England: Our house in cyberspace

The adapted PlayMobil house is in fact part of an experimental platform to explore new ways to bridge the gap between virtual and real worlds. A range of sensors and gadgets inside the house allow it to be monitored and controlled through an exact digital replica inside the virtual world Second Life.

If the front door has been left open or a light left on in the doll’s house it will show in the virtual version. It works both ways, too. You can control the real house — for example by cranking up the thermostat — via its virtual doppelganger.

The point of this elaborate set-up is to demonstrate a new way to monitor and manage buildings from afar, says Goh, a business design executive for Swiss building management company Implenia. “We have created a virtual gateway that allows you to link real buildings to virtual worlds.”

Read it all here.

Published on February 28, 2008

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