April 2014 – Page 2 – Ciaran Laval

April 24, 2014April 24, 2014

Fantasy Faire 2014 – Competitions, Ballet And Roleplaying

Details are slowly being released regarding some of the fun, games and competitions that will be available to visitors. In a blog post entitled Once Upon A Time, information about some of the areas of interest are revealed.

Stories can be told in a variety ways of course and the route this year’s event is going down includes (but is not limited to) :

MACHINIMA

Not much detail here yet but there will be the chance for five machinima artists to get early access and create their stories. More details on this are promised soon.

PHOTOGRAPHY

This year’s photo competition comes with a difference. There will be twelve winning photos, one for each sim and then one for the event overall. The winning entries will then be included in a calendar created via Cafe Press which will be sold to raise money for Relay For Life. Yes this means a real physical calendar will be available with Second Life photography on it. The winners will be fully credited for their work.

SHORT STORIES AND POETRY

There will also be competitions for short stories and poetry, however these won’t become real physical editions but winning entries will appear in Prim Perfect magazine.

BALLET

Erm… Orcs don’t do ballet, do they? Anyway, a special ballet will be staged and recorded prior to the Faire opening. This ballet will be freely available for viewing on all good Second Life blogs and some bad ones! Ok ok I made that part up but it will be available for viewing … Orcs in ballet? I don’t know, I suspect it may be more Elvish.

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April 24, 2014

New Scientist Visits High Fidelity And Feels A Great Social Presence

Samantha Murphy of New Scientist Magazine has had an early look at High Fidelity and appears to be very enthusiastic about it, without actually going into a lot of details, the article Second Life 2.0: Virtual world recreates the real you is a little out of date in some regards, for example Samantha writes :

It’s easy to forget that Second Life, a free-roaming virtual world, was a big deal when it launched in 2003. Users could go anywhere, do anything. Reuters even had a dedicated Second Life reporter for a while. It still boasts a million active monthly users according to Rod Humble, the CEO of Linden Labs, which owns the game. But despite this it has never really lived up to its promise.

It’s tempting to pick this apart, Rod Humble these days appears to be a chap in a hat somewhere as we await more news on his latest venture, rather than being CEO of Linden Lab. Oh and yes, it’s Linden Lab, not Linden Labs of course. However these sort of things can be overlooked, the article is more about High Fidelity, rather than Second Life. However it’s fair to say that Samantha Murphy appears to be a virtual world enthusiast and she does mention issues with her Second Life experiences of the past :

I had a few issues with Second Life. I often conducted interviews there, but my painstakingly created avatar would often appear half-naked, with an arm stuck awkwardly above its head or facing a wall. So when Rosedale invited me to be the first to interview him in High Fidelity, I jumped at the chance.

Now what is surprising after reading that Samantha had problems with appearing half naked in Second Life is that she reveals that when she goes to High Fidelity to interview Philip Rosedale she isn’t half naked, no, it’s worse than that, she informs us that she has no clothes on! However, there is a perfectly plausible explanation for this, Samantha is in robot form in High Fidelity and therefore doesn’t need to be clothed.

Samantha soon discovers that her facial expressions are being mimicked by her avatar via use of a webcam. Then Philip arrives, unlike Samantha, Philip is clothed and in human form. Philip’s facial expressions are portrayed on his avatar too, the eyebrows rise, the mouth moves and it goes further, his hands move and point too. This isn’t all done via webcam of course, other pieces of hardware are required such as a 3D camera that uses the same chip as Microsoft’s Kinect and the hand movements are captured by use of a Razer Hydra games controller. High Fidelity’s use of these extra peripherals are signs of a more advanced experience but it’s not going to appeal to everyone.

However Samantha is impressed by this and so is Jeremy Bailenson, director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab.

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April 23, 2014

Fantasy Faire 2014 – Pirates, Stores And More

Image For Fantasy Faire 2014 — Fantasy Faire 2014

The Fantasy Faire 2014 website has been updated with information about sponsors, roleplay communities, stores and more. Unfortunately the sim of Wiggenstead Mooring will no longer be making an appearance under it’s original purpose due to the unfortunate ill health of Nya Alchemi. However the sim will make some sort of mysterious appearance during the Faire.

There will be Pirates at this event, they come in the shape and form of The Pirates Of Trade Winds who invite you to fill your mug with grog and join them. However if Pirates aren’t your thing then don’t worry, there will be other roleplay communities at the faire.

However for some people the faire is about the merchandies, personally I like the grog, but hey, I appreciate that some folk like to shop! Fortunately, the list of designers who will be displaying their wares is now out.

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April 21, 2014

Virtual World Currencies Continue To Pose Tax Headaches

Back in March the IRS issued more guidance on virtual currencies in the guise of Notice 2014-21. The purpose of this notice is to provide some answers to frequently asked questions regarding virtual currencies. One of those questions for those of us who use virtual worlds is whether Linden Dollars are actually a virtual currency, the answer remains unclear. However over on Forbes Peter J Reilly blogged : Bitcoins Not Tax Fairy Dust – Second Life Still A Tax Haven?

Bitcoins are specifically mentioned in the IRS document, Linden Dollars are not. However it’s the scope of the IRS notice that makes some people believe that Linden Dollars do not fall within the tax bracket :

In general, the sale or exchange of convertible virtual currency, or the use of convertible virtual currency to pay for goods or services in a real-world economy transaction, has tax consequences that may result in a tax liability. This notice addresses only the U.S. federal tax consequences of transactions in, or transactions that use, convertible virtual currency, and the term “virtual currency” as used in Section 4 refers only to convertible virtual currency. No inference should be drawn with respect to virtual currencies not described in this notice.

The Treasury Department and the IRS recognize that there may be other questions regarding the tax consequences of virtual currency not addressed in this notice that warrant consideration. Therefore, the Treasury Department and the IRS request comments from the public regarding other types or aspects of virtual currency transactions that should be addressed in future guidance.

The part of the scope that Peter J Reilly feels leaves the Linden economy unmolested is with respect to payment of goods or services in a real-world economy transaction. This is not unusual, when I raised the issue of VAT within Second Life with the UK tax officials at HMRC I was informed that transactions that take place entirely within a virtual world are outside the scope of VAT, in other words, VAT did not apply to inworld transactions with Linden Dollars when I queried HMRC, which is just as well as Linden Dollar transactions would cause a mighty headache for Second Life merchants if they were within the scope of VAT.

However grey areas do remain and one can’t help but feel that things will change in the future.

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April 20, 2014

Second Life’s 11th Birthday Plans Annoucned

Last year Second Life celebrated its tenth birthday, you don’t need to be a genius in maths to realise that this year will be its eleventh birthday, although technically it’s a tad older as Steller Sunshine celebrated turning twelve in March!

However let’s not let that spoil matters, the celebration this year is the eleventh birthday and there will be music and magic, fireworks, puzzles and much more in yet another celebration of the virtual world that leads all virtual worlds, the Mom and Dad of them all, yes I’m still talking about Second Life!

Originally, during the Alpha period, the grid was known as Lindenworld. As we were getting ready to launch the Beta, we decided we needed a name that would convey the expansiveness, involvement and complexity we hoped would characterize this world as it grew. We started by debating the merits of a ‘place’ name versus a ‘descriptive’ name. We believed a place name would give people a sense of destination, and possibly some added layer of meaning. And we thought a descriptive name would help people understand this new concept of a shared, 3D collaborative space.

We had a lot of ideas for place names — one of my favorites was Sansara, which was not only euphonic, but had an interesting meaning in the original Sanskrit, meaning roughly ‘ever changing world’. Ultimately, though, we chose to go with a descriptive name, and looked at many derivatives of Terra, Viva, and life. We kept coming back to Life2, and then landed on Second Life as more interesting, more evocative and more what we hoped the world could become as it evolved and grew to be as big as life.

And that’s how it came about!

Originally there were just 16 regions, eleven years on there are over 26,000. However enough of this, what of these celebrations, well I’ll post the press release after the cut.

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