Tag: virtual

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When fantasy crosses a criminal line

In his mind and online persona, Gilberto Valle left little doubt about the depths of his depravation: In communications over the Internet, he imagined subjecting women he knew to sex-related torture and, in some cases, murder and cannibalism.

And, prosecutors said, that activity and other actions were all part of what they described as a kidnapping conspiracy, a charge for which he was convicted in 2013.

But on Tuesday, a federal judge in Manhattan ordered Mr. Valle, 30, released on bond just hours after overturning his conviction.

The judge, in a decision released late Monday night, concluded that Mr. Valle’s Internet plotting had been “fantasy role play” and was not evidence of an actual crime.

“This is a conspiracy that existed solely in cyberspace,” the judge, Paul G. Gardephe of Federal District Court, said in a 118-page opinion that granted a judgment of acquittal to Mr. Valle, a former New York City police officer who had faced a potential life sentence for his conviction.The ruling resurrected the key issue in Mr. Valle’s widely followed trial: When does a virtual crime, contemplated in Internet chat rooms, become an actual crime?

Joseph V. DeMarco, an Internet lawyer and a former head of the cybercrime unit in the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan, said after reading the decision: “I think that the court was profoundly disturbed by the relative lack of evidence in the kinetic world corroborating the defendant’s intent to carry through on any of the communications.”

“What this case, I think, emphasizes,” Mr. DeMarco added, “is that people have broad rights to express fantasies online, which can lead to a lot of speech that people find disturbing and repugnant but which nonetheless will not cross the line into criminal liability.”

Judge Gardephe wrote that in the charged conspiracy, all communications between Mr. Valle and his alleged co-conspirators in New Jersey and overseas took place over the Internet. None of the conspirators ever met or spoke by phone, exchanged accurate information about where they lived or even knew or sought to learn one another’s true identities, he observed. Continue reading “When fantasy crosses a criminal line”

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Virtual autism with Auti-Sim

Games-for-Change has reported on a new game that simulates the experience of autism: “I had barely made it to the center of Auti-Sim’s world—a playground filled with children—before ripping off my headphones and pushing away from the computer.images-1

“Not because it was a bad game. Just the opposite. Because it’s so effective in its aim to simulate the unbearable sensory overload that is associated with some cases of autism.

“Auti-Sim, an experimental prototype designed to simulate what it’s like to have autism as a child, inundates players with increasingly intense, indistinguishable sounds as the game’s visuals continue to blur.

“It was created by a three-person team at the Hacking Health Vancouver 2013 game jam. Taylan Kadayifcioglu, pitched the original idea at the 48-hour event, and handled programming and game design. Matt Marshall designed the playground level and the project logo. Krista Howarth, an early childhood educator specializing in working with kids with autism, advised Kadayifcioglu and Marshall on autism. Continue reading “Virtual autism with Auti-Sim”

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British stage huge virtual war

Virtual wars are getting more and more commonplace. Kids play soldiers in “Call of Duty” and actual soldiers pilot lethal drones from remote trailers in the U.S.

Now the British are taking virtual warfare to a larger scale, with its army staging the largest virtual battle simulation yet, involving 220 soldiers. The BBC reports thatimgres-2

“The experiment was carried out at the Army’s Land Warfare Centre in Warminster, Wiltshire. The two-hour scenario saw soldiers on computers completing virtual missions in a fictional French town. The Army says the simulation will help it to find out which resources it needs to invest in, once it takes control of its own budget in April 2013.

“’The aim is to understand how various changes have an impact on the speed at which command can respond,’ Continue reading “British stage huge virtual war”

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Virtual and Real World boundaries blurring

Increasingly artists and scholars are attacking the separation between virtual worlds and real life. A recent paper by Linda Ryan-Bengtsson published in Leonardo Almanac continues the argument, stating that “When digital technology is integrated into our everyday environment, the border between media interfaces and physical environments is being blurred. Traditional division of spaces dissolves and are rearranged, complicating the linkages between private and public spheres. Interactivity intersects these spaces allowing users of mediated content to be affected by the actual and vice versa.”

Entitled “Renegotiating Social Space: Public Art Installations and Interactive Experience,” the paper states that its analysis “has emerged through the need for further research focusing Continue reading “Virtual and Real World boundaries blurring”

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Virtual worlds improve health, fight prejudice

Virtual worlds increasingly are recognized to have a direct effect on what people think and do when they turn off the computer. Journeying into virtual environments, players try on different identities, experience alternate realities, and find themselves in novel social contexts. These experiences allow people to exceed their “real life” settings, seeing both themselves and others in a new light. A new study refutes common-sense assumptions that a firewall separates virtual life and experience in the material world.

“Internet-based interactive games and social media outlets have become intertwined with the physical realities of millions of people around the world.” As reported in an article in LaboratoryEquipment.com, “When an individual strongly identifies with the cyber representation of themselves, known as an avatar, the electronic doppelganger can influence that person’s health and appearance, according to a Univ. of Missouri Continue reading “Virtual worlds improve health, fight prejudice”

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Becoming transreal

Here is the scenario. You find yourself in a virtual game-world where you can be anything you want––say, a princess, a superhero, or maybe a dragon. Enter Micha Cárdenas.  The question is this: in assuming a new identity, are you really leaving behind the actual “you”? Nearly two decades ago, a now-famous New Yorker cartoon made popular the adage, “On the internet, no one knows you are a dog,” referencing the presumed demarcation between virtual and real personas. But this begs the question of where the expression of the self resides, inasmuch as identity is a largely mental process. Continue reading “Becoming transreal”