Second Life – Page 71

April 1, 2015April 1, 2015

VICE Reporter looking for SL players re: “identity tourism”

VICE Reporter Cecilia D’Anastasio is looking for SL players re: “identity tourism”. Cecilia has posted the following on the official Second Life forum and in a thread over at SLUniverse :

Hi,

My name is Cecilia and I’m a reporter with VICE. I’m reporting a story about individuals who have changed important aspects of their IRL identity expression because of their experiences with avatars in games like SL.

I’d love to speak with players who have had this experience. I’d appreciate it if you could DM me and we can set up a time to talk.

Thanks so much.

Best,

Cecilia

Exactly what “Identity Tourism” entails isn’t quite explained. The only addition from Cecilia came in a post on SLUniverse :

I understand that many of you would have preferred more information in my original post. If you have any questions, please send me a direct message and I’ll be happy to address them. Thanks so much.

Whereas the thread at SLUniverse has taken a bit of a cynical turn, shall we say, the thread on the official Second Life forum has quite a few people willingly sharing their Second Life experiences.

Continue reading “VICE Reporter looking for SL players re: “identity tourism””

April 1, 2015

Virtually Speaking Science To Talk To Virgin Galactic With A Virtual Studio Audience In Second Life

I’ve talked about Virtually Speaking Science before, but I’m going to talk about it again. Virtually Speaking Science is described as :

Informal conversations hosted by science writers Alan Boyle, Jennifer Ouellette, Kelly Hills and Tom Levenson, who, with their guests, explore the often-volatile landscape of science, politics and policy, the history and economics of science, science deniers and its relationship to democracy, and the role of women in the sciences. Produced by Sherry Reson. Hosted in Second Life by the Exploratorium.

The upcoming showm scheduled for 8pm ET today (I do wish they’d use SLT) features NBC News’ digital science editor, Alan Boyle, speaking to Virgin Galactic’s vice president for special projects, Will Pomerantz, regarding the future of private sector spaceflight. This of course comes in the wake of the tragic accident involving SpaceShipTwo five months ago.

The show can be watched as part of a live virtual world audience in Second Life at The Exploratorium.

Continue reading “Virtually Speaking Science To Talk To Virgin Galactic With A Virtual Studio Audience In Second Life”

March 31, 2015

Second Life’s Renewed Positive Press Suggests It May Yet Prove Its Critics Wrong

Second Life is starting to receive some positive press again. As we already know, Second Life is staying alive and now Business Insider Australia are informing us that : Second Life was 13 years early to virtual reality — and it’s getting ready to try again. The trying again part may come as a surprise to those of us who haven’t seen it go away but let’s not quibble, the article is another positive one.

The media may have felt Second Life went away and became a place where nobody knows your name, but the reality has been quite different and this is something that the media are actually starting to notice, as The Business Insider article by Matt Weinberger points out :

Second Life hasn’t gone anywhere. With 900,000 active users a month, who get payouts of $US60 million in real world money every year, and a virtual economy that has more than $US500 million in GDP every year, Second Life is still a world of opportunity.

There are two big reasons for renewed interest in Second Life, one is the virtual reality hype currently going full tilt and the other is Linden Lab’s nextgen virtual world, which is making noises before anyone outside of Linden Lab has really seen it.

The Business Insider article touches upon both of these issues, pointing out that with the likes of Facebook, HTC and Sony dipping their toes into the VR market, Second Life’s time may have come at last. Although the article does suggest that VR is more likely to embrace the nextgen world, rather than Second Life itself. However that’s not to say that the article dismisses Second Life as old technology completely.

Continue reading “Second Life’s Renewed Positive Press Suggests It May Yet Prove Its Critics Wrong”

March 30, 2015

Second Life Premium Members Can Now Receive 50 Offline IM’s

Linden Lab have announced a new perk for premium members : Access to more missed instant messages! The blog post informs us :

Previously, if IMs were sent to your account while you were offline, you could access up to 25 messages when you next log in. That remains the case for free account holders, but starting today, Premium Members can access up to 50 missed IMs. That means fewer notecards filling up your inventory and fewer missed messages from friends, colleagues, and customers.

Speculation about improvements for premium users was raised recently after Release Notes for the Magnum channel revealed :

Internal improvements for premium users

The nature of those improvements had not been confirmed but this looks like it will be part of those improvements. The news has so far received a rather flat response, but obviously this is an improvement that will not really be applicable to many users as they don’t regularly receive more than 25 offline IM’s. However for those who do, this should prove to be a useful perk.

Continue reading “Second Life Premium Members Can Now Receive 50 Offline IM’s”

March 30, 2015

The Drax Files: World Makers Ep28 – Whiskey (Monday) In The Jar

Episode 28 of The Drax Files World Makers features an interview with artist Whiskey Monday and it’s a fascinating interview. The interview starts with the revelation that Whiskey Monday turned down Draxtor’s initial request to feature on The Drax Files because she was using Second Life as a means to express her frustrations with the real world and it seems that she did not want to bring her physical self into that realm.

This is a stark honest opening to the interview that many people are likely to relate to. Virtual worlds can be a means to escape or express ourselves in ways that outside of the virtual world we find stifling. This episode also touches upon mental illness, which is still far too much of a taboo than it should be in this day and age.

Whiskey admits that she has suffered from depression but she also talks of something regarding virtual worlds that is often missed, that you can find people who have experience and empathy of these matters. In many ways the anonymous nature of an avatar by default may play an important role as the safety of talking about such issues from behind an avatar can help people express themselves when they may be afraid to do so in a real physical environment.

However that’s not to say that this episode suggests that people shouldn’t talk about their feelings to those close to them and Whiskey talks of how showing her art created in Second Life to her Mother and Daughters meant she had to explain her feelings about the work she created. This was a relatively recent development as prior to October, Whiskey had not told her family about the work she creates within Second Life.

Continue reading “The Drax Files: World Makers Ep28 – Whiskey (Monday) In The Jar”