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Exhibit A (right) is a picture of a system that was out in 1986 which did home automation; up until a few months ago I still had the hardware. Because of that, I'll admit that there is potential with connecting virtual worlds and reality. This article tries to demonstrate this but it really is hard to be taken seriously when you get examples like this:

Meanwhile, [w:IBM] has linked this virtual world with reality.

Home automation projects linked with Second Life make science fiction and futuristic movies sound real. With the necessary electronics, you can log into Second Life, make your character walk into your 3D home, and give an instruction to turn your TV on, and Lo! your plasma TV at home comes alive.

I have an idea. Why not log in to Second Life to activate the robot in your house to find the remote control to your television? Now that might be useful. The fact is that web automation has been there for quite some time - but there are uses.

...or remote monitoring hospital ICUs...

Now that could be useful, though the limitations of virtual worlds in this regard are the overhead that the environment comes with. Why log in to a virtual world when you can simply have a specialist look at live video feeds? Is there some sort of novelty there? Remote monitoring at hospitals has been used for some time. There are benefits to medicine in a virtual world, but they all seem to revolve around social aspects. To use virtual world technology for many of these applications, leaps in many other applications will have to happen. And even when they do happen, how much would they be worth when there is less overhead without the virtual world.

Why not log in and play Homer Simpson, controlling a nuclear reactor plant? Imagine, living away from those 3 eyed fish and operating the reactor in your underwear at home. Talk about a good use of technology...

I'd like to think virtual world technologies would have real world implications, but really - there needs to be some better use cases for me to take it seriously. A bit of solder and some code... hasn't anyone heard of Phantom?

I mean - this is kind of sad when I still have a 5.25" floppy from 1986 for home automation (above)¹. Maybe a robotic page flipper controlled from within Second Life will be next... We really do seem to be scraping the barrel on some things.