Ebbe talks; there is going to be a monthly Question Time with Lindens (with video)

Tags

"second life", ebbe altberg, ebbe linden, interview, question time, saffia widdershins, sl12b

Together well known VR Tv personality Saffia Widdershins and I got to interview Ebbe Altberg, aka Ebbe Linden, CEO of Linden Lab and thus, boss of our virtual world.

After a rocky start (something always goes wrong when audio and video are involved in SL) we got started.

It was interesting to note that Ebbe had returned to using his original avatar and was no longer wearing a mesh body.
Thus allowing his face to actually move as he spoke.
He said that he had only worn the mesh body as part of a presentation but I wish I’d asked a little further, because I can’t help wondering if perhaps he didn’t like the mesh avatar very much, especially the fact that you can’t really open your mouth with those avatars.
A rather bad side to the ‘new’ mesh avatars Linden Lab announced a while ago.

Nothing much new was announced or revealed during the interview, if you’ve been keeping up with the news and especially if you watched the earlier Linden interviews, you’d known most of what was being said already, although here and there extra information was being added but generally Sansar is just in too early a phase to get into real detail.

I was too busy to make notes, so I hope I remembered (and read from others) the below correctly;

• In SL there will be more options to buy and own more kinds of land, I suggested something like this in my blog in this post (click to read).
• Land in Sansar will be cheaper, even free for new users.
• In Sansar LL plans to make money by putting a tax on sales and transactions in stead of land.
• If you can run SL on your computer today you should be able to run Sansar on it as well although this could still change and Ebbe isn’t promising that you won’t need a new computer anyway. Then again, in VR everyone always needs a new computer.
• Ebbe is proud of improving communication between Lindens and the SL residents.
• Ebbe was also proud of several improvements that were implemented since he became CEO.
• Ebbe repeated that he plans to make cashing out Linden dollars faster, right now it can take several days, the plan is to make it happen within 24 hours.
• Ebbe said he walked around SL12B and enjoyed some Techno music, which I find a horrific announcement that shocked me to my core, I didn’t think that was even possible 😉
• Ebbe almost always goes around Second Life as himself, not using an alt.
  He does not mind mingling and said that quite often people don’t even realise he is the CEO.
  Which I find odd but I guess not everyone follows the SL news and maybe not everyone gets excited when they meet a Linden, any Linden.
• LL will also continue making SL run better and media on a prim will also be improved.
• Second names will very likely not return to SL, but what names will actually look like in Sansar is not quite clear.
• As Danger Linden already said, there will be one main account and several co-accounts per user, allowing you to have alts but still share the same inventory and linden dollar balance.
• In Sansar, you will probably be paying for how much your sim demands from the LL servers, for instance if you don’t mind our sim being offline when you’re not there (for instance when you run a club thats only open in the weekends) or when you don’t mind visitors having to wait a little while your sim loads, it can be offline when nobody is there, bringing your costs down.
  If you want your sim to be online all the time, you maybe have to pay a little more.
  Which makes sense to me.
• There won’t be an Linden Lab run version of SL Go yet, no Linden Lab Streaming service, which is a huge shame.
  Ebbe explained that although they looked at it, but felt it would just be too expensive to run. I disagree, one of the SL Go people told me that although Onlive failed, SL Go on its own was very close to making a profit and that if they had realised from the start that their main target audience was the kind of SL user with an old computer and not the mobile user, they would have done better sooner.
  SL Go also showed us that people were willing to pay 10$ a week for streaming SL.
  And I also think that even in SL Streaming does not make any profit, or not much, it would be an important service that is good for SL, as it would allow people to see SL the way it should be seen and thus send out more high quality screenshots and videos into the world, giving SL priceless advertising.
  So I hope that perhaps someone at SL invites some of the ex-SLGo staff to have another chat anyway.
  Nevertheless, LL is looking into streaming Sansar, although again, this is something that isn’t happening any time soon.
• As Sansar won’t be open source (at least not for a while), there is no room yet for third party viewers, such as Firestorm.
  Which would be upsetting unless LL is implementing a lot of that what makes Firestorm the better viewer.
  But there will be room for add-ons, so I assume people will be able to create certain tools you can add to your viewer to give them more features.
  If this works, it would be really cool.
  Especially if people can create all sorts of applications for the official viewer that they can then sell on the Sansar marketplace!
  It could start a whole new industry.

Near the very end of the interview Ebbe said that he really enjoyed the chat and that we should figure out a way to do something like this again.
This made me think back to an idea I had a few days ago and posted about here on my blog;

Second  Life Question Time (click to read)

I had discussed this with Saffia Widdershins before the interview and in a spur of the moment sort of thing, we decided to take Ebbe up on his offer and told him that we should have some sort of Question Time, but with Lindens.
Jokingly I suggested we could do one every week, but Ebbe thought that once a month would probably be better.
I replied that it was a deal, a verbal agreement and Ebbe agreed.

Afterwards, off the air, we briefly talked about this idea a little longer and it seems there really will be a Question Time show coming to Second Life.

So in a way, we had a little scoop after all.
I’m very excited about this because I feel it will make communication between us and the Lindens even better and there seem to be so many people with questions.

The idea will be simple; we invite Lindens (and perhaps one or two guests as part of a current SL related news story) and let the audience ask the questions.
Don’t start sending in questions just yet, we need to build a stage, find some space, set a date, etc.
But we will of course let everyone know when it is going to happen.

I’ll keep you updated!

You can see the whole interview here;

Who cares what they look like while gaming?

Tags

computer, desk, dirty, headset, helmet, looks, silly, stupid, virtual reality, Warren Spector

It is funny and sad at the same time that people keep saying that VR will never take off (it already has) because you look ‘silly’ while wearing a VR helmet.

Seriously?

Even people who are supposed to know better say this, like Warren Spector an American video game designer best known for Deus Ex, a well known game I’ve never played.

In an interview (click here to read it) he recently said that VR was just a fad, because;

I don’t think most humans want to look stupid (everyone looks stupid in a VR headset) and they don’t want to isolate themselves from the world. I mean, if someone’s sneaking up behind me with a baseball bat, I want to know about it, you know what I mean? And let’s not talk about nausea.

I find this rather silly.
Because in my personal experience, and I’ve been a hardcore gamer since the 1980s, most humans couldn’t care less what they look like while gaming and they want to do nothing more than isolate themselves from the world.

We sit in our parent’s basement (sorry couldn’t resist that joke) in our underpants behind a computer covered in cookie crumbles, wearing our glasses, not having brushed our hair, surrounded by game guides, wearing an ugly but good headset while screaming at the 12 year old on the other side of the world who just defeated you, as the pesky little monkeys always do.
And especially if you’re a young gamer, your room will be quite a mess anyway.

How many of us, while being in SL or playing a game, can without one second of delay turn on the webcam?
Be honest?
I bet quite a few of us first have to change our clothes or even clean up everything in view of the camera…

And do you want to isolate yourself from the world while gaming?
I sure do!
That is the main reason I even play games or am in VR; to get away from reality for a bit.

When I have visitors, I am not wearing my VR headset, I don’t play games, I don’t even watch tv.
And if I would go into VR while other people are in my house, I would make sure these are trusted friends and family members, who don’t care what I look like with a VR helmet and who would not hit me over the head with a baseball bat, although they do feel the temptation to do so now and then…

Some people apparently enjoy computer games in a completely different setting than I do and than most of my friends do.
It is not a social thing, not in reality anyway, we play games together, but very rarely in the same room or in public.
If the best VR helmet was pink, had a rainbow unicorn on it and was covered in glitter, I’d still wear it.

Seriously, who actually cares like what they look like when they play a game?

Who even plays games with others in the room a lot?

Who of you don’t have a door with a lock on it?

How many gamers are in danger of being hit with a baseball bat by the people they share a home with?

He ends with the nausea, which shows he hasn’t really been paying attention.
I already had no issues with that when I tried the DK1 a year or so ago, but to be fair, I never get nausea, even when I was sailing on an old ship during a hurricane.
Maybe its in my genes, my family were all at sea.
But according to most people trying the most recent helmets, it has been pretty much solved, unless you’re very sensetive.

So come on, can we forget for a second what we look like while using a VR helmet?
Many, if not most of us will not care and those who do will probably stop caring when they start becoming a bigger part of our lives.

Remember that not that long ago people talking on a mobile phone in public looked silly… but today… wait… never mind, bad example.
People with mobile phones still look stupid.
Yes, especially you.

Finally, here a photo of my computer room, for everyones sake, I left myself out of the frame.

Foto: Emok.tv

Linden Lab will not develop ‘My Second Life’ further, but should.

Tags

"second life", facebook, msl, my second life, social media

During todays yesterdays (I fell asleep before I could finish this blog) ‘Meet a Linden’ talk at SL12B with Danger & Troy Linden, it was revealed that ‘My Second Life’ will not be “developed further”, mostly because a lot of time and work is spend on improving other things.

He said;

Its kind of a mess and it’s very difficult to maintain. Its usage rate is on the low side compared to other features.
So it may not be a popular answer, but no more improvements are planned on that.

I think this is a shame, I feel that it would be good for SL and in the future Sansar to create an active social media tool for our virtual world.

Everyone in SL knows the many issues we have with groups, group chat, having your account removed from Facebook, losing your pictures on Flickr, getting lost on Koinup, trying to keep track of what is being said on Plurk, dodgy online event calendars that are somehow never up to date, etc, etc.
But SL for most people is all about communication, after all, many of us are part of one or more communities.
Keeping them running, organizing events, staying in touch with everyone, keeping a nice record of what’s been going on, sharing pictures… it is all quite a big job and not being made easier by all the options we have but also lack.

When ‘My Second Life’ was first introduced in 2011 I was quite excited, I hoped that it would replace all or most of the tools I use a lot to keep the 1920s Berlin community going.
But alas, I was soon disappointed and stopped using it a long time ago.

I think that if LL developed it further and make it more like a, let’s not hide it, Facebook clone, a lot more users would start using it.

The best thing about this kind of social media wouldn’t just be the chance to chat about what you’re doing, gossip and sharing pictures, but the ability to manage and run your SL communities and social life.

One of the most important things I need, and yes, I only speak for myself, as I always do, as I’m self obsessed, or should that be Berlin obsessed?
The most important options any social media can offer me is that of meeting a community online.
What we need in ‘My Second Life’ is groups.

Imagine having a group for your SL community, one where all the members can post stories, questions, pictures, etc.
There is space for photo albums, so you can share and keep all pictures people post of a certain event in one place, there is room for posting comments and respond to them, perhaps there is even a chat window.
But maybe even more important; there could be a shared events calendar.
With an active community it is always difficult to keep track of who is organising what, where and when and avoid events being organised at the same time.
It can also be complicated to make sure people find out where to look to stay up to date.
Right now we use Facebook, google calendar and an inworld board for this and still it doesn’t always work.

I’d love the ability to start group pages, with a event calendar, chat wall, pictures albums, etc.
One that those who join  get (inworld) notifications from (if they choose to) when something new is posted or when an event is about to start.
An easy way for me to reach everyone who joined even if I myself can’t go inworld for one reason or another.

Imagine if this page was also representative of your group, something you can stumble upon in search and learn about the community and sim even before you join it inworld.
Maybe it could eve be the portal to your community, almost like a webpage for your sim.
Welcome to our 1920s Berlin site, here you see some pictures of events, here you see what we’ve been talking about and here is a big button that will allow you to install SL and teleport directly to a stool by the bar, schnaps is ready.

I’d love to have a more active personal page, with more options, to be more like… here it comes again; Facebook.

In short, I’d love to stop using Facebook and Google calendar, Google+, etc, and swap all that for a place on ‘My Second Life’ with more options.
I think it will be a good thing for the communities, events, etc.

I’d love to be in contact with my SL communities even when not inworld.
See at once glance what events are scheduled for today, see what people are talking about, etc.

Now, if LL wants to make me really happy, they would add more in-out world interaction.
Imagine if you could, on the 1920s Berlin community page in MSL also see a window with the inworld group chat… live!
Or, and maybe this is only for sim moderators or admins; a current list of who is actually in that groups sim at that very moment.
Even allowing you to eject and ban someone from there, all without even logging into SL.
More than once I’ve received a frantic IM from someone in SL asking me to take care of a griever ruining an event, but not being able to do something about it for precious minutes because I had to go get my other computer, wait for it to boot up, wait for SL to load, wait for everything in SL to load so I could make a snapshot of the griever in question, etc.

Imagine being able to write a message on your group page in MSL and it goes out to all members inworld!
We could stop using the expensive and not always trustworthy inworld mailing services!

Imagine being able to see your friends list there and send them an IM that, if they are online will receive inworld in a regular chat window and they can respond to.
You could have a regular chat while they are in SL and you are in RL.

I think if we had tools like these, MSL would be open in a window on my screen all the time and I’d post there several times a day in stead of once every few months, like I do now on MSL.

And yes, I know Herr Linden, that will be a lot of work and there is plenty to do already at Linden Lab.
But I bet that once MSL starts offering more option and freedom, a lot of people will start using it much more and improving communication, strengthening communities and bring more people to events.

If it has enough options, thousands of us can stop using Facebook with fake accounts, Second Life has almost 370.000 likes on Facebook and I reckon a lot of those come from ‘fake’ accounts, at risk of being deleted by Facebook at any time.

Places like SLUniverse are very active, have over 25000 accounts and people spend lots of time there having all sorts of discussions, even if they don’t spend much time in SL any more.

I think that with a few extra options MSL could become a much used and popular tool, one you’d check several times a day, somewhere you go to chat and see what is happening even if you can’t or don’t want to go inworld.

Letting it slide and stay as it is will be, in my eyes, a mistake.
It could be a very powerful and much wanted service and I am sure we will also want/need something like this for Sansar anyway, so working on this now will also be useful for the future.

The full Danger & Troy Linden interview;

I tried to post this to MSL, but it wouldn’t let me.

Talk with Danger & Troy Linden reveals a few new details about Sansar

Tags

"second life", Lindens, sansar, sl12b

During todays ‘Meet a Linden’ with Troy and Danger Linden a few little details about Sansar were reveiled that may be news to many of us.

I won’t go into detail much as I’m way too busy running the daily Happy Hour at our 1920s Berlin display in SL12B and I am sure some of the other bloggers will post a detailed report.

So here are just my tweets that I posted while the chat was happening;

Lindens say; http://t.co/ITdJDIBZ1G is not going to be "developed further", for now. Shame, needs improving! I'll blog about this.

— Jo Yardley (@1920sberlin) June 25, 2015

(I’ll be writing a blog about this soon)

Danger Linden; in Sansar everyone gets certain amount of land for free with basic accounts, even without creating full account.

— Jo Yardley (@1920sberlin) June 25, 2015

The idea being that you don’t have to create a full account just to be able to own some land and start building, which I think is a great idea.

Danger Linden: you will be able to own and rent out land in Sansar

— Jo Yardley (@1920sberlin) June 25, 2015

This is very important of course, as rent is essential to keep communities going, besides having to pay tier money coming in is also important to keep improving the place but also to justify the amount of time the managers and builders put into it.
Of course with free land being available and tier (hopefully) going down for us as well, rent in may places may go down a little bit, making SL cheaper without lots of people suddenly losing lots of income.
But those of us in SL who rent out small parcels to people who need a skybox or just a little place to build a small home may need to reconsider their business model.

Danger Linden; in Sansar the idea is that different avatars you own will be able to share inventory.

— Jo Yardley (@1920sberlin) June 25, 2015

This is fantastic, many, probably most hard core users of Second Life have a few alts and we have to buy new stuff and clothes for all of them, not to mention the complicated hassle of passing things from one to the other with the wrong permissions, etc, etc.
If I understood correctly, you will have one main account and you can add other secondary accounts to this main account and they all share the same inventory while being different avatars to the outside world.

Danger Linden; we will have voice AND text chat in Sansar.

— Jo Yardley (@1920sberlin) June 25, 2015

This is also rather nice, many people don’t want to use their RL voice in virtual reality for one of many reasons and giving us both voice and text chat is a great option.

Danger Linden; Sansar will not be open source but will allow third party add-ons

— Jo Yardley (@1920sberlin) June 25, 2015

This is interesting, as a huge fan of Firestorm, I’d be most upset if at least some of the options I can’t do without (such as contact sets, super radar, etc) won’t be in Sansar.
But I also sort of get why open source is a bit of a pain for LL, especially with something new.
This way they can keep their viewer to themselves and make sure everyone uses the same viewer but they still give us (and hopefully the Firestorm team) plenty to tinker with.

Danger Linden; Sansar will be anonymous but giving more info will give you more options, thus trying to make things harder for grievers.

— Jo Yardley (@1920sberlin) June 25, 2015

I like this as well.
The idea being that the barrier to get started in SL is very low, you won’t need to share any or much information to get started and go explore.
Very handy if you want to show Sansar to your friends.
But the more information you give, the more freedom and options you’ll have.
For starters of course it will be needed to buy and sell money, and perhaps the more LL knows about you, the faster they can transfer your cash to Paypal, etc.
And if you own a region, you can decide that perhaps you only want to allow people who have proven their age.
One of the great things this could help with is fighting grievers.

Second Life Question Time

Tags

debate, interview, Lindens, question time

As part of Second Life’s 12th birthday (aka SL12B) I’ve been enjoying a series of interviews with Lindens.

I sneak into the audience and sometimes even get a chance to force my own opinions and questions to the front in a subtle and ladylike manner… ish… sort of… shouting is involved…
You may have read my near- hysterical post yesterday about when Oz Linden announced 24 hour days are coming, partially as a result of my nagging 😉

Since Linden Lab opened their doors and lured kicked pushed enticed set free allowed the Lindens to go out into the wide open world again we’ve been seeing a lot more of them and generally people really like seeing, hearing and meeting them in the wild.
And you can see that in these SL12B interviews as well, when Lindens get on stage, regions fill up.

The interviews are very good, veteran interviewer Saffia Widdershins does her job rather well together with Elrik Merlin, Draxter Despres and others.
Yes, they’ll even let me on the stage to talk to Ebbe.
If you’ve got any questions for him, leave them in the comments section, I may be able to squeeze them in.
If not, make sure you’re in the audience and ask them yourself!

But no matter how much the Lindens talk, you always think of something to ask that doesn’t come up or that you only think about after the interview is over.
And it made me wonder if perhaps it would be interesting to have more chat shows like these.

And no matter how interesting the interview is, the interaction with the audience is often even more exciting.

In the UK there is a tv show called ‘Question Time’, a hand full of politicians sit on a stage while the audience asks them questions.
They can ask (almost) anything they want, several questions are handed in before the show starts but people can also put their hands in the air and ask something else.
You can imagine that these shows are very entertaining.
And of course the questions can get quite difficult sometimes.
As far as I am concerned every country needs a show like this, a place where the politicians directly have to respond to the questions of their employers; the people.

Picture; BBC

I started wondering if perhaps this would be something great to have here in Second Life.
Imagine, once a month (or more often?) 3 or 4 Lindens and 1 or 2 guests who for one reason or another have something to do with whatever story is in the news at that time, are invited to Second Life Question Time.
The public gets to send in their questions in advance, there is a host, someone like Saffia, Merlin, Drax etc. and together with the public, for one hour, there is a debate.
The news of the moment is discussed, the questions that were send in are asked and members of the audience with lovely ‘hand the air’ gestures can get to ask questions as well.

This is something I’d watch and I bet so would many others.
It would be the cherry on top of the whole new openness that has changed how LL interacts with the people of Second Life.
What do you think?
Do you like the idea, is it something you’d watch, do you already have questions popping up in your head?

Here is a video showing the UK Question time, not very exciting, but it shows you the general idea of what it is;

And to make up for that video, here is one mocking Question Time;

24 hour day cycles are coming to Second Life

Tags

"second life", 24 hour days, day cycle, improvements, windlight

I’ve been nagging, bribing and begging for a 24 hour day cycle in Second Life for a very long time.
You can read my first blog about it from 2012 by clicking here.

Every opportunity I’ve had I brought it up, bothering poor Lindens with it everywhere I could find them, even Ebbe himself.

But I realised that this was something only of interest to a few people and thus, rightfully so, Linden Lab we’re not that interested in putting a lot of time into it.

Nevertheless I kept asking about it and I am sure so did others.

And I kept changing the windlight setting in 1920s Berlin twice a day… by hand!
In 4 regions…
You can imagine that this is quite a pesky job!
And when I had a hangover after a wild RL party… Berlin wouldn’t see sun till in the afternoon!

After all I want to mimic reality in my sim and in RL Berlin days just don’t last 4 hours, as they do now if you turn on the day cycle option.

So today I went to listen to Oz Linden talk at the SL12B event and couldn’t resist mumbling something about the 24 hour day wish again.

Oz heard me and said that I’d convinced Ebbe and that 24 hour day cycles are indeed coming to Second Life!

Jo, you’ve convinced Ebbe that we need to do 24 hour days!
I can’t give you a time line but one of these days it will happen for sure.
It’s one of the things I want to make part of environment settings, whats the dateline.
So right now the 4 hour second Life day, the whole setting cycle is always 4 hours, is kind of baked in and it wouldn’t be hard to change it so that is a variable.
I’d like that myself, its one that really irritates me because I hold lots of inworld meetings at various places and I’d like it to be true that whenever I’m holding a meeting it’s day time and the way things are right now unless you just use a fixed setting its hard to make sure a particular setting always lines up with a particular time of day in real time.

I can’t wait to experience my first 24 hour cycle in Berlin, actually seeing it get dark in SL as it gets darker in RL.

Maybe we can even link the daylight setting to a timezone!
Imagine that, never having to tweak the windlight again and see it change as seasons change.
Or even better… a windlight system that is linked to the weather… so we can have windlight mimic RL even more…
But maybe we should save that for another day or Sansar.
I want my 24 hour days first, so I can finally stop tweaking the windlight twice a day…

I just want people to visit Berlin and experience the time of day it is in Berlin in RL at that moment, of course if they don’t like being there at night, they can always turn the sun back on in their own viewer.
Second Life offers us so much freedom, we can do pretty much whatever we want and we can build anything our imagination can come up with.
So its a bit odd that we’re limited to 4 hour day cycles!

See the interview here;

SL12b is here, join us at Second Life’s 12th birthday celebrations

The 1920s Berlin Project

The media is very excited about virtual reality, telling everyone its finally coming and that soon we’ll all be having the most wonderful adventures in digital worlds.

Yet some of us have been enjoying virtual reality for years… in Second Life!

Today Second Life, the biggest online 100% user created virtual world, is celebrating its 12th birthday!

And it is being celebrated with over 200 exhibits on 15 full regions!

There are 5 very impressive stages with interviews, performances, shows, etc.
Over 700 performers and speakers!

There will be several interviews with Lindens and I’ll be co-hosting one of them, so make sure not to miss those.

There is a lot more information on what to see and where on the official SL12B website, make sure you check it out by clicking here.

This year’s theme for the SL12B Community Celebration is “What Dreams May Come.

In our SL12B display we are…

View original post 244 more words

What Second Life means to me

Tags

anniversary, sl12b

Linden Lab is asking people to share with the world what Second Life means to them.

This virtual world allows me what I love to do most but can’t in reality; Time travel.

I’ve been given the tools to rebuild Berlin in the 1920s and wander its streets and taste the atmosphere of this vibrant city during these exciting years.

I always created worlds, especially historical ones, but before SL I used to make drawings, film and tv shows about the past but it just wasn’t the same.

I can now rebuild the past in virtual reality and share it with people from all over the world, doing the second thing I like very much; educating.

These are things I also do in RL, history, education and even time travel are part of my life, honest!
I have a 1930s lifestyle, only wear clothes from that era, own no tv, no mobile phone, no washing machine, etc.
You can perhaps imagine that although there are some, there are not that many vintage themed 1920s, 1930s or 1940s parties in RL that I can visit whenever I want.
Second Life has given me the chance to have one at any moment!

In short, Second Life is enabling my History addiction…

And this is only the beginning!
I hope to add more time travel experiences to this virtual world and the next!

To celebrate the 12th anniversary of Second Life Linden Lab made a couple of wonderful videos showing a few people telling us what Second Life means to them.

Enjoy!

Torley Linden; virtual celebrity, known by all, obsessed with a certain fruit’s related colours I don’t even dare mention out of fear of Torley trying to eat the blog;

Xiola Linden; a superstar, Second Life Lead Community manager who does a LOT of work organizing great events, the superb meet & greets and many things we don’t even know about;

Famous fashion blogger and photographer Strawberry Singh;

And of course our very own Second Life reporter Draxtor Despres made a video too;

Unfortunately my current computer isn’t good enough to make a video, so I won’t be adding mine, but if you can make a video, you should.

If you can’t, share your story in the comment section below.

What does Second Life mean to you?

New Drax Files World Makers Episode 30: Maylee Oh

Tags

drax files, draxtor despres

Another splendid Drax Files episode has been released today, as usual Draxtor Despres managed to make an impressive and wonderful short documentary about one of Second Life’s creative and talented inhabitants.

Enjoy and share!

Drax writes;

Paris, France based Maylee Oh makes a living by designing female apparel for avatars who live in the virtual world of Second Life.

“I can run my own business the way I like in terms of product and customer service!” says the 28-year old who worked for the better part of 8 years to establish her brand “The Secret Store”.

She is using a mix of creative tools such as Blender and Photoshop to arrive at a a unique and simple style that is quite popular among the millions of avatars from all around the world roaming the vast digital universe.

And even being a freelance designer does not mean being lonely in front of a computer because Maylee’s international collaborators share a virtual workspace in Second Life, they work indeed side by side and can productively socialize as if they were together in the physical realm.

The concept of virtual goods and services as a means of income may still be esoteric for many says Maylee but she adds: “…when skeptical friends say it is a waste to spend money on dressing up an avatar I usually reply that they are buying my time, my idea of style that they can make their own. It is not a waste. A lot of thought and work went into this. Everyone including me wants to make their avatar look good, because clothing is personal expression! What is wrong with that?”

Quite so!

For more information about Maylee check out http://www.thesecretstoresl.com/

Big thanks to Marianne McCann and all the great extra actors who participated in making this episode. Special thanks to Maylee’s
office colleagues – sorry to keep you from working during this production!

All animated images by Maylee Oh.

Oculus announcement about the Rift Headset; it is coming.

Tags

oculus rift, virtual reality

Today Oculus had a special presentation with the latest news regarding their Rift Virtual Reality head set.

The commercial version will be available in the first quarter of 2016.

The design is pretty impressive, small and smooth, wearable like a baseball cap.

It comes with integrated 360 degrees special audio and headphones, but these can easily be removed if you prefer to use your own.

Comes with X-box 1 controller.

It will also work with a sensor you will place on your desk, not sure if this will just help locate which way you’re looking at, standing or sitting or if it will also be able to track gestures, like the leap motion.
It looks like this;

Here is the official Oculus introduction video;

At launch you will be able to experience a few games straight out the box.
Eve Valkyrie, a space ship shooting game, sounds interesting but I always wonder why anyone would want to do some science fiction space flying if you could also be flying a Spitfire!
Nevertheless, this looks very exciting and I can imagine that such a game is perfect for the VR experience as you’re sitting in a seat in RL and VR, looking all around you.
I can’t wait till I can defend London during a dogfight in 1940, suddenly being shot af from behind and as you try to look over your shoulder to see who is shooting at you, you see a Messerschmitt pass over your cockpit.
Anyway, a good game for the Rift either way.

Another game coming, ready for the Rift, is Chronos.
Doesn’t look very impressive and again, it is a fantasy theme, I’m allergic to those.
But technically it is all about a labyrinth, a RPG, again a rather good test case for the Rift.

‘Edge of nowhere’ is the next VR Rift made game, this again, sigh, is a fantasy theme, but it takes place somewhere in the Antarctic.
So atmosphere wise it is very nice and cold.
Other games are a shooter, a sports game, a kids puzzle game, etc.

To me this illustrates perfectly why Second Life is the best VR tool there is, none of these games or experiences are appealing to me.
I want to see some of the things I’ve seen in SL or even better yet, create my own VR experiences.

It is such a shame Sansar is not at that level yet to be part of this Rift deal, part of the package that is ready for VR users who have just bought the brand new Rift.
Lets hope Sansar is ready next year when the Rift hits the market anyway, although I think that is too soon.

Oculus has also developed ‘Oculus Home’, the virtual ‘desk top’ sort of library where you’ll have access to all your Oculus ready software or game.
You’ll see what your friends are playing, you can buy a game, manage downloads, join games, etc, without removing your headset.
But it is nowhere near a virtual world, so there is at least one company not developing a virtual world… yet.

I was quite amused when one of the chaps said that with VR we’re able to watch movies in a virtual cinema and that one day we could even do that with friends…
Seriously?
I’m pretty sure some of the VR cinema demo’s already have that but either way, we’ve been doing that in Second Life for over a decade…

The next, quite big news was the revealing of their secret project; Oculus Touch.
It is, according to Palmer Luckey himself, the best way to interact inside VR.
In short it is a sort of joystick or controller you wear in each hand and that allows you to, for instance, pick up things, shoot a gun, give a thumbs up, etc.
It looks interesting and it is smart, even impressive to come with a whole new way of controlling a game inworld.
But I can’t help wondering why they didn’t just go with an improved version of the good old VR glove.
Or improve their table sensor with something like Leap Motion technology.
People want to wear less stuff while in VR, not more.

It was not mentioned if these came with the Oculus Rift when bought, so I assume you have to buy them separately.
It seems like the Rift is going to be quite the expensive toy and although lots of rumours about how much it will eventually cost have been going around, we still don’t know how much money we’ll have to spend and it wasn’t announced during this presentation either.
Tech specifications were also not released.