Monthly Archives: December 2009

Avatar Apparel Internships in OpenSim with Fashion Research Institute

Applications are being accepted for Winter 2010 internships with the Fashion Research Institute.

These internships will begin January 25th and run until April 30.  Interns are expected to commit a minimum of 6-8 hours a week to the internship, with formal training sessions provided on Monday evenings from 6-9 pm ET.  Interns must commit to being present at these training sessions.  Instruction is provided only in English.

At the end of their internships, interns’ work will be presented in a virtual fashion runway show, with models which the interns will style from hair to shoes.  All interns will complete their internship with Fashion Research Institute with a completed collection of avatar apparel including concept boards to product ads, which may be added to their portfolio. A final presentation of their work will be created.  Our Summer interns’ runway show can be viewed here.

Requirements:

Interns must provide their own Internet access and computer hardware and software sufficient to allow them access to the Institute’s classroom and facilities in FRI’s OpenSim Shengri La regions.  Interns must have experience with and access to Photoshop (not provided). Interns must have a ScienceSim avatar account (available free).   Interns must also have a Skype account (free) with access to it during training periods.

Applicants must be currently enrolled in design school. Some design experience and background is required; these internships are largely not suitable for freshmen.  Internships begin January 25th.

To apply, send your resume with 1-2 fashion images you have sketched or illustrated along with contact information to admin @ fashionresearchinstitute.com.  Deadline for application is January 15th.  We accept applications until the internship slots are filled.

Towards the Future: A Foundation to Support OpenSim in Education, Science, and Research

Fashion Research Institute CEO Shenlei Winkler presented the initial proposal for a formal foundation for OpenSim in education, science, and research on Friday, December 11 at a MICA Professional Seminar in Second Life.

Towards the Future: A Foundation to Support OpenSim in Education, Science, and Research

Fashion Research Institute CEO Shenlei Winkler will be speaking Friday, December 11, at 1 pm ET at a MICA Professional Seminar in Second Life.  The title of the talk is: Towards the Future: A Foundation to Support OpenSim in Education, Science, and Research.

Fashion Research Institute has been working in OpenSim since Fall 2007.  Winkler developed the well-known Shengri La Spirit region, the first OpenSim region that broke the artificially imposed prim limit of Linden Lab’s Second Life platform.  Shengri La Spirit is currently hosted on hardware provided by Intel Labs, and is available for the interested public to freely visit in the ScienceSim grid.

The ScienceSim grid is hosted by IEEE and ACM, and it was created as a presentation grid for Supercomputing 09.  ScienceSim itself is the result of multidisciplinary teams of collaborators working on various educational, scientific and data visualization projects. The efforts of the teams working on and in ScienceSim has left a lasting impression on the OpenSim code base, with multiple performance code patches contributed to the code base.  In tackling the challenges of preparing the various projects being developed on ScienceSim, the collaborators also created a rich repository of data and knowledge.

This repository offers appreciable insights into using the OpenSim platform for an array of educational, scientific, and research purposes, and it should be used and built upon to create offerings that other educators, researchers, and scientists can use as they expand onto this platform.  It is from this basis that the proposal was made to develop a formal foundation to support OpenSim for use by educators, researchers and scientists.

Please join us on Friday, December 11th at 10 am PT/1 PM ET in Stella Nova in Second Life for this initial proposal of a foundation to support OpenSim in education, science, and research.