notes to self when editing this work in progress put more emphassis on the rl and sl crossover possibilities and ways, which makes it even more rl/sl related.

Let me tell you all about the latest project I'm doing for a rl-sl cross over collabaration project with the Northern Michigan University (NMU) Speech-Language and Hearing Virtual Clinic in SecondLife,

I think it's worth mentioning here, besides the fact that it's been submitted for the Linden Prize (yes, its more then one Linden :) see here  about the contest) that it's a noteworthy project all by itself, let me explain myself:

The real life Professor James V. Zeigler works at the Northern Michigan University's Department of Speech, Language and Hearing clinic in RL and in SecondLife and he is creating a near-exact replica of NMU Speech-Language and Hearing Virtual Clinic. This virtual clinic helps to provide the educational tools necessary to improve the lives of people who struggle with communication disorders. This is where my part of the work comes in :

I was very relevant to the professor's needs in SL it seems since I'm a known lsl scripter for allmost 3 years now, and also was involved way before SL into chatterbots on various web 2.0 applications around 2003 through 2005 until I entered SL in 2006.

Since the prof heard from my SL partner Starfire Silverstar about my work and that I do custom scripting jobs in SL all the time (which includes many diffrent pandorabots/sl aplications) (word to self add sumwhere my sl work for chatterbots rl mayby 2)  he contacted me.  I offcourse contacted him back and a great collaberation has been started ever since.

This educational project (codename: Brandon & Megan Bot) I'm scripting is for the NMU Speech-Language & Hearing virtual clinic in SL.  The professor is a major role-player and creator for this VR clinic. 

Part of the Linden Prize submission, which includes many other people's work as well, is an educational tool that works using two Q&A chat(ter)bots (made from plywood prims) that represent RL patients.  These are activated by a touch/start sentence and allow students (and soon other secondlife residents as well) to ask pre-scripted questions.  (The questions are given to the student on a notecard when the bot is activated.)  The agent (read: bot) that is being interviewed replies with pre-scripted random answers.

The bots are hosted at www.pandorabots.com in two (AIML coded) brains) which can also be publicly accesed from the website in real life as well as accessed inworld.  Each bot answers in a way that highlights a different disfluency.  Users are then able to identify the types of disfluency and score their agent's(read: patient bot's) severity.

The whole outworld (read on web not in sl) brain writting, inworld (means in sl) lsl scripting, advising, and researching aspects are my contribution to this project.

For a more in depth technical explanation of why we chose the techniques we used and which ones click here. (to do add link)

For a more abstract view of the whole project click here. (todo input abstract from project)

The total 600 word description Linden Labs was given for the Linden Prize can be found here (todo insert description lindenprize of the project)

That's all for this blogpost that I wanted to share with you sl and rl residents (yes and even the homeless ones ;))  I am VERY excited about this project and also honored to be contributing to such a noble project!

See you in Second Life!!!  xxxses!!

About simon sugita: (todo;post biography notes relevant to this project here.)