DIY production in 'Second Life' factory

In the 'transparent factory,' car enthusiasts can watch vehicles being assembled part by part, and a new system set up by researchers of the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA even enables users to try their own hand at producing a quad bike, a four-wheeled motorbike. They can switch on conveyor belts, program industrial robots, and paint the frame themselves. At the end, they can zoom out of the factory hall with their finished product without paying a single cent. How is this possible? Because the factory does not exist in the real world but on the Internet platform of 'Second Life,' a virtual world through which users can move in the form of a virtual figure known as an 'avatar'...

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