Second Life Residents Start To Pay Their Respects To Mr Spock

An Image Should Be Here
Spock On The Map

I can remember being in Second Life one evening when there was a lot of kerfuffle going on in group chat urging people to look at Sandbox Cordova on the map. These things happen, I wasn’t taking much notice and then I decided to take a look. The above image was a genuine view of the Second Life map at that time.

The above golden moment was captured by Imnotgoing Sideways. There’s another example over at SLUniverse complete with a little bit of commentary from the moment. The Lindens may not have found it quite as funny as we did.

The Second Life Science Fiction Convention, which runs until March 1st have started to pay their respects to Leonard Nimoy, forever known as Mr Spock.

Farewell Mr Spock

The United Federation Of Planets are putting up signs to mark the memory of Spock.

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The Drax Files: World Makers Episode 27 – Nylon Pinkney

Nylon Outfitters

Episode 27 of the excellent Drax Files : World Makers features Nylon Pinkney, a wedding photographer. However a small twist in the introduction informs us that Nylon is a wedding photographer outside of Second Life but not inside it. There’s a clue on why Nylon made that choice later in the video.

Nylon informs us that she makes clothing, accessories and skins, Nylon even informs us that she once made some of the Second Life starter avatars.

Again we see the Second Life avatar and the real person behind that avatar, which is a technique Draxtor Despres uses regularly and to good effect. Seeing and hearing the real person brings an element of realism to the Second Life experience.

We see Nylon at work, hand drawing textures, which Nylon admits aren’t perfect but Nylon also admits that she isn’t looking for perfect and that’s a good point, imperfections often bring something extra to a creation.

Paper Couture

Nylon’s mainstore is Nylon outfitters  and is based on her sim, Tableau. Nylon also has a more upmarket stores known as Paper Couture. There’s also another brand mentioned in this video, the Wrigglesworth residents which is a line for people who, look a tad older than the traditional Second Life avatar.

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Colin Marchon Explores Our Technological Identity Crises With An Excellent Web Series

Colin Marchon, who currently attends Tisch School of the Arts at New York University for Film and Television Production, has produced an excellent documentary series : Our Technological Identity Crises. The series consists of three short, but very powerful videos :

The videos are short, each one coming in at around five minutes and they are all absolutely fascinating to me. As this blog is largely about virtual worlds I’m going to concentrate on Part 2, but all three are relevant. Part 2 is a good pick though because it has a brief discussion about Second Life as well as aspects that are dear to Second Life users and beyond, terms of service and identity.

The video opens with Federico Pistono, author of Robots Will Steal Your Job But That’s Ok. Federico has a view on life that some will feel is a bit too extreme, he sees his time away from the keyboard not as being in real life, but as being AFK. This is an interesting thought but I find it a tad too technologically based to embrace it myself.

Then the video moves on to augmented reality and an important question arises, if digital representations are going to surround us in the future, what makes the world inside our computers and phones any less real than the physical world? The point here being, I think, that augmented reality will contain digital representations that will be considered more real than the worlds inside computers.

Francesca Ferrando, philosopher of the posthuman, adjunct at faculty at NYU then adds her thoughts. Francesca talks of how we can connect with millions of other people with a body of your own imagination. The body of your own imagination that Francesca is talking about is your avatar. There have been many discussions about how avatars are in many cases an extension of ourselves. Francesca then makes an interesting comment about Second Life :

I’m telling you the truth, the first time my avatar flew in Second Life, I had chills in my physical body.

An interesting perspective. The flight thing is interesting, I was never bowled over by flight in Second Life, but then again I had played games like City Of Heroes before I arrived. On the other hand, when Gene Roddenberry Junior visited Second Life, he was very impressed by the fact that his avatar could fly.

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High Fidelity Raises $11m In Funding, They Are Hiring And Open Alpha Will Be Their Next Big Milestone

In a blog post entitled This One Goes To Eleven, High Fidelity reveal that they have raised a further $11m in funding from Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital :

We are happy to announce today that we have raised an additional $11M in funding, in a new round led by Vulcan Capital and with participation from other new and existing investors. This is certainly great news for us, but also great news for the overall VR ecosystem as we continue to see more and more validation from the investing community that VR presents enormous opportunities.

The point about validation is very important. At the moment I see a lot of hype and technologies emerging with regards to virtual reality but the proof of the pudding really lies in investment. Whilst investment is still rolling in, it suggests that many people really do believe that something concrete will emerge.

High Fidelity itself is still progressing at a nice pace. I’ve been impressed by the fact that they haven’t tried to rush into producing a product that isn’t ready for prime time. An article over at TechCrunch regarding the new funding exemplifies the point about High Fidelity’s progress :

The main idea driving High Fidelity forward is the ability to quickly generate a virtual space to meet in and interact with. While the interface is far from final, it’s already at the point where you can pick a template, choose a name, and instantly have a space accessible by others. Each space is essentially a small video game world, filled in with the same 3D models you’d build for a game built with Unity.

Creating your own world in High Fidelity is a lot easier than it once was, you can be up and running fairly quickly these days with some starter content already included. However High Fidelity is still very much Alpha and that should be taken into account if you see or visit a High Fidelity world. The TechCrunch article is well worth a read if you’re interested in High Fidelity. However back to the High Fidelity blog post :

Our next big milestone will be an open alpha version of our system which will allow everyone to start deploying interconnected shared VR spaces.

Although the blog post doesn’t inform us just how far away open Alpha is, it is encouraging to see the High Fidelity team mention this.

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A Visit To The Vortex Club In Second Life

VortexStrut2

There seems to be an impression that Dwarfins only spend time inside Second Life at taverns of a certain build, taverns that serve mead, taverns that welcome bar brawls or taverns that are frequented by female Dwarfins who will drink you under the table. This is a myth, sometimes Dwarfins step outside of their comfort zone and to exemplify this and tie in with Science Fiction being a theme in the Second Life news this week, I decided to head on down to The Vortex Club in Second Life to strut my funky stuff.

Vortex Club

The Vortex Club is one of Second Life’s oldest clubs and was opened on the 3rd March 2006 by Kris Spade and Gemini Enfield. The current build has a distinct Loki Eliot theme to it. There’s also a distinct Science Fiction theme to the build too, with colourful displays and video screens prominent.

The front of The Vortex?

Moving towards the entrance you can see the lights coming from inside, but your first step through the entrance is a bit of a false dawn.

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