna models, the X2 (pictured here) is compact and solid, with a rubberized base.
The X2, which costs about $150, is not a Bluetooth device.
The i399 and X2 come with remote controls. But neither remote has a display, which makes navigating your iPod library at a distance impossible.
The Milford, Conn.-based makers of the ProBatter (probatter.com) baseball simulators recently added the Pittsburgh Pirates to their lineup. The Sox, Yankees, and Mets are already using the system.
The ProBatter PX2 pits real-life batters against high-resolution projections of real pitchers, on the mound, 60 feet, 6 inches away. The PX2 spits out balls from a hole in its 8-by-10-foot screen, at speeds up to 100 miles per hour.
Fastballs, sinkers, curves, and sliders are all part of the PX2's repertoire.
Prices for the PX2 start at about $45,000. 