“I’m afraid you’re going to have to remove your weapon.” the woman told me.
“I’m a Dwarfin King, a King! Do you understand me?” I replied.
“Don’t take that tone with me or I’ll have to ask you to stand outside the room.” the woman sternly replied.
I bowed my head and removed my sceptre. Yes, the educators are in town and Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 2015 has officially opened with a barnstorming speech from Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg.
Now if you’re looking for a transcript, I’m sorry but I’m not going to provide one. I’m not a big fan of transcripts, but more importantly, my notecard was eaten halfway through so I lost all my notes! However thanks to the power of my memory (this might not end well) and Daniel Voyager’s Twitter stream I may be able to provide some information. An important thing to note is that Ebbe Altberg’s speech may have been aimed at educators but it was extremely relevant to virtual world fans of all types as he delved into the future of Linden Lab’s top secret, but so far unnamed (other than being not Second Life 2.0) virtual world.
Ok so the bombshell news, the nextgen virtual world from Linden Lab will have an age rating of 13+. Now before we all panic too much, Ebbe pointed out that legally there’s really no difference between a 16+virtual world and a 13+ virtual world.
Another bombshell for those looking forward to getting an early look at Linden Lab’s nextgen virtual world is that initially Linden Lab will be hand picking participants and they will be looking for participants who know Autodesk Maya and can create experiences for Virtual Reality and a PC platform.
Concerns were raised as to why Linden Lab were looking for people with skills in what is a rather expensive piece of software, rather than an open source product such as Blender. Ebbe assured people that they will be looking for the nextgen virtual world to be open to many different creation products, but for the early testing, they want people with Maya skills.
In terms of costs, Ebbe is looking to lower land costs and increase sales taxes in the new platform. Linden Lab are spending a decent amount of time trying to find the ideal balance here, although it’s much harder to change the balance for Second Life than it is for the nextgen platform.
Ebbe talked of media on a prim and suggested that in the nextgen virtual world they will be looking at HTML5 for a solution.. Ebbe Altberg has tweeted me to say that the HTML 5 solution for Media On A Prim is aimed at Second Life. Ebbe also talked about the nextgen platform being able to support mobile devices and the fact that there is a lot more competition in the VR market today than there was twelve months ago. Ebbe pointed out that many startups are appearing in this market and that Linden Lab will have to work hard to stay ahead in the virtual world market, but he also said he welcomes the increased competition.
Whereas a lot of the discussion was about the nextgen virtual world, Second Life was not forgotten. Ebbe pointed out that LL continue to fix bugs, make improvements and that Second Life is not going anywhere. This was reassuring and it should be pointed out that if Linden Lab’s nextgen virtual world is going into an early alpha with select users over the next few months, then it’s quite a way from being ready for mainstream usage.
An interesting issue arose during the speech, how upgrades disrupt the classroom. This is something I’m familiar with when it comes to other products. Oz Linden will be addressing issues such as this at a session at VWBPE on Friday.
The speech went on for well over an hour, including a Q&A session and contained lots of interesting information for educators, Second Life residents and those interested in virtual worlds, if you can find the time I would heartily suggest that you listen to Ebbe’s speech.The video will appear at some point on the VWBPE website, so keep your eyes out for that, indeed at this very moment there’s a replay of Ebbe’s speech playing but it’s not a video link yet.
The future sounds very bright for education in virtual worlds, delivery will of course be important but with VR gaining so much interest, educators are very likely to be catered to.
SLURL to VWBPE Main Auditorium : http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/VWBPE%20Central%203/230/230/30
VWBPE website : http://vwbpe.org/
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