The Oracle of Culturegion

if it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, is it a duck?

That is the question posed at a new art installation, which opened yesterday on the German art sim: Culturegion. The installation, called 'Oracle', is the work of nonnatus korhonen / andrew burrell, an Australian "hybrid media artist". The accompanying notecard informs me: "He is no techno-utopian but nevertheless is excited to see a hastening collapse in the divide between techno speculation and reality. He understands the privilege of the artist to be the use of a subjective voice and here he is using this voice to investigate a certain interplay of art, philosophy, technology and the life-sciences." So there you have it. You can find out more about this and other art work on his website.


The Oracle of old would offer up inscrutably worded solutions to problems posed. And so it is with this Oracle. Create a notecard containing your question - no more than 20 words - and place it in the urn provided. Then let the Oracle work its magic. At the far end it will spit out the answer.

I suspect that I only got part of my answer, as I was too busy watching the process. But my question is taken from Firesign Theatre's "I think We're All Bozos On This Bus". In the World of the Future our anti-hero, Clem, gets to put a question to The President, now no longer flesh & blood, but an artificial intelligence. His aim appears to be to crash the AI and talk directly to Doctor Memory, effectively the operating system running The President. If you don't know it, track it down... if you do, then this will all be familiar to you! Anyway, the question he posed was:

Why does the Porridge Bird lay its egg in the air?

This was enough to break The President... and it looks like it did a fairly weird job on The Oracle too. This is the reply fragment I did recover:

Aleister Kronos: I say to you : have statistically future why lay its egg in dimensions future statistically included. statistically and body . . . . . . a
Aleister Kronos: I say to you : (which into the number Universe the cognitively

Hmmmm... I have no idea what is going behind the scenes on this, but it is a diverting build and nicely crafted. Why not give it a go? And take time out to explore the sim too. There's always something worth perusing here.

Weltbild

I had an odd time, scouring sims tonight. I alighted on a number that looked vaguely promising, but proved to be in development or were otherwise of limited fascination. The one I finally settled on is, at least, complete:

The weltbild sim belongs to German online media retailer, weltbild.de. While there are many such companies, the one factoid that seems unique to weltbild is, according to wikipedia, "it is owned by the dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church of Germany." Further, it claims to be Germany's largest media and mail-order company, with a market share of 10%. However, it is far from sentimental. Its aggressive pricing is causing consternation among small publishers and booksellers, who are finding it hard to compete with this behemoth. Nor does it let its Catholic ownership overly influence its product selection, being happy to sell 'The DaVinci Code' as well as books on sex, drugs and - as seems evident - rock'n'roll.

The sim is pleasant enough and does the job, though it may not cause hearts to flutter, or stirrings in the trouser department. Built by Bokowsky + Laymann, the sim probably does exactly what was asked of it. The main feature is a large, crystalline building, partially encircling a small plaza. The building is divided into 3 main sections, devoted to film (DVD), music and books, respectively - the main planks of the company's business. You can watch movie trailers, listen to music, or read book extracts. A selection of popular titles are shown - with links to the relevant page of the website if you'd like to purchase. Aside from that the sim has an auditorium, an ornamental pond (for no clear reason - but it's quite nice) and some beach-type stuff. Oh... and there's a giant game of Tetris.

It's not unique or compelling as a sim - but as I said above, it delivers what it was asked to deliver. While I am somewhat skeptical about the prospects for atomic companies promoting their wares in Second Life, I do, for example, recognise the value of the Long Tail and see that virtual worlds may be a good way to leverage it. As for the style of this sim, it may not be arty or clever, but I can see this straightforward approach selling product in web3D. [ Gawd, sounds like I've spent too long watching Sir Alan Sugar on The Apprentice. ]

Oh... I would point out that I rather like the main building. It is unusual, well-constructed and eye-catching - to my eye at least. Here's a few snaps to ponder:

Homemade Soops

A short one this: SoopsVirtualFactory.

This sim belong to Soops Group which is, their website informs me, "a dynamic software company founded in 1992 [who] offer software solutions varying from shrink-wrapped applications, tailor-made applications up to requirement analyses." It has offices in Amsterdam and Wurzburg, where they specialise in Object Oriented software development; indeed, the name is an acronym for 'Science Object Oriented Products & Systems'. The group is small, comprising Soops BV (Netherlands) and Component Studio GmbH (Germany), and employs around 30 staff overall.

The S~~~~d L~~e sim seems to be quite new - or perhaps, little used - and, unless I am very much mistaken, is a self-build, being assembled from a number of familiar basics. I say it appears to be new because there is not much here... a few buildings, including the attractive and familiar free beachhuts on stilts, a cafe, a tennis court and a dance area. But none of these seem to be particularly well developed, and they lack coherence; there is nothing pulling them together. It looks like the team (of one so far as I can tell - and I know how that is) is playing with ideas, with no particular endpoint in mind. I cannot see that it is intended as a place for the general rambling public to visit, and in its current guise is unlikely to make anyone's 'favourite sims list'. It looks like someone is having fun, with an entire sim at his/her disposal. The "soopies" group has 6 members, but it is Soops Carter who appears to have done the bulk - perhaps all - of the development to date.

As discussed on many other occasions, if you want a company sandbox - and that is a great idea, by the way - then you should consider making it private. It is easy to get things wrong - and damage your brand as a result. This is a small company, and this may not be a concern - but I would suggest it is something worth thinking about.

Not much in the way of pictures, since there's not much there:

Mercedes Drives Off

The virtual worlds marketing consultancy, Kzero, reports that Mercedes-Benz is closing its multi-sim presence in Second Life today. It is almost exactly 1 year since I posted about the opening of the site.

According to Merc's virtual world blog:

A little over a year, Mercedes-Benz opened its dedicated presence in the virtual world of ‘Second Life’. Since the launch of the brand’s virtual island, we won several vital insights and received plenty of positive feedback, especially for our unique communications policy. Over the course of the year, our brand avatar ‘Mercedes Milestone’ led more than 10,000 inspired dialogues.

We truly enjoyed developing this new, innovative communications platform and would like to extend our thanks to all those who visited Mercedes-Benz Island and demonstrated interest in our virtual outpost.

Our ‘Second Life’ stint will draw to an end on March 18th 2008 – as of this day, you will no longer be able to access Mercedes-Benz Island. This brief and exciting foray into virtual communities brought us several essential realisations and the conviction that 3D worlds play a vital role as engaging communication channels. We will continue to monitor this theme and keep you updated on any new developments.

Gamesload

My last post was about one of the sims in the diffuse but nevertheless distinct "Danish archipelago" in Second Life. For this one, we travel a little further South - at least, in RL terms - to take a mad dash around the German Gamesload sim.

Gamesload is an online games distribution / download platform, "powered by T-Online." A toehold in Second Life seems like a logical extension of the company's brand. Their website tells us the sim is "the prime address for entertaining games in Second Life these days. And that's because any game is definitely possible on Gamesload Island. And that goes for gamblers as well as for game developers. On Gamesload Island, you can game play unlimited or even develop your own game at the Gamesload Tower. The Tower is also the place where any other Avatar will be happy to give your latest game a try.Turn your ideas into imaginative games and present them to the community at the Gamesload Tower... The Gamesload jury will select the most beautiful ideas to be turned into games. Afterwards, prims and building space at the Gamesload Tower will be allocated. Have fun joining us and let the games begin!"

This page gives you details on how to enter your game idea for consideration. Unlike other forms of competition in Second Life, I don't see this being done as a way for the company to grab your best ideas and make a mint, while paying you peanuts. I think it really is just a vehicle for getting people engaged with the community the company seeks to foster.

In my mad dash I had little time to do much. There is a (rather slow) automated guide that will take you around the sim, but the main feature is the aforementioned tower. This already has some games pre-installed, while there's also a number of games-related freebies available to you. The sim has been constructed by Torrid Luna and co, at Primforge. I know... I know... I usually have much more to say than this, but I was pushed for time so really did not cover the island thoroughly enough. The games were good tho - give 'em a whirl.

In the meantime, here's some snaps...





Oh... and a final note... my congratulations to Torrid Luna, who tied the virtual knot last Sunday!

TUV Nord

I recall posting something quite a long time ago about the German city of Hamburg - or rather its Chamber of Commerce. Now, over 6 months later, I find myself back in the neighbourhood. But where once there was a single sim, now there seems to be a small, but distinct, archipelago of Hamburg sims, covering education, city promotion and a few companies and organisations that seem to be based in the city. One these is Atlantis Media, which I may write about at some future point. Another is TUV Nord, an altogether more difficult outfit to write about. I've been struggling to get to grips with exactly who and what they are.

I will tell you what I have been able to gather. According to wikipedia: "TÜVs (short for Technischer Überwachungs-Verein) are German organizations that work to validate the safety of products of all kinds to protect humans and the environment against hazards. As an independent consultant, they examine monitoring-needy plants, motor vehicles, energy installations, devices and products (e.g consumer goods).. The many subsidiaries of the TÜVs can also appear as project developers for energy and traffic concepts, problem solutions in the area of environmental protection and as certification bodies... No German-registered road vehicle may be operated on public roads without a certificate from the TÜVs."

So TÜVs act as both validators and project consultants - sounds odd to me. As for the TÜV Nord Group, it employs over 8,000 people, making it "one of Germany's largest technical service providers."

Their sim appears to be still under construction, but well on the road to completion. It is split into a number of topic areas, some of which are available in German and English, others in German only. For example, there is a small meeting area styled as a garage, on the walls of which you will find information on the group's key competencies. You can select either English or German. Perhaps the most striking feature of the sim is the giant visualisation of a hydogen fuel cell. You can step through this usingthe language of your choice, and very nicely done it is too. Another zone is structured as a course through the woods, with various challenges along the way. But these are not (yet) available in English, so I have no idea what I'm being challenged to do. Finally, there's a larger meetinng area, but this appears to be under construction still. Here's a few snaps:

I have to confess, I am not 100% sure about the Hamburg link here... but I'm fairly certain the builders are associated with one or other of the Hamburg sims. Despite the rather nicely done visualisation, and the ablity to toggle languages, I came away unenthused. Perhaps I've just seen too many sims now... and need to take a break.

Kaufhaus Des Westens

While exploring the area near the Osram sims, I came across the 4-sim island KaDeWe, which belongs to the German department store, Kaufhaus Des Westens (more usually abbreviated, so it seems, to KaDeWe).

The RL store, which is apparently celebrating 100 years of trading, is located in Berlin, and lays claim to being the large department store in continental Europe, serving up a range of over 380,000 items to a passing trade in excess of 40,000 people per day. Originally opening its doors in March, 1907, it was badly damaged by Allied bombing in WWII. In fact, it was also badly damaged by an Allied bomber - which crashed into the building in 1943. So extensive was the damage it did not reopen until 1950, standing as a symbol of the economic success of West Berlin during the Cold War years.

The Second Life store sits at the junction of the 4 sims that go to make up the island, and appears to be a reasonable recreation of the RL building. Around it are photo-rendered shops and offices, to give the place a sense of context. The building itself is currently decked out for Christmas, and covers 3 floors. The ground floor has a couple of bars or seating areas together with a catwalk, the first floor has departments selling SL avatar clothing, while the top floor has a coffee bar and a photo-rendered deli. Here's my snaps:


I've actually been back to KaDeWe on a number of occasions, at various times, and there is always a small group of people there. I have not the faintest idea why.

The site itself is well built, and there are weblinks to Liventura (?) and Your SL - 2 companies presumably involved in the design and delivery of the site. I am not clear as to the purpose of the site, other than as a promotional vehicle for their 100th anniversary year. However, I am intrigued about the small group of folks who seem to be in near-permanent residence! Perhaps some kind soul would like to provide some illumination on this.

One Million Linden Dollars at Osram

Do you fancy yourself something of a conceptual designer, a truly innovative talent in the manipulation and use of light, able to counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor, while maintaining a post-post-pre-modernist stance on post-modernism? Then you might just be interested in an opportunity to pocket 1 million Linden smackeroos.

Osram, the lighting company, have just kicked off a competition looking for ideas connected with the world of light. The best idea gets the prize and will be made into a real world solution. "We believe that Second Life holds a huge international potential for creativity," says Juliane Braun, Head of Corporate Communications, explaining the rationale behind the competition. "We would like to pick up on this and find out how ideas are developed in a virtual world." You can read the whole press release here.

Be warned though... this is not a quick win. The process will take several months to complete. Here is the relevant info from the press release:

Anyone can apply by submitting a preliminary sketch of the idea for the qualifying round. From the start of the competition on 6 December 2007, the Second Life residents will have four weeks' time to enter. A total of 250 of the entries will be selected - and then the next round will begin in five groups of fifty competitors. The ideas will be refined and elaborated with supervision and presentation by OSRAM specialists. The winner and runner-up in each group will progress into the next round. And: each group winner will receive 75,000 Linden dollars and each group runner-up 25,000 Linden dollars.

The ten finalists will then undergo more scrutiny and their ideas will be further developed with light professionals from OSRAM. The winner or the winning team of the One Million (Linden) Dollar Idea competition will be announced after five months. The most original ideas will be presented again and displayed to the community at a big final party.

So it will be quite an undertaking. I assume that in the Ts&Cs the team will surrender any IPR - but the prize is tempting, and having access to skilled professionals is an interesting (and positive) twist.

Osram itself is a global company, headquartered in Munich and employing around 40,000 worldwide, with 49 factories located in 18 different countries. Although the company is over 100 years old, and is based in the conservative state of Bavaria, it has a long tradition of research, with around 5% of sales spent in R&D. This competition fits very will with their approach to innovation.

Their presence in Second Life spans 4 sims - 2 full sims and 2 low-prim "water" sims. I am not sure when they came in, but I think it was in the Autumn. Their first main activity was a recreation of Munich's famous Oktoberfest, with a large fun fair and other attractions - and some suitably traditional garb as freebies, including the "serving wench" dirndl. The fest occupies most of 1 sim and will run for 20 weeks, according to this press release. The other full sim features the Million Dollar Idea competition along with a Christmas-y theme. There is a large advent calendar that delivers a new giftie every day (yesterday's was a 4-wheeled vehicle apparently). An auditorium and meeting rooms, together with extensive information about the company and the competition, occupy a large blue building. This is modelled on Osram's DOT-it, the "anywhere light", that features 3 LED bulbs in a colourful circular shell. There is also an outdoor dance area.

Although I had limited time, I did manage to take a few photos:


While I was there I saw 2 distinct groups of visitors, each group being around 10 strong. I plan to go back to explore a bit more, but I am encouraged that the site is getting traffic. I found it by accident, having not read of its existence before. I like the tone they are setting here, the approach seems sound too. I would question the duration of the competition, which does seem to go on for an eternity in SL terms. But if it works, then it could form the foundation for an interesting innovation community.

In a Politik Land

Most of us who spout forth our dodgy views on the future of the internet, web3.D and so on, tend to take web1.0 as our starting point, then sashay through the joys of web2.0 before arriving at our destination. The site I want to mention in this post, Politik Land, is an interesting example of this evolution. The sim belongs to politik.de, which my flaky grasp of German suggests is a portal for those interested in politics and democracy. You can watch a YouTube vid that gives a great overview of the site:



The portal offers a number of web2.0 social networking facilities, with discussion forums, groups and many other opportunities for interaction and participation (assuming politics is your "thing"). And all of this within a user-configurable portal that allows you to select and position the onscreen components. Given this high degree of 2D networking, the logical next step is to add 3D immersive networking - hence this island in Second Life.

The island itself is well laid out, light and airy. Branching off a central hub are 7 zones, with meeting areas of varying sizes, ranging from a couple of seats up to a large open air auditorium. A group of buildings have been set aside for use by (or to provide information about) various German political parties. There are quizzes, web links and regular events. I say "regular" - the most recent I found was November 8th (about 2 weeks ago) that involved a discussion with representatives of 4 political parties.

My lack of German rather hampered my efforts to extract much more from this island - however, you may fare rather better. In any case, here are my snaps:

Thomas Cook (Germany)

Back in September I wrote about German tour operator TUI's presence in Second Life. Well it seems like they are not the only Germany holiday company to set up a virtual presence, as today I came across the Thomas Cook Island. I tend to think of Thomas Cook as a quintessentially English tour operator. Indeed, as the UK website tells me, Mr Cook himself actually "began his international travel company in 1841, with a successful one-day rail excursion at a shilling a head from Leicester to Loughborough on 5 July. From these humble beginnings Thomas Cook launched a whole new kind of company – devoted to helping Britons see the world." Mr Cook popped his clogs in 1892, at a respectable 83 years of age, but the company he founded has continued to grow and dversify. The Thomas Cook Group plc is now a €12 billion revenue business, employing 33,000 people globally and providing vacations to over 19 million people each year.

This island in Second Life, however, is not the Group's but rather its German subsidiary. The island also features its charter/low cost airline, Condor, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2006.

On arrival you find yourself in a large glass dome, floating above the island itself. There are a couple of very basic orientation instructions - about how to move you avatar - but it is left to you to find the way out. To exit the dome, click on the Thomas Cook "welcome mat" - which causes a portion of the dome to slide open, letting you out onto a transparent walkway that leads down to the island surface. The island itself is broadly divided into 2 - the tropical side and the snowy , alpine side. As you wander about you will find more orientation tips (in German) and links to various company webpages. There is also a small Condor jet, but it flatly refused to let me even sit down in it - let alone go for a quick trip. Here are my snaps:



The alpine side is smaller, and seems to consist of a large alpine chalet on top of a snowy hill, and not much else. I noticed something high above the chalet, which closer inspection revealed to be a satellite. Why? Beats me.


There are a few places to relax by the beach, and there is some limited orientation information, coupled with the weblinks as mentioned above. But I got the impression that this island really doesn't know what it is trying to be. In fact, if pushed, I would say that it is not entirely complete yet. The alpine elements seemed particularly perfunctory, but the entire island seems to offer little to engage the visitor. This site falls a long way short of that belonging to their competitor, TUI.

And on the all-important issue of freebies?! There may be some, but I didn't find them. Nor any indication of events that might attract visitors.

Race and Relax with Deutsche Post

While pottering around the archipelago of German islands that include Dresden Gallery (see earlier posts), I came across a pair of sims belonging to Deutsche Post, the German postal service. As seems par for the course these days, Deutsche Post have a special website tied in with their Second Life presence. Unfortunately, this is only available in German, and I have learned from bitter experience not to put much faith in language translations tools, which tend to convert perfectly straightforward paragraphs into bizarre works of magical realism. As a result there is not a lot I can tell you about their view of the build.

The two sims making up the Deutsche Post island serve different functions. The Post Island sim houses a tall building that, from the outside, appears to be nothing more than a boring office block. However, inside is a different story. There is little stuffiness about it, as each floor is given over to sculpture parks, chill zones and (bizarrely) an Ancient Egyptian scene. A nice idea is to have the atrium* space open up all the way up to the top of the building, so it is possible to move between floors without having to muck about with teleports and lifts. There seems to be a great deal of information on this sim about the company and its activities. Outside, large abstract black patches on the ground mark out the company logo, which can be seen plainly on a "map view."



The second sim, Picassos Island, is for fun. It consists of a tortuous racing track that takes in all manner of terrain, from desert and beach, up to icy, foggy mountain-tops, with the track looping back and under itself to squeeze the most out of the land area available. At the start area you can rez a sporty little number, then personalise it in a number of ways before taking it out on the track. I still can't get to grips with cars in SL. I just can't find the right way to drive the damn things. So for me, this proved a wasted effort. However, I did see others razzing around the track with relative ease, from which I would conclude the problem lies with me. Ho hum.

I think I just missed - by a week or so - the actual Racing Cup. However, given my comments above, I think any involvement on my part would have been short lived in any case.



The build across the 2 sims is solid and professional, rather than breathtaking. But then not every site can be a gem! However, if you are a whizz in SL vehicles, you may well enjoy the challenge of this race track.

*Apologies to any real architccts out there, who may be shrieking in horror at my abuse of architectural terms!

Dresden Gallery - The Inside

Gulp! I'm almost speechless... but that's not much use to you, gentle reader, if you want a blog post to read. Following on from my last post, this is the inside of the Dresden Gallery in Second Life.

The inside is even more stunning than the outside. The detail of the rendering is amazing, and its blending with SL objects is seamless. First off, let's look at the interior architecture:


Gob-smacking.... to employ the common parlance. I had had doubts that they have squeezed all 750 art works into the building - but I am not so sure now. The building is stuffed full of art works, many of them familiar, and spanning centuries of painting - no sculptures as far as I can tell. And as with the architecture, the level of detail is incredible. First, here's a couple of general views of a couple of the rooms:


Now let's look in a bit more detail:


Each painting has a notecard, with the name of the artist and the work, along with the dates. Many have an "audio" logo (see middle picture). If you click on this, it brings up a webpage that streams an English language description about the work selected - just as if you had an audio guide in a RL gallery.

Even the freeloaders are not forgotten - with 2 t-shirts available. One is of the Raphael angels, a detail from his Sistine Madonna. You know the one... often seen in a photoshopped form, with one of them smoking a cigarette? Oh, come on... you do know it.

In general I am not a huge fan of recreations of existing buildings in Second Life. But this is one, of many, for which I will make an exception. I think this is just stunning. It is the high level of detail that is crucial here. It is high enough to allow you to get a good feel for the paintings, indeed you can get closer to them than you probably can in RL. As such, I strikes me that this provides a powerful education resource - as well as being a pleasure simply to wander around. Nothing modern I'm afraid - but then, that's what the RL gallery is like, I assume.

My only regret is I didn't find the Caspar David Friedrich paintings that I believe are hiding in here somewhere.

Dresden Gallery

I was planning on writing about a truly extraordinary (or certainly strange) piece of German art, to be found on the ZKM sim... part of a group of sims celebrating the German region of Baden-Württemberg, which includes the cities of Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, Ulm and Freiberg (in the Black Forest). However, as happens from time to time, I found myself unable to come up with the verbal goods to provide an adequate explanation. But while I was in the neighbourhood, I did spot the Dresden Gallery cluster of sims, so went for a poke about.

Only one of the cluster is actually built on as yet. However, as the website informs us, this is a chance to "visit one of the world’s most famous museums, the Old Masters Picture Gallery of the Dresden State Art Collections. There you can view great masterpieces of key importance for the history of art, such as Raphael’s 'Sistine Madonna' or Giorgione’s 'Sleeping Venus'. All the rooms of the museum have been reconstructed true to scale on the Dresden Gallery island and all 750 masterpieces in the permanent exhibition are on display."

I have not yet had an opportunity to explore the inside - but to whet the appetite, here are some pictures of the grounds:


I have to say, it's an impressive build, with a lot of effort having gone into the photo-rendering of the building facades. Real textures and virtual objects are blended very subtly here, to great effect. But next, I plan to try and find the 750 art works!

Interesting that they've opted for a 1:1 scale. SL Architect chums inform me that this is not a good idea, as we tend to be bigger in SL, and make more room for one another than in real life.

As for ZKM, the sim I mentioned at the start of this post, I really think you should give it ago - as long as your idea of Art is not limited to, say, Raphael or Giorgione.

Fujitsu Siemens Computers

It's been a while since we had a new computer manufacturer come in to Second Life, but today I heard that Fujitsu Siemens Computers had just opened an island, so it seemed churlish not to take the opportunity to pop along for a butcher's*.

There is a predominantly green theme to the island. At least, that is the intention - though more a pale teal in my book. Fujitsu have create a special website to accompany the build, which they describe as their "green island", stating "Our guiding idea of 'we make sure' and the resulting idea of responsibility with respect to the community and the environment are apparent here." Certainly they make a big play of their energy efficiency and other green (or as green as it can reasonably get) credentials. At one point you can watch a couple of Fujitsu (actually, given the heavy German accents, more likely Siemens) people clunk their way through a movie in which they explain their greenitude. To add a frisson to proceedings, you can win a new AMILO Si 2636 Notebook - a machine that's so spanky new I can't even find it on the website - by collecting or solving clues apparently dotted around the island. I didn't spend any time on this, so the likelihood of me winning in zilch.

The island itself I will arbitrarily divide into 2 zones. The first zone consists of 2 immense, shiny buildings, only one of which is currently open. Inside you can pick up your freebie T-shirt and visit a number of themed rooms, including a kid's play area. As you will see from the pictures below, something horrid has happened to this poor teddy bear. The second zone is the island landscape, which is dotted with giant computers: desktops and notebooks. Out over the lake is a nice retro touch - a game of "pong." There is also the most peremptory of orientation zones, consisting of just 4 noticeboards.

The first zone:


Teddy does a Trotsky impersonation:


The second zone:


The notebook you can win, plus the orientation "zone" and "pong":


Now here's a little poser for you. If you looked at the image below, could you take a stab at the country of origin of the builders?


Those who guessed Germany would be correct. Those who deduced it from the picture can award themselves a gold star. The build appears to be the work of Munich-based Metamatix. If you have followed this blog for some time, you might recall that German build companies seem to have something of a penchant for contrast-free expanses of white, and simplified colour schemes.

It's a funny old build this one. Inside the building is rich in texture, including shadow effects, and looks almost Sheep-like in its styling. Outside, as I intimated above, it is far more flat and lifeless (not unlike my remaining hair). The giant computers I suppose are a must-have, but we have seen them before at Dell and Lenovo. The competition, too, is something of a must-have, but again it's been done before, by AMD for example. And what's with the seating? Why build benches you can't actually sit on?! No doubt this last whinge can and will be addressed as the build moves into its next phase. The Orientation Zone, a rather grand term for it in my view, looks like an after-thought and could even be dispensed with.

Oh... you can get a map on this web page.

Thanks for the tip must go to my favourite attitudinous ocelet who tweeted this on twitter.

* From rhyming slang: butcher's hook = look.