Connecting first life with second life

This is a follow up on the post about post about second by Tom a few days ago. An interesting discussion arose in the comments and I want to take a closer look at the following quote by Tom:

The analogy with SL is striking. Lot's of tech savvy early adopters are loving it, because they look beyond the technology and the interface and they focus on the idea behind SL. But it will take another few years, another platform and a much more immersive experience (think Wii) to convince people like me.

I agree with the fact that the Second Life experience has to be more immersive, but I don't think it will take another few years. Just take a look at the video on the following url:

http://www.hackdiary.com/archives/000101.html

Here's a video demonstration (people reading the feed, start your web browsers). On the left you'll see an Arduino reading analogue values from a potentiometer and feeding the results in via the USB-serial interface to my Mac. On the right, you'll see a modified version of Second Life that is feeding those values in via my avatar's chat channel. An object in the Second Life world is reacting, with perhaps a half-second lag.

Great hack from Matt Biddulph which really shows the potential of Second Life.