New World Notes

That Time SLers Fought an Anti-Immigrant Party Beneath a Sun Emblazoned With the Face of Dr. Martin Luther King

Happy MLK/Inauguration Day, everyone. Once upon a time (by which I mean six years ago today), a virtual war in Second Life broke out; a far-right political party, an autism support group, and exploding pigs were involved. And since that was back in a time when the visage of Dr. King would shine in the Second Life sun, his face looked down on the aftermath. Read about "Fighting the Front" right here.

SLers in the Bay Area: Next Saturday, Move Your Bootie at the DNA Lounge's "Second Life in Real Life" Mash-Up Party

"Bootie Second Life in Real Life" is coming back to San Francisco's famed DNA Lounge nightclub this coming Saturday (October 6), so if you're in the Bay Area this weekend, you should definitely pencil this into your calendar. As with the last couple years, the DNA will stream SL's Club Republik onto giant video screens around the real world dance floor. Keela Latte will be at the DNA acting as mixed reality DJ, but even if you can't make it to SF, you can see her in SL at Club Republik -- go here for more details. As I mentioned last August, the production is still working on the best way to display Second Life on giant screens, but whatever happens there, it should still be a fun night. Who knows, you may even see some real life Lindens and well-known SLers on the floor -- and get to dance with them!

Mixed Reality Clubbing in SL's Club Republik and SF's DNA

Rik Riel has some great media from last Saturday's DNA Lounge/Club Republik club night which connected the San Francisco hot spot to the virtual club, including this:

Many thanks to Keela Latte of Club Republik for being a great metaverse DJ in both worlds. It was a hugely fun event, and as promised, I did indeed dance my ass off. That said, I do wish the mixed reality aspect came off better at the DNA Lounge:

This Saturday at San Francisco's DNA Lounge: RL/SL Mixed Reality Mashup Clubbing!

Mixed reality photo by Keela Latte of Club Republik

If you're in San Francisco next Saturday night, the famed DNA Lounge in SOMA is hosting its annual Bootie Second Life in Real Life, a mixed reality club night where the scene from SL's Club Republik is broadcast on the Lounge's big video screens, while DJs in SF go mash-up crazy. (Pictured above, what the blowout looked like last year.) I'll be there, hope you are too. Here's all the details.

Update: Project Connecting Motion Capture Suit to Second Life Now Even More Second Life-ier!

Last month I wrote about the ambitious project of Anton Bogdanovych (shaqq Korobase in SL), a University of Western Sydney researcher who's been developing software that connects a motion capture suit to movement of a Second Life avatar. While his first demo video still seemed fairly rudimentary, Shaqq has a new video, and it's pretty impressive:

I especially like how his avatar conveys his offhand body language while he's talking. Shaqq argues that this is the future of interaction on the Internet, and he makes a strong case: To the extent that immersive virtual worlds are part of the Net's future, it's likely we'll see more interfaces like this. Read more about Anton Bogdanovych's project in my interview with him here.

In Development: Software for Integrating Motion Capture Suit With Second Life For Full Body Interactivity

Want to interact in Second Life similar to the way actors in Avatar shot their scenes? Watch this video by Anton Bogdanovych (known as shaqq Korobase in SL), a researcher with the University of Western Sydney, demonstrating a remarkably kickass motion capture software he's developing to work with Second Life:

"The hardware (suit) is a commercial product from XSens," Korobase tells me. "It's similar to those full body suits that were used in filming Avatar. The software (something we develop) is what will be unique about it." More after the break:

Second Life Rocks the DNA Lounge for Mixed Reality Bootie

Speaking of powerful real world applications of Second Life, here's a cool one I'd like to see more often: Multimedia entertainment at the world's top dance clubs. Last Saturday, there was a kickass proof of concept at San Francisco's famed DNA lounge. Pictured below, a Second Life video feed from an SL club, broadcasting on the mainstage above hundreds of raging club kids attending the Bootie SF party:

Mixed reality photo by Keela Latte of Club Republik

The Bootie show was celebrated concurrently at Club Republik, which was hosted by Keela Latte, who logged into SL from the DNA in San Francisco. After the break, what her view of the club looked like, and what it looked like from Second Life:

Study Suggests Self-Awareness Can Be Shifted Through Avatar Embodiment (Even Across Age and Gender)

In a fascinating, potentially game-changing study recently reported on by New Scientist, researchers were able with virtual reality to make adult male test subjects feel like they were inside the body of a virtual girl. So when the girl was slapped by a virtual woman, the subjects' heart rates jumped as if they themselves were being attacked. Here's the video of how it works:

Hat tip: Robward Antwerp, who has some thoughts here. Though this experiment was conducted with virtual reality tech and not in Second Life, the findings are comparable to SL-based studies by Nick Yee and Jeremy Balienson of Stanford, which also show a connection between the avatars we control and our real life selves. To me what's most exciting about this new study (led by Mel Slater of the University of Barcelona), is how this shift of perspective happens despite sharp differences in age and gender -- suggesting that avatars can literally help us see the world from another person's point of view.

US Department of Energy Establishes Presence in Second Life -- And is Conducting Outreach for Department's CIO Position In-World

Edwin Alekseev/Edwin M. Luevanos of the Department of Energy in Second Life

The United States' Department of Energy is opening a site in Second Life, which is interesting, though it's hardly the first US government presence in SL. (The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been active in SL since 2006, among many other government bodies.) What's more striking is the DoE will be conducting job outreach in Second Life, for the Department's open position of Chief Information Officer. The "CIO Informational Session" happens tomorrow (June 2) at 11am SLT. Here's the RSVP link for reserving a spot. This is not just a low-level HR session, for the roundtable will be attended by Kevin Cooke, the DOE's Deputy CIO, and Pete Tseronis, the Department's IT Modernization Lead.

"At the DOE we are always searching for the best talent that this country can offer," Edwin Luevanos, Outreach Program Manager with the Department of Energy, confirms to me in an email, "and our understanding is that Second Life users are some of the most competent, creative and innovative individuals out there." (In SL, Luevanos' avatar is Edwin Alekseev.) "Moreover, we thought it also made sense to promote the position in Second Life since it is an IT related position and one of Second Life’s largest market segments are IT professionals."

The CIO interviews are part of a larger outreach by the DOE in Second Life, which now has a virtual island aptly called Energy Island. [Direct SLurl teleport at this link]. As Luevanos put it to me, the DoE "[F]irst started this as an experiment for outreach." He describes it as a "proof of concept" that reflects the Department's policy of "testing disruptive technologies culture." If the Department of Energy's new Chief Information Officer started his career there as an avatar, that would definitely be disruptive (in all kinds of ways.)

Much thanks to Ms. White Lebed for the tip! Screenshot of Edwin Alekseev at the DoE's presence in Second Life courtesy the US Department of Energy.

Flotilla Killings by Israelis in the Mediterranean Provoke Incendiary Protests at Jewish Sites in Second Life

Anti-Israel protest outside Second Life synagogue -- photo by Crap Mariner

This was the scene yesterday morning outside a popular synagogue in Second Life, protesters waving the Turkish flag, in response to the killings by Israeli commandos of passengers on a pro-Palestinian relief flotilla bound for Gaza. (Most of the flotilla ships were Turkish in origin, as were most of the dead.)

The photo is by Crap Mariner, a Jewish Resident whose real life sister is also in Second Life (known in SL as Beth Odets), and runs the synagogue, which is actually not political or even Israeli by description. In Mariner's eyes, this makes the Sunday protest a form of intolerance violating Second Life's Community Standards against behavior which demeans a Resident for their ethnicity or religion. "When one protests a synagogue, Holocaust museum, Jewish community center, delicatessen, or other strictly apolitical Jewish building or gathering-place," Mariner argues, "you are not protesting the nation of Israel." This is not the first time a Jewish site in Second Life has been impacted by real world current events; last year, for instance, after Israel attacked Hamas in Gaza, SL Israel was besieged by protesters.

Hours later, I visited a nearby Jewish education center in Second Life, which was the site of another protest, this one with activists waving Palestinian flags and signs describing Israel as a terrorist state.

One flag-waving protester piped up to compare the Israeli army to the Nazi SS; another compared Gaza to the infamous Nazi-controlled Warsaw Ghetto. But Israel's defenders were also there, so a freeform debate ensued, mainly conducted through voice chat, by people around the world -- one protester resembled an aging hippie, and reported being from San Francisco. Others were from Europe, several Residents were from Israel, another from Lebanon, and they continually shouted each other down or randomly interjected. Unlike Mr. Mariner, however, I wasn't able to take any screenshots. The protest space was so crowded and the lag so severe, the avatars there were only displayed as blobs of gray, so you couldn't recognize their human features, and they remained undifferentiated abstractions faced off against each other, failing to reach any clarity. Then again, that problem is not confined to Second Life.