GamesRadar - Second Life

Linden Lab to Disband Moribund Mentor Group (News)

Nov 19, 2009

Yesterday at the morning Second Life mentors' meeting, Linden Lab staff announced that Linden Lab's sponsored mentor group, which had been functionally closed (in all but name) for approximately a year now, would finally be disbanded in practice. The move doesn't really come as much of a surprise to observers of the Lab's sponsored volunteer programs over the last eighteen months.

Linden Lab Partners with Dragonfish for Non-US Payments (News)

Nov 19, 2009

Virtual environment operator Linden Lab has partnered up with 888 Holdings plc's Gisland/Dragonfish division to provide payment processing for non-US Second Life customers.

Telstra to Shutter Second Life Presence in Dec (News)

Nov 17, 2009

Telstra BigPond (a major Australian Internet Service Provider, with an approximate 50% market-share) has had one of the most popular corporate presences in the virtual environment of Second Life, even including a customer service center staffed eleven hours per day, five days per week. In a nation with expensively metered bandwidth, BigPond even refrained from metering a portion of the data sent to its customers from Second Life. All of this for what has basically been an experiment.

That, however, appears to be coming to a close. BigPond intends to shutter its Second Life presence on 16 December.

The Second Life Economy: Q3 2009 in Detail (News)

Nov 6, 2009

Linden Lab has released the figures for the third-quarter performance of Second Life.

If you want the short version, it wasn't a growth quarter. Q3 2009 figures were not really very distinguishable from Q2 2009. There's actually nothing wrong with that. Growth plateaus are occasional and inevitable and generally represent a good opportunity for engineering and support to catch up a little with the service.

Linden Lab to Alter 3rd Party Second Life Viewer Policies (News)

Oct 22, 2009

Yesterday, Linden Lab made an announcement regarding third-party (or after-market, if you prefer) viewers that has so far elicited a vociferous response from some of the more outspoken Second Life users, and those involved in after-market viewer-development. The announcement largely revolves around upcoming policies that have yet to be decided.

Imprudence 1.2 beta2 Viewer for Second Life (News)

Oct 12, 2009

The Imprudence project has released the next beta in this release cycle for their Second Life viewer. Imprudence is one of Massively's favorite after-market Second Life viewers (and just about the only one whose licensing status they've been able to verify with confidence).

Sex and Mature, Adult Content in MMOs (News)

Oct 8, 2009

"Games have traditionally been a relatively sex free scene but that is all changing with the recent explosion in explicit MMOs. You can engage in various kinky acts and indulge your most secret fantasies online with lots of like minded strangers. Would you like to know more?"

If you are like me, you definitely want to know more.

As technology improves, the quality of this content will improve along with it. Whether it is simply better graphics or full on technodildonics, this part of the MMO market is sure to be a profitable one.

Threat Level Privacy, Crime and Security Online Linden Lab Targeted in Second Life Sex-Code Lawsuit (News)

Sep 18, 2009

Having virtual sex in Second Life isn't what it used to be.

The 6-year-old virtual world, run by Linden Lab of San Francisco, is apparently so littered with bootlegged sex toys that it's hard to know whether you're getting the right bang for your buck.

Raising the stakes on a two-year-old intellectual property controversy in Second Life, a popular seller of online adult novelties filed a federal copyright- and trademark-infringement lawsuit against Linden Lab this week. The suit claims that Linden looks the other way, while virtual residents rip off the SexGen product line, which includes specially programmed beds, rugs, sofas and even a coffin that enable consenting avatars to engage in virtual sex acts.

Attend Dragon*Con via Second Life (News)

Sep 5, 2009

Tonight there's going to be a Second Life panel being run here at Dragon*Con, and Massively woul love it if you attended! The panel will be run simultaneously in Second Life and in real life.

Linden Lab Launches Updated Second Life Web-Site (News)

Aug 27, 2009

Linden Lab have launched the promised revamp of the secondlife.com Web-site rather sooner than expected, with the new site having gone live today. Massively's takeaway from the presentation at the recent Second Life Community Convention was that the new site wasn't due for a little while yet, during which time it would receive additional features.

Nevertheless, the new site and dashboard have launched, and look pretty much like what was previewed by Tom Hale just recently. Hale described the site revamp as a beginning, rather than as an end, so there's still a ways to go yet.

Second Life Parcel-Traffic Scoring Changing (News)

Aug 23, 2009

The new traffic scores will replace the old scores on 1 September, with heavily trafficked parcels expected to see the least difference in resulting scores. The new system simply totals cumulative minutes spent on the parcel, what Linden Lab has previously referred to as the '1:1:1 system': One point is one user for one minute; rather than a system which partially relies on where a user spends the rest of their time during the day.

Linden Lab Launches Avaline (News)

Aug 21, 2009

The Second Life Avaline service beta has come to a close, and the product is now launching properly. Avaline allows callers on a land-line or mobile to call a logged-in user within Second Life.

Philip Rosedale: Try to Work with Us, Let Go a Bit (News)

Aug 18, 2009

It seems these days that you can't have a Linden Lab employee give a speech to Second Life users without some included warning label of rough times ahead for them. It's almost relentlessly axiomatic nowadays.

At this year's Second Life Community Convention, Rosedale gently urged users and Lindens to support some necessary changes to come: "Try to work with us. Let go a bit." Ironically, he has encapsulated the same core message that Second Life users have been trying to get Linden Lab to hear for the last several years.

Linden Lab Announces 2nd Life Support for Plug-Ins (News)

Aug 16, 2009

As a part of his keynote presentation today at this year's Second Life Community Convention, Linden Lab's Tom Hale has unveiled a new plug-in framework for the Second Life viewer. The Second Life viewer has hitherto been restricted to rendering media content that was supported either by its browser component or by the use of Apple's Quicktime. Quicktime is certainly quite workable, but only provides a subset of the extensive range of potentially viewable media that's out there.

The introduction of the LLMedia API looks to change all that, by allowing a straightforward plug-in system to extend the viewer's ability to render various arbitrary kinds of parcel media.

IRS Saves Millions by Using Second Life to Market Its Employment Opportunities (News)

Aug 16, 2009

In 2008, the IRS project team established a presence in the Second Life virtual world with the goal of exploring the potential use of this environment for recruitment and training purposes. The team has created the IRS Careers Island and constructed a sky platform with an IRS Careers Center and an IRS Education Center. A number of building design configurations have been tested. A number of education and entertainment features have also been built to attract residents to the simulation (sim). All basic construction has been completed and the sim has been opened to the general population in Second Life since February 2009.

Nearly identical to brand marketing in the physical world marketplace, brand marketing in the SL virtual world involves placing brand messaging in high traffic venues. Unlike the physical world, the IRS has actually built its own venue that provides excellent marketing opportunities.

In the physical world, the IRS could spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions, on sponsoring a race car that displays their brand in a field of thirty or more other cars. In the SL virtual world, the IRS has spent a few thousand dollars to build complete entertainment and communications venue that includes a race course.

Linden Lab Tightens Xstreet SL Rules (News)

Aug 14, 2009

This week, Linden Lab announced a move to quash casual infringement of marks, rights and copyrights on their Web-based Second Life goods service, Xstreet SL, among a general tightening of the listing rules.

Second Life Economy: 2nd Quarter 2009 in Detail (News)

Aug 14, 2009

Linden Lab's Tom Hale has published the Quarterly report for Second Life for Q2 2009: "Economy grows 94% year to year, hits new all time high in Q2; World expands and voice usage hits all time high; Bot policy affects user hours and logins"

Linden Lab Chases New Logo for Snowglobe Viewer (News)

Aug 11, 2009

Linden Lab has launched a contest on 99designs to obtain a new logo for their Snowglobe Second Life viewer. The prize has been prepaid to 99designs and the chosen winner will be paid the sum of US$295 by them.

Dodgy Second Life Viewer Doing the Rounds (News)

Aug 10, 2009

Massively would like to caution their Second Life readers about a dodgy Second Life viewer that's currently doing the rounds under rather dubious circumstances. The viewer is calling itself Neil Life, and purports to include some content-ripping features over and above those normally available to users.

Play Unofficial Free Stargate Game Now (News)

Aug 7, 2009

You may have heard that the official Stargate Worlds MMORPG is dead before it even launched. But that will not stop you from playing this free Stargate game...

Snowglobe Viewer 1.1 Released for Second Life (News)

Aug 4, 2009

Snowglobe, Linden Lab's community-developed after-market Second Life viewer has hit another milestone with a 1.1 release.

This version mostly focuses on bug-fixes, but has a few additional enhancements. A nasty race condition in texture-fetching has (hopefully) been resolved, reducing viewer crash-rates, bump-mapping has been corrected, the minimap has gotten some tweaking and tuning, and more. Read on for the complete list.

Second Life Users Raise More than a Quarter Million for Cancer Research (News)

Jul 23, 2009

This weekend, saw the main event of the Second Life Relay for Life, raising funds for the American Cancer Society for cancer research. The exact figure raised for cancer research by Second Life users is a bit hazy, being reported slightly differently from multiple sources, but the American Cancer Society is reporting that the contributed amount is a very exciting US$270,388.

Annual Second Life Relay for Life this Weekend (News)

Jul 18, 2009

The annual Second Life Relay for Life raises cash for the American Cancer Society every year as a virtual environment analog of the physical world event. It's definitely one of the high points of the Second Life calendar. Though lesser fundraising events are held through the year to raise money for this worthy cause, this weekend is the big one.

Second Life's Relay for Life has raised over a third of a million US dollars since its inception, and raises more each year. Look past the sensationalistic guff in the media, and one of the most remarked on characteristics of Second Life users is their charity and generosity towards those in genuine need.

Second Life Objects to Become HTTP-Aware (News)

Jul 9, 2009

While Second Life users wait with 'bated breath for the SLS 1.27 deployment that will sort out a large number of crippling group communications failures, there's an extra bonus lurking in the code. SLS1.27 will be adding an HTTP-in feature which will allow HTTP requests to be sent to Second Life objects.

Rezzable Moves On from Second Life (News)

Jul 7, 2009

Rezzable Productions, developers and maintainers of a set of among the most successful public art and entertainment areas in Second Life have announced that after months of planning, they're shutting down their Second Life operations this month and moving their operations to Heritage Key.

Futurist Ray Kurzweil to Deliver SLCC 09 Keynote (News)

Jul 3, 2009

Some consider him a kook or an eccentric, while others think of him as a technological visionary. Either way, the accomplished Raymond Kurzweil will be taking the stage to keynote the Second Life Community Convention in San Francisco next month, a spot traditionally afforded to a Linden Lab executive.

Linden Lab Addresses Second Life Chat Problems (News)

Jul 2, 2009

Since the rollout of Second Life server 1.26 the already unreliable Second Life group-chat system showed an almost crippling drop in reliability, compared to the previous 1.25 release. Linden Lab have estimated an overall 60% drop in the number of group-chat messages successfully delivered, and the problem skews towards the larger groups, prompting many group owners to completely disable their group's chat functions to avoid online members from being spammed with error messages.

Linden Lab is reporting that server version 1.27, currently in quality assurance, represents a 300% improvement in group chat reliability over version 1.25 (or almost 1000% more reliable than what is currently operating on the Second Life grid today).

New World Newsfeed: No Known Australian Government Plans To Censor Second Life, Says Linden Lab (News)

Jul 2, 2009

Nwn.blogs.com: "I've been deeply skeptical over recent rumors and half-coherent speculations that the Australian government plans to imminently ban Second Life from that country. After just receiving word from a Linden Lab spokesperson, I'm inclined to permanently file it in the nonsense bin:

'Linden Lab has received no indications from the Australian government that it plans to block Second Life and will keep our community apprised of any developments on that front,' the Linden message reads. "In the meantime, we want to assure Australian Residents that Second Life remains accessible and functioning in your region.' ..."

Second Life banned in Australia (News)

Jun 29, 2009

It was confirmed by Australian Minister for Censorship that online games such as Second Life is banned in the country. There was confirmation from Censorship Minister Stephen "Goebbels" Conroy and according to his spokesperson it was added "under the filtering plan, it will be extended to downloadable games, flash-based web games and sites which sell physical copies of games that do not meet the MA15+ standard." The MA15+ means restricted to those people ages 15 and above.

The Australian rating is different because it doesn't have R 18+ or rating for computer games. All games for adult are place in RC or Refused classification..

Linden Lab Releases Snowglobe 1.0 for Second Life (News)

Jun 25, 2009

A while back, Linden Lab's Philip Rosedale announced a new Second Life viewer development project. That project ultimately grew along lines similar to that of third-party viewer project, Imprudence, breaking down many barriers to user contributions, and adopting a more agile methodology. After only a couple of release-candidates, the result is already available.

One of the biggest developments you might see in the Snowglobe viewer is that the map is now an order of magnitude faster to load, rather than taking several fractions of forever, as is traditional.

Portugese President Delivers Speech Via Second Life (News)

Jun 24, 2009

Holy antiquated technological gimmickry Batman! On June 9th, Portugese head of state Aníbal Cavaco Silva became the first president in world history to deliver an official speech from within Second Life.

Second Life Moves to 1.23, Allows More Content (News)

Jun 17, 2009

Linden Lab has released the new viewer, bringing Second Life up to 1.23 a few days earlier than expected, off the back of a very short release-candidate cycle.

The new viewer brings three things with it: The new Adults-only continent (formerly Ursula and now Zindra), user-verification by documents or payment-status, and a new Adults-only content rating that opens up Second Life to more extreme sexual and violent content.

Second Life 1.23 (RC4) Now Available (News)

Jun 14, 2009

Linden Lab have made a new Second Life viewer release-candidate available. RC4 is the fifth release candidate in the 1.23 series (Linden Lab starts counting from RC0). It's looking increasingly like the objective is to release before the Second Life sixth anniversary (23 June).

Barely any changes this time around, so either Linden Lab isn't really aware of any showstoppers or doesn't perceive them as such. The context menus have had one small reversion, there are updates to the Mac crash reporter, and a fix relating to object updates that affected poseball visibility.

Hacker Destroys OpenSim Regions (News)

Jun 10, 2009

Hypergrid Business is reporting that an unknown person or persons destroyed a large number of OpenSim regions over the weekend, by exploiting a weakness in LxLabs' Linux-based HyperVM management software. OpenSim is a popular third-party reverse-engineered implementation of Linden Lab's Second Life server software used in a variety of commercial, non-commercial and educational virtual-environment grids.

More than 100 regions are reported lost, along with any data that wasn't backed up off-site. Apparently more than just the simulators were taken down, Web-pages and other ancillary data and files on the affected servers were also lost in the attack.

Imprudence 1.1.0 (Final) Released (News)

Jun 7, 2009

It has been a long time coming, but Imprudence 1.1.0 is finally here!

This final release of 1.1.0 fixes several issues that were present in Release Candidate 2, as well as a few miscellaneous tweaks and additions..

Second Life Users Offput by Ratings Test Area (News)

Jun 1, 2009

Linden Lab has set up a group of test regions for the new three-way content-ratings system, but the reactions Massively is getting from users indicate that many are less than pleased with the setup. Featuring electric fences, warning signs, barbed wire and floodlights, some feel that the setup evokes more of a wartime German feel than anything. An avatar approaches the fence, gets zapped and comes away trailing smoke.

Second Life Homesteads Owners to Save US$360 (News)

May 28, 2009

As people come up to the time of year when the long-awaited Second Life Homesteads price-rise is due to hit, Linden Lab has announced that any Homestead simulators owned before 1 July, 2009 will continue at the old monthly rate of US$95 instead of US$125, before the price-rise finally kicks in for those too on 1 July, 2010.

Linden Lab Expands Second Life Trafffic Policy (News)

May 25, 2009

Linden Lab, as you probably already know, has started to take action against the use of bots to game Second Life traffic (which is still the most influential of the sorting criteria in in-world search results), although with somewhat lackluster results so far.

Yesterday, it was indicated that the action would be extended to other means of artificially boosting traffic figures, such as camping-chair installations.

Second Life 1.23 (RC2) Now Available (News)

May 22, 2009

Linden Lab have made a new Second Life viewer release-candidate available. RC2 is the third release candidate in the 1.23 series (Linden Lab starts counting from RC0). The 1.23 series is being fast-tracked, as it is scheduled to go live by the end of June.

This release features six crash-fixes, problems with window-sizing, and issues with trees. Restore-to-last-position has been disabled, to prevent potential inventory-loss. There are some more pie-menu changes, but some of the changes in the previous candidates have been reverted.

Evolve Your 3D Avatar (News)

May 22, 2009

Evolver (currently in alpha) is an interesting service. It allows you to build a 3D avatar either from scratch and components or from a photograph of yourself, and export that avatar as an image, a functional 3D model in a couple of different formats (presently Maya [MA] or Kaydara 3D Data Exchange Format [FDX]), or a ready-made avatar for a number of 3D virtual environments.

They've got more planned it seems, like the ability to potentially embed a little animated 3D avatar in places where you might today be using a 2D image. Think Gravatars only in 3D.

Second Life Racks Up 1 Billion Voice Minutes, Linden Lab Announces New Services (News)

May 21, 2009

Linden Lab has announced that it is currently averaging one billion voice-minutes per month. That's time actively engaged in a voice session, not just time spent with voice support enabled. That's quite a statistic. That puts Second Life's voice service right up there among the top VoIP providers, and around 12% of Skype. That's very impressive.

In the 18 months since voice was introduced, roughly 15 billion voice-minutes have been served, through Vivox's voice services for Second Life. Additionally there are new products/services. Some available from today, and some scheduled for later this year.

FBI building presence in 'Second Life' (News)

May 21, 2009

The FBI has begun reaching into the popular virtual world, "Second Life." What's their purpose? To recruit people for jobs, to give players access to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, and to post billboards of the Top Ten Most Wanted to try and solicit tips from "Second Life" users.

Second Life Role Playing Just Got a Lot More Fun: Morph Your SL Voice Chat (News)

May 21, 2009

Linden Lab has announced that soon Second Life residents will be able to morph their voice chat and other voice services will soon be coming online. You can customize your voice to match your avatar (great if you are a man playing as a woman) such as adding in accents, funny effects, etc.
Those active in Second Life role playing will really appreciate this feature and it should also come in handy for machinima movie directors looking to add realism and uniqueness to their characters.

Linden Lab Pairs with Terremark (News)

May 20, 2009

One of the tales you see circulating in the media every quarter is that the carbon footprint of a Second Life avatar is the same as that of a citizen of Brazil, based on energy consumption. The story goes around a few times each year, though technically it wasn't really all that accurate even when it began to circulate.

Around the time that the calculation was done, Linden Lab was already in the process of slashing power-consumption across its facilities, and presently uses only a third compared to similar servers. Plus, there's the little detail that the carbon footprint of the average Brazilian is quite small, a mere fraction of the world average.

Now the Lab is moving into newer, greener pastures err ... facilities, having closed a deal with Miami-based Terremark to start moving Second Life servers into Terremark's colocation facilities outside of Washington DC.

Second Life Takes You to the Moon (Almost) (News)

May 19, 2009

Tucked away on one side of the Space Frontier Sandbox in Second Life is a reproduction Saturn V , apparently to scale, at rest on the launch-pad and serviced by the customary gantry. The individual pieces are made by different Second Life users, but the combined work is that of one Wicked Quasimodo, who has turned it into a very authentic-seeming launch, flight and (eventually) moon-landing simulation.

Second Life Content Changes Part of Larger Phase (News)

May 16, 2009

Linden Lab held a "PG definition reach-out" session on Monday morning, as a part of its ongoing refit of content ratings in Second Life, the addition of an adult rating and an adult continent and so forth.

Of particular interest is that the changes currently in progress only constitute the first phase of the changes. Linden Lab refers to future phases of the process. How much more there is to come is only alluded to.

Is Congress the smoking gun behind Second Life's turnaround on adult content? (News)

May 12, 2009

VWN:

"Earlier this week I had the pleasure to speak with two attorneys with the Federal Trade Commission who are engaged in a report on virtual worlds to Congress, due this December. The researchers are tasked with looking at the environment virtual worlds present to children and, specifically, the access they present to explicit content and measures taken to prevent that access."

Second Life 1.23 (RC1) now available (News)

May 9, 2009

Linden Lab have made a new Second Life viewer release-candidate available. RC1 is the second release candidate in the 1.23 series (Linden Lab starts counting from RC0). The 1.23 series is being fast-tracked, as it is scheduled to go live by the end of June.

Second Life pwns Gordon Freeman, Warhammer Online, others (News)

May 8, 2009

Massively:

"Wagner James Au at New World Notes is carrying some surprising data from ratings giant, Nielsen Media Research. From actual measurements of usage across over 180,000 homes in the USA, Linden Lab's Second Life (paradoxically measured under the 'PC games' category) rates the number two most played title, just behind World of Warcraft."

Gaming’s most memorable epidemics (Feature)

May 6, 2009

AW CRAP! We’re all going to DIE! Or at least, some of us might, because people die. Here at GamesRadar, we’re more worried about eye-strain than we are the ePIGdemic, but it’s hard not to think about it a bit, especially with that glowing box in our living rooms telling us we all have loaded guns with hairpin triggers stuffed up our nostrils. ...

Linden Lab Talks Adult Issues In Second Life (News)

May 6, 2009

Last week, the Lab held one of their occasional in-world press conferences in Second Life. This time it was about the addition of the new Adult content category, which not unnaturally has generated quite a bit of interest and concern among users.

Second Life 1.23 (RC0) now available (News)

May 2, 2009

Linden Lab have made a new Second Life viewer release-candidate available. RC0 is the start of a new series of release candidates, apparently scheduled to complete by the end of June.

Second Life Linden Prize Finalists Announced (News)

Apr 24, 2009

Linden Lab has announced the ten finalists (out of over 230 entrants) for the inaugural Linden Prize (Linden Dollars to the value of US$10,000). The Linden Prize itself is open to Second Life users who have an innovative in-world project that improves the way people work, learn and communicate in their daily lives outside of the virtual world and who are willing to participate in Linden Lab marketing efforts.

Second Life To Let Users Filter Adult Content (News)

Apr 23, 2009

Second Life creator Linden Lab has announced a series of initiatives designed to provide stricter control of adult content and make the virtual world more customisable for its user base.

The firm will introduce a three-tiered rating system - PG, Mature, or Adult – for all Second Life regions that will be used to identify content and set individual preferences.

Meanwhile, adult-oriented content will be migrated from the Second Life mainland to a newly created continent, with details on the "migration" set to be released in the coming months. Access to adult regions will be restricted to users with verified accounts.

Taser Sues Linden Lab over use of Virtual Tasers in the Crack Den in Second Life (News)

Apr 21, 2009

Taser International Doesn't Like Getting Sued - Files Lawsuit Against The Crack Den - Linden Lab - XStreet SL over Virtual Tazers. Screenshots and more in this post. Taser International Inc, has seen their stock price drop to under $5 a share and has been sued itself many times due to alleged accidental deaths from their products. Maybe they have too many lawyers?

Second Life Q1 Reporting Shows Growth (News)

Apr 18, 2009

Linden Lab have released their figures for Second Life for Q1 2009, showing growth in virtually every respect.

Unfortunately, most of the figures lack definition and meaning, and their nature or relevance can only be guessed at. The few that are clear, however, do show solid growth, which is good for Linden Lab and for Second Life. Massively has got a breakdown of the highlights for you, such as they are.

Viewer Changes for Second Life Adult Content (News)

Apr 16, 2009

Thanks to a piping-hot, fresh build of the Second Life viewer, Massively has been able to get a better look at the upcoming content controls that are due in the next major release of the Second Life viewer.

As expected, there are now three content ratings available (though it is uncertain as to what their final names will actually be. Using "PG" as a content rating, for example, has legal issues): PG content, Mature content and Adult content.

Dune Alienates Fans of Second Life Roleplaying Sim: Copyright Infringement - Should Learn from Mistakes of RIAA & AP (News)

Apr 9, 2009

Estate of Dune Frank Herbert Foolishly Alienates Fans of Second Life Roleplaying Sim: Should Learn From the Mistakes of the RIAA and Associated Press

Corporate Firewalled Version of Second Life in Alpha - Linden Lab Seeking Closed Beta Testers (News)

Apr 2, 2009

Second Life will soon be available as an in the box, corporate solution for use behind company firewalls. Linden Lab is currently seeking closed beta testers at SecondLifeGrid.net and expects to have more details by the summer. And yes this will eventually be a paid product.

There are currently 9 alpha testers of this stand-alone version of the Second Life virtual world including IBM, Northrop Grumman, NMC, and more.

Second Life 2009 Resident Choice Awards (News)

Apr 1, 2009

Linden Lab announced today the 2009 Seocond Life Choice Awards: "As the creators of the vast and varied world of Second Life, the Residents are the final authority on what is the coolest, cleverest, weirdest, fun-est, and most inspiring.

We know it. You know it. And here's your chance to show it.

Recommend exceptional people, places, and things inworld. Reward innovation, interactivity, heart and style.

Your World. Your Imagination. Your Award."

Second Life: Lab rearranges viewer development - Adults-only content trumps other work (News)

Mar 30, 2009

Massively:

"Over the next week or so, we've been expecting a new Second Life viewer release-candidate (1.23), with the usual slew of bug-fixes, and stabilization enhancements (1.22 yielded a 20% drop in overall viewer crash rates), and very likely the first real release of the dynamic shadows code."

2009 Virtual Education 3d Worlds Best Practices Conference Starts Tomorrow (News)

Mar 26, 2009

15 Highlights of the 2009 Virtual Education 3d Worlds Best Practices Conference Starting Tomorrow.

Second Life to lose group voting feature (News)

Mar 25, 2009

Massively:

"While it isn't clear yet which Second Life server versions will no longer support group voting, the upcoming 1.23 viewer release candidate (due any time now) will no longer include support for the feature, which will then be phased out of the servers at a subsequent date."

2 Free Ways to Create Custom Second Life Animations (News)

Mar 25, 2009

2 Free and easy ways to create custom animations for your Second Life avatars. DAZ Studio and QAvimator are both free and easy to use and included are tutorial videos and links with more information.

Linden Lab's collective copyright conundrum (News)

Mar 23, 2009

Massively:

"Over the last few months, there's been an increasing amount of talk about the modified Second Life viewer being used with Open Life Grid (a third-party virtual environment based on reverse-engineered and open-source systems and protocols). Most of the talk centers around copyright infringement -- or license violations, if you prefer."

Tired of Unrealistic Flying in Second Life? Fly Like a Bird (News)

Mar 22, 2009

Tired of Unrealistic Flying in Second Life? Why Not Fly Like a Bird

Data Visualization Software 3d Charts in Second Life (News)

Mar 21, 2009

Glasshouse Data Visualization Software 3d Charts & Graphs in Second Life

The Kaaos Effect launches in Second Life tomorrow (News)

Mar 21, 2009

Massively:

"It's something of a shame that more corporate participants in Second Life don't sponsor original content on the platform. Like the early days of the Web, many corporate marketing presences throw together something naively ineffective and unrepresentative, and then just avoid having anything to do with it until the finance department wonders about the bills."

Free Online Bowling Game in Second Life (News)

Mar 19, 2009

Free Online Bowling Game in Second Life. Video and Photos. Get your bowl on....

Top 10 Online 3D Virtual Worlds (News)

Mar 17, 2009

Extensive list of the top 10 Online 3D Virtual Worlds rated and with links to more information including images and videos.

St. Patricks Day Parade at Dublin Sim in Second Life (News)

Mar 17, 2009

If you do not have time for a St. Patick's Day celebration in real life then celebrate in the virtual world of Second Life with a Parade and other activities at the Dublin virtual sim from March 15 to March 21.

No More Sex in Second Life? - Linden Lab Cracks Down on Adult Content (News)

Mar 17, 2009

No More Sex in Second Life? - Linden Lab Cracks Down on Adult Content in the virtual world of Second Life using an Age Verification System and a Red Light Area....

Second Life viewer 1.22 goes final (News)

Mar 12, 2009

Massively:

"The 1.22 series of Second Life viewer release candidates has at last come to an end and has "gone gold" as they say. The 1.22 viewer today replaces the 1.21 viewer as the official Second Life viewer after a series of release candidates stretching back to last November."

Linden Lab changes course for Second Life's mature content (News)

Mar 12, 2009

Massively:

"Linden Lab is making an announcement today about a key change in the way content will be handled on the Second Life virtual environment in future."

Worlds.com: We'll Sue World Of Warcraft and Second Life (News)

Mar 11, 2009

The CEO of Worlds.com, Tom Kidrin, has stated that if his court case against NCSoft, the maker of MMOs such as Guild Wars and Tabula Rasa, is successful he will follow it up by suing other MMO developers like World of Warcraft's creators, Blizzard Entertainment.

Kidrin claims that his company, Worlds.com, owns the patent to create virtual worlds, dating back to the 90s. He claims his company came by the patents via Starbright World, part of the Starlight Starbright Foundation. Starbright World is an online world developed for seriously ill children, and is seen as a "private wonderland" for them.

The Reuters Second Life bureau is now closed (News)

Mar 3, 2009

Via Massively: "The Thomson Reuters news service (still mostly colloquially known just as Reuters) has announced the closing of their Second Life bureau ... making it official, five months after its actual closure and making it perhaps the last news service to report on its own departure."

Linden Lab/IBM case-study on virtual-environment meetings (News)

Mar 1, 2009

Linden Lab have published a case-study based on their strategic technology partner IBM's use of Second Life to save money on meetings and conferences. IBM's experience is quite unlike Australian Bank Westpac, which did not find such a compelling case, but the details of Westpac's findings are a bit vague.

Massively: MMOX standards at the 74th IETF (News)

Feb 20, 2009

From 22 to 27 March this year in San Francisco, the 74th IETF meeting will take place in San Francisco. The IETF is the Internet Engineering Task Force, a volunteer group responsible for the development and promotion of Internet standards, and while it represents just one of the cogs in the Internet's success and usability, it is fundamentally responsible for most of the interoperable network and communication protocols in use today.

Inner World launches a new magazine for Second Life (News)

Feb 18, 2009

The creators of the new Inner World magazine have let us know that they've got their inaugural edition out, and it's 92 pages of pretty, served up by Issuu. The Inner World magazine appears to be the brainchild of Jussara Correa, of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Linden Lab purges nearly a million inactive Second Life users (News)

Feb 16, 2009

Massively:

"Linden Lab has, for a very long time, published quite an array of statistical data about Second Life through a regularly updated (when it worked, which it didn't always) set of statistical data feeds (mostly collected by aficionados and researchers). During mid-January, two sets of those feeds suddenly stopped working. A bug, we thought, as data-quality for the statistical has traditionally been exceptionally poor, and it was far from unprecedented."

Linden Lab taking action against land-cutters (News)

Feb 15, 2009

SecondLife:

"As you'll have seen me discuss before, we're in the midst of a long term plan to improve the Mainland as a place to live, work and visit. To make this happen, we plan to act as a more proactive Estate Manager than we have historically. Part of that means addressing issues that have a significant and negative impact on the Mainland experience, like we did when we banned ad farms."

Kent State gives students a Second Life in the classroom (News)

Feb 10, 2009

Gamertell is reporting that the latest issue of the Kent State University alumni magazine has a cover story that focuses on two professors' use of Second Life.

One uses it to teach in a virtual classroom while the other uses it to give live theatrical performances.

From the article:

"Although a feature story about Second Life might seem, 'Like, so two years ago,' this is a prime example of how video games can be used to contribute to society and bring together a world community.

Second Life Indian Talent Hunt? WTF/Yes (News)

Feb 8, 2009

Split-screen.com: "It's typical for an Indian company to invent silly hooks to attract ordinary people into gaming. Where would we possibly be without those mainstream Spore conferences and gaming nights at bars? On looking at Tata Indicom's "Follow Your Heart" (seriously) Second Life Talent Hunt, we'd be motivated to think this is more on the silly, rather than hook-oriented, side but surprisingly, it's not. Granted, the number of ranked participants isn't exactly staggering but the idea represents the age old Indian talent hunt, just one playing out over the net. It's like the Idol series, only without the stuffy judges, amateur melodrama, the idiot box, emo-factor etc."

Second Life 1.22 (RC8) now available (News)

Feb 6, 2009

The ninth iteration of the 1.22 Viewer, Release Candidate 8, has been released. If you have been using Release Candidate 7, you will be required to update to RC8. As is the case with all 1.22 Release Candidate viewers, RC8 may be installed along side the official 1.21 viewer.

Robin Harper to leave Linden Lab (News)

Feb 3, 2009

Via Massively: "After almost seven years at Linden Lab Robin Harper, the Lab's Vice President of Marketing and Community Development, has given notice of her impending departure from the company."

Linden Lab snaps up Second Life stores (News)

Jan 21, 2009

GI.Biz writes: "Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life, has announced its acquisition of two web-based marketplaces for virtual goods, Xstreet SL and OnRez.

The two websites, which sold in-game items to Second Life users, are to be consolidated in order to make it easier for Second Life shoppers to find virtual goods. According to Linden Lab, the global market for virtual goods is now USD 1.5 billion, of which Second Life accounts for USD 360 million."

Second Life Residents logged nearly 400 million hours in 2008, growing 61% over 2007 (News)

Jan 20, 2009

John Zdanowski (AKA Zee Linden) has published Linden Lab's Q4 Second Life metrics from 2008 mixed with an annual summation. It reflects a considerable number of positives, but reads a bit like one of the paradoxes of motion from Zeno of Elea.

There is so much spin on these figures that you'd be well-advised to keep your fingers clear. Yes, Second Life experienced significant growth during 2008, and there was indeed growth in Q4 as well. None of the figures are wrong (except for the figures reported for reduction in land, which are credibly refuted elsewhere), but like Zeno the time frames used for the comparisons jump between using comparisons between years and quarters. As such, closer reading gives a different impression than a quick skim.

January Second Life grid technology updates (News)

Jan 15, 2009

Massively: "Linden Lab's Frank Ambrose (AKA FJ Linden) has provided another progress report on ongoing reforms to Second Life's underlying technological infrastructure. Ambrose's updates are among the most informative that you'll find on Linden Lab's blog.

You may recall that in early 2007, Linden Lab switched the asset storage system to Isilon Systems storage clusters (the same sorts of high-performance storage-clusters that are used by Sony, ABC, Turner, NASA and Facebook)."

Labour Party Steps Into Virtual World (News)

Jan 13, 2009

The British Labour Party has created an avatar of the controversial Business Secretary Peter Mandelson in Second Life. The move coincides with the launch of a new Labour website designed to drum up opposition to the Conservative Party.

Second Life 1.22 (RC5) now available (News)

Jan 12, 2009

Massively: "Linden Lab have made a new Second Life viewer release-candidate available. RC5 is the sixth release in the 1.22 series (Linden Lab starts counting from RC0). Barring any showstoppers, this appears to be the last version in the series before the release of 1.22 as the official Second Life viewer."

War in Gaza Provokes Protest (And Conversation) In Second Life Israel (News)

Jan 8, 2009

In a story posted yesterday, New World Notes reporter Wagner James Au, a.k.a. Hamlet, spoke with Beth Odets, one of the creators of Second Life Israel. She told him that there were "lots of people yelling… obscenities about murderous Israeli forces" and after evicting the most unruly protesters, she finally had to close the area to outsiders.

Linden Prize applications to close soon (News)

Jan 8, 2009

Massively: "The application period for Linden Lab's inaugural Linden Prize (US$10,000 paid in Linden Dollars) is coming to a close. The deadline for applications is Thursday, 15 January.

The Linden Prize itself is open to Second Life users who have an innovative in-world project that improves the way people work, learn and communicate in their daily lives outside of the virtual world and who are willing to participate in Linden Lab marketing efforts."

Online gaming's dirtiest tricks (Feature)

Jan 6, 2009

For as long as it's existed, the Internet has been a wretched hive of scum and villainy. The anonymity lets the world's worst people run free pretty much unchallenged and there's always someone trying to scam you – be it stealing your Facebook password or, at its most extreme, tricking you out of thousands of real-world dollars. What follows is a collection of dark tales from the terrifying world of online games.

It may seem ...

Second Life Cheating Husband Surprised by Movie Deal (News)

Jan 3, 2009

Kotaku: "The man at the heart of the Second Life story, which Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski seeks to turn into a movie, was caught off guard by news of the film adaptation.

After Crecente posted the news of Verbinski's purchase of the rights to the 2007 Wall Street Journal article about a man cheating on his wife in Second Life, I hopped onto the virtual world in order to ask Ric Hoogestraat's avatar Dutch what he thought about his situation possibly turning into a film. Not surprisingly, he hadn't heard anything about it."

Politics Invade MMOs (News)

Dec 29, 2008

Recently politicians have used online games to help advertise themselves, such as Second Life. With this, recent Israeli politicians using online games to chide others, and politicians coming out and talking publicly of their MMORPG "lives" will our virtual worlds be safe from political advertisement?

The MMO Report: WTF Second Life? (News)

Dec 12, 2008

Today on The MMO Report, Casey talks about Warhammer Online fixing problems before working on an expansion, Bioware touting their story-telling prowess in Star Wars: The Old Republic, and the Army's recruiting in another edition of WTF Second Life?

Second Life 1.22 (RC2) now available (News)

Dec 4, 2008

Massively: "Linden Lab have made a new Second Life viewer release-candidate available. RC2 is the third release in the 1.22 series (Linden Lab starts counting from RC0). As usual, we have a bunch of assorted fixes and crash fixes in this edition.

This edition has five crash fixes, additional debugging to isolate the causes of graphics driver crashes, some fixes for PPC systems, and some more attempts to get object selection/cursor positioning right for edge-cases."

Linden Lab misuses Reuters employee credit card (News)

Dec 3, 2008

Massively: "What's worse than having a service provider slap a fat charge on your credit card that's not supposed to be there? It's having it happen a second time, after they've assured you that your credit-card details have been expunged from their records.

News agency Thomson Reuters employee, Evan Maloney, is in just that position in his evocatively titled email to the public regapi list "Linden can't be trusted with your credit card information". Maloney's been slapped with the US$500 fee for the Reuters Second Life surname not once, but twice. Last time it took many weeks to sort out -- Maloney isn't eligible for customer support, not being a premium account -- so trying to reach someone at Linden Lab via the mailing list seems to be his primary support option for getting things fixed."

Second Life VRW Viewer - Real Life emotions for Avatars (News)

Dec 2, 2008

Vint Falken writes: "When I wrote about Head & Feature tracking using Irrlicht and ARtoolkit a few months ago, we all agreed we wouldn't see this coming to Second Life anywhere soon. We all were wrong, as now there is the 'VR-WEAR SL head analysis viewer'. Get the custom viewer (<- page not working atm, go here), hook up your webcam and make sure you're 'well lit' and start smiling! Or is it a bit more complicated than that?"

Reuters Leaves Second Life (News)

Nov 30, 2008

"We're still reporting on Second Life, but only as part of our usual tech and media coverage," a Reuters spokeswoman confirmed to The Register (via Game Politics). After only two years of activity, one of the world's leading news services decided to end its virtual branch in the world of Second Life, and it may have taken a month-and-a-half for anyone to notice. The last entry on their site is dated September 30.