Avatar pupeteering by on-screen manipulation

More on the “Puppeteering to Second Life” anouncement,that tells us about the “ability to add movement through the expressive puppeteering technology … allowing residents … to enhance their interaction without having to access dedicated animation software…” Soon, we’ll be able to “simply grab an avatar’s body part and move it in the desired way.”

Computer World elaborates on this after a first hand demo @ Siggraph 2006:

“Apparently, players will soon be able to pose their online avatars by moving and manipulating body parts through a very intuitive, point-and-click interface. Not long afterwards, they’ll be able to create personalized animations using the technology, saving them for hotkey-use in future sessions. While it’s certainly not the most original technology being shown off at the show — and there is sure to be an uproar in congressional districts when folks realize that groping will be as easy to do in game as swinging a mouse to and fro — it’s sure to have a lot of impact on the hordes of people and companies that make real money off of the virtual world.”

3-D Web Mashup Mania

Ajax, javascript, xml, 3D, web apps… all in the same software dev library. It’s called Ajax3d, and it combines on X3D “…the ISO standard for networked 3D graphics… with the ease of use … of Ajax.” It’s developed by Media Machines, whose experience with interactive 3-D communities can be traced back to the early days of VRML.

Can this help get fragments of Second Life into a browser? Will this open up ways to replay scenes from SL in real 3-D, instead of having to capture video? Can this lead to a real mashup between