Tag: Linden Lab

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Oculus VR And Linden Lab Both Hiring As Development Of VR Gathers Pace

A sign of a healthy market can sometimes be found in the number of vacancies in that sector. Sometimes a number of vacancies can indicate that a company is not the best place to work because there’s a lot of churn. However, let’s be positive here.

Oculus VR and Linden Lab are both hirng and both list plenty of vacancies. Both companies also have plenty of perks. Reuters have reported : Facebook hiring spree hints at ambitions in virtual reality and beyond. Whereas this indicates Facebook hiring going beyond Oculus, there are an impressive number of job listings at Oculus :

Oculus Rift, the maker of virtual reality headsets that Facebook acquired in a $2 billion deal last year, is among the key areas slated for growth, with 54 jobs listed on its website, according to a review by Reuters of listings.

Oculus are advertising positions for Software Engineers, Hardware Engineers, Content, including a game designer, Resaearch, Recruiting, Operations, Sales, Marketing, Design & User Experience, Interns and Co-ops and University Grads, Masters & PHDS. Whereas this doesn’t give us a clear indication of where Oculus are going as a team, it is interesting that they are advertising for Unreal Engine and Unity engineers. Are Oculus planning on making games or are they planning on making sure games work well with Oculus?

Oculus offer some interesting perks :

Perks include flexible hours, free food, happy hours, team trips, free Oculus hardware, and much more. We offer competitive salaries and a full range of benefits including comprehensive health care and 401k.

Some of those perks I’ve seen cited as being a barrier to entry, but I’ll come on to that later. Oculus also state that they are an equal opportunity employer :

Oculus VR, LLC is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment with Oculus is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.

Very noble indeed. As for Linden Lab, their careers page lists around a quarter of the number Oculus do, but that’s still a very healthy 14 positions.

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Visit The Timekiller Goth Festival Before It Runs Out Of Time

Linden Lab’s continued excellent promotion of The Destination Guide alerted me to the Timekiller Goth Festival. Alas this also alerted me to the fact that the festival is running between January 9th – 18th, which means if you want to visit, you’re almost out of time!


Timekiller Festival

The slGoth Timekiller Festival is a gothic and dark alternative event. This festival features a whole host of content creators, daily concerts, movies, live storytelling and more. There’re even free gifts from vendors and slGoth Magazine.

Visit in Second Life

The festival is taking place on the parcel of SL Goth Magazine, whom I didn’t know existed. This is another good reason for holding events or getting yourself in the destination guide.

Goth in SL

The event is supported by a host of creators, whom I shall list from the SL Goth Magazine website :

Black Arts – BYRNE – Biscuit Clothing – Cute Poison – Cherished Memories Wedding Store
Dark Passions – DEADPOOL – Devae – Galactic Wunder Nails – Ghost Story – Howling Asylum – ImmateriA – Morphe Inc. – PIXEL BOX – Stargazer Creations – Thanks for All the Nebulae and more!

Timekiller

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Whatever Happened To Second Life Demographic Metrics?

When I was a lad in Second Life Linden Lab used to publish statistics galore. They still make plenty of statistics available in terms of the economy, you can find those over at Tyche Shepherd’s Grid Survey site : http://gridsurvey.com/economy.php

However along with the economy stats Linden Lab used to publish statistics on age, gender, country of origin yadda yadda yadda. They stopped doing this some time ago. A report published in April 2008 by Janet Lo, Law student, University of Ottawa, commissioned by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada contains some statsics :

Age Of Users

  • 13 – 17 (Teen Grid) – 0.96%
  • 18-24 – 24.50%
  • 25-34 – 35.43%
  • 35-44 – 23.35%
  • 45 or older – 15.25%
  • Unknown – 0.51%

That’s quite a vast age range of users. Gender was also quite interesting :

Gender Of Users

  • Male – 59.02%
  • Female – 40.98%

I seem to recall seeing a statistic where the gender balance was a tad closer, something like 57% – 43% but I can’t find a reference to this. I’m not sure why Linden Lab stopped publishing these statistics, they were good talking points and in today’s climate where diversity is a big thing, they may well be interesting. However as Linden Lab’s published statistics were, well, statistics, many people argued that we were in lies, damned lies and statistics territory. However that’s part of the fun of statistics!

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Are Linden Lab Engaging In A Game Of Skrill?

This is an odd one. Skrill, an online payment company, released a press release last week :  Skrill Connects with Linden Lab to Expand Payment Options for Second Life:

New York, NY – 8 January 2015: Leading digital payments company, Skrill, today announces a collaboration with Linden Lab to integrate the Skrill Digital Wallet as a payment option for users of Second Life, the Internet’s largest user-created virtual world.

I’m not going to copy the whole of the press release, follow the link for the full information, but it does contain a quote from Linden Lab’s CFO, Malcolm Dunne :

At Linden Lab we are constantly looking for new ways to provide exceptional service to our customers. By integrating with Skrill, we’ve expanded the options for Second Life users to process their online payments, which is a critical piece of our product. We’re excited to offer this new functionality, giving our customers anothersecure, quick, and convenient way to participate in the Second Life economy.

The reason this is all a bit odd is that there is no announcement from Linden Lab about this. There may well be many reasons for this, such as Linden Lab haven’t decided on how to intergrate this or that they are waiting for technical solutions to deliver the service.

At this point, some of you may well be wondering what the bloody hell Skrill is? Skrill is an Online payment system and from their about page they tell us :

Our worldwide payment network lets businesses extend their reach globally with over 100 local payment options. We already meet the needs of over 156,000 businesses with everything from a simple one-step integration to a fully-tailored payment solution.

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A Visit To Paris In Second Life

Notre Dame Cathedral

Paris in Second Life is quite an impressive location, spanning four sims and two centuries it portrays the French capital in a very good light. There are a number of visitor attractions and they include : Theatre Sarah Bernhardt, Moulin Rouge, Eiffel Tower, Maison Victor Hugo, Carousel 1900, Grand Roue Ferris Wheel, Moulin de la Galette windmill, Notre Dame Cathedral, The Champs Elysees, Arc De Triomphe, The Louvre and The Gallery Of Machines.

Art And Attractions

Most of the sims have an early 1900’s feel to them with vintage cars and people wearing Edwardian era style clothing, the people in this case being models rather than bots but they do help to add to the ambience.

There’s quite a lot to see and do. Shopping, Art galleries, theatres and tourist attractions being some of the main activities. Part of the income to pay for these sims comes from renting out shop and room spaces.

Taxi

Four sims means there’s a lot of legwork to do to see it all, however there are options on your mode of transport. Taxis, which are populated at various points being one means of transport that can take the weight off your virtual feet.

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