November 2015 – Page 2

November 16, 2015

Virtual Reality and Virtual Worlds Could Help People With Autism Learn Social Skills

The University of The West of England (UWE) have published an article relating to autism and how technology can be put to good use : Head-mounted virtual reality could help people with autism learn social skills and develop employment opportunities.

Whereas the headline and the latter part of the article are related to HMD’s and how a small test group of people on the autism spectrum reacted, the earlier part of the article deals with autism, games and virtual worlds, with positive results reported by Dr Nigel Newbutt, Associate Head of Media and Digital Cultures at UWE :

Dr Newbutt has investigated how virtual world platforms such as Second Life can help people with autism navigate social situations such as visiting a coffee shop, going to the cinema or even attending a job interview.

A further quote from the article informs us :

“There is a growing evidence-base that suggests many people on the autism spectrum find interaction with technology easy and, in some cases, more natural than interacting with people. There is some evidence to suggest that games such as Minecraft™ and virtual worlds such as Second Life™ (which have been designed for the general public) have great potential to help someone on the spectrum practice and develop social skills; building their confidence in virtual simulations without the fear of real-life consequences.

This sounds positive and seems to fit in with other reports of the benefits of virtual worlds when it comes to health, support and encouraging people to participate in something new.

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November 13, 2015November 13, 2015

International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference Taking Place In Second Life This Weekend

Virtual Ability Inc. are hosting the the fourth annual Internaional Disability Rights Affirmation Conference (IDRAC) this weekend. The conference is in progress now.

There is an official blog post from Virtual Ability; 2015 International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference. I’ll include the full schedule of the conference in this post, unfortunately some of the talks have already taken place but I feel that it’s important to highlight what has been going on at this conference.

The blurb for the conference informs us :

Presenters will present from the United Kingdom, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Canada, and the US. See below for details about the presenters and their topics, and join us on the 13th and 14th of November as we celebrate successes, identify issues and re-affirm the rights of people with disabilities across the world.

This conference highlights not only a very good use case for use of virtual worlds in terms of bringing people together from various parts of the world, it also highlights a very good use case of helping people to interact with others to discuss issues that are very personal in a setting that makes the participants comfortable.

Now for the schedule.

FRIDAY November 13, 2015
Times listed are US Pacific Standard Time/Second Life Time

9:00am – Effectiveness Study of a Community-Based Pain Clinic, Muhammad Abdul Hadi
Chronic pain. a significant disabling condition, is often managed ineffectively in the primary care setting. Dr. Hadi led a research team that investigated the role of nurses and pharmacists, operating out of community-based pain clinics, in providing effective care for chronic pain patients.

Presenter Bio:
Dr. Muhammad Abdul Hadi is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Pharmacy at the College of Pharmacy, Umm-Al-Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia. Educated at the University of Leeds, he previously taught at Monash University. He specializes in mixed methods research.

10:30am – The Edge of Normal, Hana Schank
What is normal? In Hana Schank’s memoir “The Edge of Normal” about raising a visually impaired child, she discovers that the very definition of normal is up for grabs. In this session Hana will talk about what led her to write the book, the concept of redefining normal, and she’ll read a short excerpt and then will open it up to discussion for others to share their experiences on the topic.

Presenter Bio:
Hana Schank is a writer and essayist. A frequent contributor to the New York Times, the Washington Post and The Atlantic.com, Hana writes on a range of topics including parenting, education, disability, technology and travel. Her first book, a memoir about planning her wedding, was a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. Her Kindle Single, The Edge of Normal, was excerpted in Longreads and the Sunday Times Magazine (UK) and is currently being translated into Chinese. In addition to writing, Hana runs a technology consulting firm, and is the mother of two young children.

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November 13, 2015

The IRS, Linden Lab and Paypal Walk Into A Bar But Second Life Content Creators Aren’t Laughing

Linden Lab’s Tax and Account requirements have been baffling Second Life content creators and business owners for a while now. Initially Linden Lab were a bit slow with information regarding why they were sending people notifications that they had to file information. However Linden Lab got their house in order and provided a lot more information and these days they have some good resources.

Linden Lab are bound by US law to gather the required information. There’s a further issue for Second Life residents based in the USA :

Additionally, for U.S. residents with 200 or more transactions with a total amount in excess of $20,000 in a calendar year, we are required to file a Form 1099-K with the IRS reporting those transactions for that year.

Paypal are another payment processor, Paypal are also bound by the same US laws to gather information, as they explain here and this is where some people felt things may go a bit awry :

Under the legislation, we’ll report to the IRS the total payment volume received by US account holders whose payments exceed both of these levels in a calendar year:

US$20,000 in gross payment volume from sales of goods or services in a single year

200 separate payments for goods or services in the same year

IRC Section 6050W applies to all payment processors, including PayPal. Our goal is to help PayPal sellers understand and comply with the new requirements.

This raised concerns on various Second Life related forums that there may be a possibility that an error could be made here, if a Second Life content creator who cashes out to Paypal filed a form for Linden Lab and Paypal, would the IRS miss the fact that it’s the same money. Surely that couldn’t happen? According to Hamlet Au over at New World Notes, it has indeed happened; Second Life Content Creator Couple Double-Taxed $66K by the IRS – Here’s How to Avoid That Fate.

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November 12, 2015

Linden Lab Unleash Marketplace Search Beta

Linden Lab yesterday blogged; Introducing Marketplace Search Beta :

We’re pleased to share that improvements to the existing Marketplace search functionality are now available through Marketplace Search Beta. We’ve made infrastructure changes to improve the relevance of search results – making it easier for you to find what you’re looking for! We have also made changes for search to scale better as more content and categories are added to the Marketplace – and that means the newest creations and additions are at your fingertips.

Search in Second Life, be it inworld or on The Marketplace, will always be a bone of contention. There are many reasons for this, a lot of them human. For example items may not be listed with keywords people are using as a search term for those sort of items. People may act in an unscrupulous fashion and use strategies that poison the well in the hope of people stumbling across their listing and the search engine itself may not contain enough tools to help people refine their search terms to find that special item. There’s only so much Linden Lab or any other search provider can do to mitigate these sort of circumstances.

However with the launch of Marketplace Search Beta Linden Lab are trying to provide an improved search experience for merchants and customers. Therefore they need feedback and they are seeking feedback in a couple of locations.

One place is the Jira, which is an avenue if you want to report a bug. However many people find the Jira a tad cumbersome, shall we say, so another location where feedback can be left is on the official forum and this is a very useful forum where some questions may well be answered, indeed one question has already been answered. Some people have observed that search results are slow on Marketplace Search Beta, Grumpity Linden has already provided an answer on that score :

This may seem counterintuitive, but Beta Search will be slow at first because it’s not getting enough traffic. The web servers spin down if they’re not getting requests. The speed in beta is not representative of what you will see once it’s in production.

This is good information to take forward, the more traffic that Marketplace Search Beta gets, the better it should perform in terms of the speed of returning results.

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November 11, 2015

You’d Better Find a Way out, Hey Kick Down The Door, It’s a Lab Chat and You’ve Been Caught

Linden Lab blogged yesterday; Introducing Lab Chat – A New Q&A Show in Second Life :

In the spirit of the open Q&A sessions held at inworld events like the VWBPE conference and the Meet the Lindens series, we’re pleased to participate in a new Resident-driven initiative called “Lab Chat.”

Lab Chat is an opportunity for you to ask Lindens your questions during a live taping that will be recorded and archived for everyone to view.

The first Lab Chat will be Thursday, November 19th, at 10:30am SLT at the Linden Endowment for the Arts Theatre – with guest Ebbe Altberg, CEO of Linden Lab.

Now this won’t be a session where anybody from the audience can ask any question they want and get an answer. Questions will be curated. The Lab chat production team will pick questions from a forum thread. That’s the link to the forum thread if you have any questions you want to ask, go post them and see if they get picked. Please also pay attention to this part of the blog post :

so be sure to get your questions into the thread no later than Friday November 13th, 2015. Authors of selected questions will be invited to ask their question live at the inworld show. Time permitting – additional questions from the audience will be answered.

Questions are already appearing in that thread ranging from questions about abuse reports, technical questions, community gateways, Marketplace issues and much more. Ebbe won’t be in a position to answer all of them so don’t be disappointed if your question isn’t answered. However you have a far better chance of your question being answered if you visit the forum thread and post a question.

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