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Archive for the ‘virtual keyboard’ Category

Virtual desktops may soon be too cheap and easily deployed to resist, particularly as cost-cutting takes a firm hold of data centers around the world.

The latest research from IDC indicates that the savings from not having to purchase, provision, maintain and support full-blown PCs for every user is likely to be substantial in the coming years. The company’s latest report “Virtualizing the Desktop Part 2: Client-Hosted Virtualization Leadership Grid,” indicates that 2009 will be the proof-of-concept year for the technology with large-scale deployments in 2010.

Leading developers such as VMware are already claiming to have hit some breakthroughs on a few of the sticker elements of virtual desktop deployment. This week, the company launched the View 3 initiative, aimed at fostering the mass dissemination of virtual desktops across numerous user groups. The company has essentially junked the single-instance DV platforms of the past with a hypervisor-based solution that uses a single base image to clone multiple desktops that can still be custom-tweaked by users.

Meanwhile, IBM wants to show that it can provide a DV platform without help from Microsoft. The company has teamed up with Canonical and Virtual Bridge to provide a Linux-based system that the company says will cost half as much as a comparable Windows solution. The system bundles IBM’s Open Collaboration Client Solution with Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux and VB’s virtual desktop software.

But if you’re looking for rapid deployment, probably the quickest today is the Pano device from a company called Nebulas Solutions Group. The company has developed a 12-by-12-inch box that sits on your desk and provides direct server access for a mouse, keyboard, display, speakers and peripherals. There’s no memory, OS, drivers or moving parts and consumes only 3 percent of the power of a normal desktop. The company claims a 70 percent TCO reduction.

Necessity is the mother of invention, and tough economic times breed cost-effective solutions. Desktop virtualization’s energy-conscious numbers simply will be too great to ignore in the coming year.

For those of you who are still in the dark, a Virtual Assistant, or VA, is an executive level, administrative professional who works from his/her own office to support clients using some of the latest available technology. The Internet has brought many skilled professionals out of the corporate environment and back into their homes, enabling them to create a better work-life balance, while still performing in the roles they love. The VA is one such professional. Working from their home-based offices and making use of the Internet, telephone, fax and email, VAs are able to offer small and medium-sized businesses a quality of administrative support, previously only available to the corporate giants, in a cost-effective manner.

A Virtual Assistant’s service offering may vary, but you are guaranteed to find one out there who is able to perform the exact functions your business needs. You will find that hiring a VA will REVOLUTIONIZE your business.

1. A VA brings invaluable work experience and training to the table. You may even find that they will teach you a trick or two. Be it software, hardware or grammar, you can be sure that your VA knows his/her stuff!

2. Because VAs run a business themselves, they have a unique understanding of what your needs as a small business owner are. They will be able to assist and advise you on matters pertaining to Marketing, Branding, Web Design and e-Commerce. What avenues of advancement have you not yet explored with your business? Are you sure that you have all your bases covered? Your VA can help.

3. Get organized. If you attend conferences and AGMs I’ll bet you have a ton of business cards cluttering up your desk. Let your VA scan and enter them into a database for you. Future mail campaigns will be a breeze with a ready-made contact list all neatly stored on a CD.

4. Is there a special project boiling over on the back-burner that you’ve been wanting to do? Your VA can help with research, planning and coordination, leaving you free to continue your focus on your core-business function.

5. If you’re too busy to remember important dates, anniversaries and meetings, your VA, with a tailored reminder service, can assist. From ordering flowers for your mother, to sending a thank you note to a client and even arranging gift baskets for investor, they aim to please.

6. Conceptualizing marketing items can be agonizing if you don’t have the know-how, equipment or creative flair. Most VAs have a wide range of software packages at their finger-tips, as well as experience in creating flyers, brochures and business cards for their own company’s. Put your ideas to your VA, they will dazzle you with the results.

7. Planning a much-needed break with your family? Let your VA take care of the details; flights, car hire, accommodation, even a list of “must-see” places of interest. Your VA can handle it all, down to the very last detail.

8. If you’re on the road a lot, chances are your cell-phone is often out of signal range and there is no one in your office to take a message should that all-important client call. With the call answering service provided by many VAs, you can divert your calls and rest assured that your client will receive the personal touch rather than dealing with an annoying automated answering device. Your messages will be passed on to you in order of importance and you won’t need to sort through lengthy messages on voicemail.

9. Conferences and networking functions can take a lot out of a small business owner. It is imperative that you attend and make a dazzling show of it, but in order to do so, you have to neglect existing clients. This will no longer be a problem with a VA. They can handle all your conferencing arrangements; table-hire, banner design and creation, even gift bags for client samples. It’s that easy!

10. If you have a lot of correspondence, and you’re a bit of a “keyboard klutz”, your VA can help. Many VAs offer a fully digitized transcription service. Simply record your memos/letters onto your computer and email them to your VA, s/he will have it neatly typed and ready for mailing in no time! Other VAs may provide dictated typing as a service, so that urgent e-mail is just a phone-call away.

As life moves online so does crime. Is there such a thing as virtual rape?

Definition: Rape is a form of assault where an individual forces another to have sexual intercourse against that person’s will.

Does this apply to avatars? Technically, avatars are codes, software programs controlled from a keyboard. They look like humanoids, but in fact they are still software programs. A person with the ability to create and manipulate coding can in fact “hack” into anther code (avatar) and take control of what that avatar does.

If a person does take control of anther’s avatar and directs the avatar to have sex with someone that they otherwise would not have sex with — does that make it rape?

A thesis written by Wesley Cooper of the University of Alberta believes

“Although a virtual rape is not a rape, it can be a betrayal of the values that a virtual community builds itself around, and a humiliating insult to the player whose character is victimized.”

However in Julian Biddell’s “A Rape in Cyberspace” she says

“Where before I’d found it hard to take virtual rape seriously, I

now was finding it difficult to remember how I could ever NOT have taken it seriously. “

The action was an assault and it did indeed force an individual’s avatar to have sexual intercourse against the live person’s will. Rape?

In most jurisdictions there can be no rape without penetration – which seems like an impossible concept in virtual worlds. Yet stalking and harassment definitely exists and laws now include internet stalking and harassment as a crime punishable by law.

As business and social interactions online increases, so does the need for mutually agreed upon law and or conventions covering property, copyright, contracts, crime (including sex crimes), tax, privacy, gambling and money laundering. Already US tax laws are being considered and drafted based on the dollars earned ‘in-world’ and taken out of the virtual world.

When a “crime” happens where is the jurisdiction?

If the victim is in the US but the attacker is in Australia, where is the case to be dealt with?

Can the owner of a game / virtual world dictate certain laws to apply to gamers?

What are the consequences of letting private companies make laws for millions of people?