Linden Lab – Page 39 – Ciaran Laval

October 5, 2015

Ebbe Altberg Talks To Geek Dad

Derrick Schneider over at Geek Dad has been talking to Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg about Project Sansar. There’s not really a lot new in this article, but every article seems to reveal a little bit of something that may have been missed or overlooked in other articles. These pieces are slowly starting to fit together.

For example Derrick posts :

What happens when your Second Life city gets too many people inside? Lag. And then you’re sort of stuck. In Sansar, says Altberg, a successful multiplayer experience can automatically spawn a new instance of itself when you hit some limit: Linden’s jobs website asks for experience with Amazon Web Services, so it’s easy to see where they’re going: Scale up behind the scenes so the creator doesn’t have to think about it.

I don’t think it’s any surprise that Project Sansar is looking at cloud based delivery, this has probably been mentioned before. I know instancing has been mentioned before and I know I’ve had someone post that instancing has been mentioned before when I’ve posted about instancing! So a lot of the information about Project Sansar is already out there, but it’s scattered.

However an interesting part of the Geek Dad article comes in terms of experiences. Linden Lab have invited people to alpha test Project Sansar and one point that has been mentioned is that Linden Lab are currently looking for people with Autodesk Maya experience. Now you may have thought this was to get 3D models inworld, but it appears there’s more to it than that :

The initial focus is letting people make experiences, and the authoring tools will reflect that need. “How many things in your home did you make,” asks Altberg. “But it still reflects your identity. We didn’t make the chairs in this room or the table,” he continues, gesturing around to encompass the reinforced brick walls, “but we are making an experience.”

There’s a lot more in the article, including talking of a Project Sansar downloadable client and talk of content ratings, with Ebbe suggesting that Linden Lab do not want to impose strict censorship, but it seems they do want content ratings to be there from the outset, which I think most people would agree is a sensible idea.

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October 2, 2015October 2, 2015

Microsoft Buy Havok From Intel, What Does This Mean For Second Life? Hopefully Nothing!

Microsoft have purchased the physics engine Havok from Intel, report IGN, several other good news outlets (and some bad ones). There’s also a blog post from Microsoft in which they state :

Microsoft’s acquisition of Havok continues our tradition of empowering developers by providing them with the tools to unleash their creativity to the world. We will continue to innovate for the benefit of development partners. Part of this innovation will include building the most complete cloud service, which we’ve just started to show through games like “Crackdown 3.”

Havok shares Microsoft’s vision for empowering people to create worlds and experiences that have never been seen before, and we look forward to sharing more of this vision in the near future.

Now if you’re wondering what this has to do with Second Life, it’s because Havok is the physics engine that Linden Lab use in Second Life to simulate physics, gravity, collisions, etc. So what does this purchase mean for Second Life? I have absolutely no idea, but hopefully it won’t change a thing.

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October 2, 2015October 2, 2015

Watercolors In The Rain Brings David Lavigne’s Book To An Interactive Art Installation In Second Life

It is 1888, a battle-torn and weary America is still reeling from a war against itself. Although it has known peace for twenty-years, old hatreds still remain. American born Aubrey Lancaster has fled to London with her family, hiding from the secrets of their past and looking to start over. Aubrey soon finds that London has problems of its own. A killer roams its streets, one unlike the world has ever seen before! In the realm of vampires, werewolves, druids and witches, catching a killer is nothing more than opening your eyes to what really exists around you, a world which very few can truly see. But, make no mistake, it is there!

So reads the blurb on Amazon for the book Watercolors In The Rain (The Whitechapel in Red Series Book 1) by David J Lavigne. Now parts of that book have made their way to Second Life, courtesy of an interactive art installation supported by The Linden Endowment For The Arts.

We are invited to take a journey into the mind of the author at the installation, which has been put together by a team working with David Lavigne to bring chapters of the book to Second Life and the scenery is pretty damn impressive. I could be a tad biased here, I like this sort of thing. I’m also a massive fan of storytelling in all its forms.

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October 1, 2015

Virtual Reality Investment News Continues To Cement Second Life’s Place In Virtual Reality History

The current hype wave regarding virtual reality is now moving on to more and more news about the investment stage of the process. What I find interesting about many of these articles is that many of them refer to Second Life and Linden Lab as points of reference. I’ve talked about this before but the more of these articles appear, the more Second Life’s place in VR history gets cemented.

This is exemplified well in two recent articles. The Irish Independent talk to one time Linden Lab employee and now venture capitalist, Ethan Kurzweil. Ethan is the son of Ray Kurzweil. Ethan worked on new customer acquisition and user retention at Linden Lab over nine years ago and talks to Adrian Weckler in an article entitled “The billion-dollar investor’s guide to getting startup cash in Ireland“.

The second article is by Chris Owen at The Huffington Post and is entitled “Virtual Reality Industry Rapidly Gaining Investment – and Momentum“. Whereas both of these articles talk about where they think Second Life went wrong, the fact that they are still today talking about Second Life also points out that Second Life went right in a lot of areas.

The Irish Independent article is about more than virtual reality, it’s more about investment and in particular why investment in Dublin may be a good choice rather than San Francisco, but Second Life does get discussed. Ethan Kurzweil points out that a lot of things that happened outside of Second Life, such as Skype, Whatsapp, Telepresence etc. were the sort of ideas that people thought could all be embraced by a platform such as Second Life.

However Ethan also points out one of the reasons for Second Life’s longevity, the sticky factor. People stay in Second Life. The comment comes in response to a question about the Second Life economy, or more to the point, the fact that Second Life had an economy. Ethan points out that there’s still an economy in Second Life :

There still is. It’s still a profitable company based on the Second Life product. The one thing that probably everyone underestimated is just how sticky it is. I haven’t worked there in nine years. But there are probably users who are just as sticky, just as loyal and just as highly monetisable as they were back then.

However Ethan also points out some of the flaws with Second Life. I know many Second Life users don’t agree with these sort of sentiments but I see them repeated far too often to dismiss them :

Yeah, not the way that they implemented it, because it’s too hard, too nichey and too geeky. But I do think there’ll be a way to engage in a virtual way that is more immersive than what we have now. And maybe it’s a VR thing and not a flat world like Second Life had.

The flat virtual world society are at this point shouting “We told you so!”

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October 1, 2015

Art Exhibits, Baroque Music And Ada Lovelace Day Courtesy Of Alexandrian Free Library in Second Life

The Alexandrian Free Library in Second Life is not a place, it’s a series of linked libraries and events who, well hold events ranging from book readings, music, art exhibitions and more. The agenda for the next couple of weeks is listed in this blog post.

Alexandrian Free Library Events – September 30 – October 13, 2015

ROCCA SORRENTINA
Exhibit: Discovering a Lost Kingdom
Where: Rocca Sorrentina Exhibit Hall, Rocca Sorrentina
When: August 30, 2015 – October 31, 2015
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Rocca%20Sorrentina/87/163/2801
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Description:
This exhibit introduces visitors to the Kingdom of Naples at its height during the late 18th century. As a cosmopolitan and dynamic society Naples was a focal point of European economic, cultural, and political activity, and its government was a leader in political reform up until the time of the French Revolution. The work of Neapolitan thinkers had considerable impact beyond the kingdom; its artists and musicians were sought after by royal and noble patrons throughout Europe; and the Kingdom was a commercial and manufacturing hub for the Mediterranean community.

Having been created in SL to be a part of the Kingdom of Naples, Rocca Sorrentina presents this exhibit as an overview of the people, events, ideas, and natural and man-made environment that made Naples so special in the late 18th century.

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