New World Notes

Top 5 Posts Including a New Concurrency Peak for VRChat & Ambitious Single-Shard Grid Architecture for Resonite

• Second Life Streaming Launches to Select New Users This Week -- And More from My Latest Interview with Philip Rosedale
• Resonite Creating Single-Shard Grid Enabling Infinite, Contiguous Realities
• Watch: In Love Me, Two Sentient AIs Played By Kristen Stewart & Steven Yeun Become Human Avatars After Civilization's End (January 31)
• In New Records, VRChat Hits Nearly 140,000 Concurrent Users --- And 200+ Users in Single Instance
• Sannyのおすすめバーチャルワールドニュース : 2024年12月 Sanny Reports For Virtual Japan

Cajsa's Choices: Supremely Cool Avatar Self-Portraits by Ines Lauria

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Инес Масуки ...🚭, or Ines Lauria, chose this single picture for her Flickr showcase and it’s an apt choice as it very much captures her sensibility. Despite the “No Smoking” symbol in her account handle, it’s a bit of work to find a picture of her without a cigarette. She seems very much the laconic, cool young mod, casually dressed with a cigarette in hand. The sort of cool edge that makes even the most casual clothes seem like high fashion. 

For more from Ines, click here:

Second Life Streaming Launches to Select New Users This Week -- And More from My Latest Interview with Philip Rosedale

Now on my Patreon is the start of an in-depth interview I did with Philip Rosedale on Project Zero, the company's code name for streaming Second Life on a browser. 

One point he mentions (that I initially missed coming back from the holidays in early January): Starting this week, they're letting a select number of new sign-ups try out Project Zero, to see if that helps retention.

"Basically, their first session will be just completely over the browser," as Philip told me last month. I'll follow up on that soon, but for this week, here's part one of my Q&A with Philip on Project Zero's overall strategy -- including price considerations, why they're launching it now, and much more. 

Join my Patreon for free to read first here.

Watch: In Love Me, Two Sentient AIs Played By Kristen Stewart & Steven Yeun Become Human Avatars After Civilization's End (January 31)

Coming January 31 (at least in the US) in the acclaimed indie movie Love Me, Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun are a sentient buoy and satellite (respectively) who meet, fall in love, and re-create themselves as human avatars who live out the end of humanity together. The trailer at least looks pretty powerful, though I'm avoiding reviews so I can watch it fresh.

More about the movie soon-ish, I hope: I recently reached out to the movie's writer/director team, Sam and Andy Zuchero, themselves married in real life, who put me in touch with the studio's publicist about an interview. 

Then again, the very next day, all parties involved (including me) likely fled Los Angeles at the coming of a raging, city-consuming firestorm. So our interview about a movie about the end of civilization may be indefinitely delayed. Which is an extra layer of tragic irony none of us needed right now or ever.

Resonite Creating Single-Shard Grid Enabling Infinite, Contiguous Realities

Frooxius, lead developer of Resonite, the crowdfunded metaverse platform with 10,000+ active users, recently revealed his new vision for a single shard virtual world grid. Unlike, say, Second Life, where the grid are sims interconnected in a way that resembles the real world, the Resonite approach will be much more brain-melting:

"It's a bit like seamless grid," as Froox puts it to me, but more generalized. Grid is one of possible arrangements, but not the only one. The goal is to enable each domain to be arbitrary arranged relative to the others -- and even move relative to the others."

So another words, you could be crossing from one "session" -- basically Resonite's version of what Second Life calls a "sim" -- and walk into one that's totally different. I.E. go through a barn door and end up on the Moon.

"Yeah, you could have a doorway that enters a completely different session," he tells me, when I run that scenario by him. "Or you have a big house somewhere in a big world. You enter it and inside is a whole new session - potentially even bigger on the inside. The house could be a tiny one too, so you shrink down to enter it."

Frooxius believes this architecture will open up new possibilities that a Second Life-like grid doesn't easily enable:

"With SL grids you can't really make whole planets, solar systems or galaxies, that are recursively subdivided. You can't have a session inside a spaceship that can travel through worlds. With this approach you have a lot more possibilities and flexibility."

But wouldn't this break immersion, since there's no coherent whole? Is a random jumble of very different realities even a "virtual world" at all?

Frooxius argues otherwise:

Virtual World Writing Delayed by Real Life Conflagration

Apologies for the delay in blogging, but this was the view from our Los Angeles neighborhood last night, followed by an inverted pyramid of black smoke which blotted out half the morning sky. I'm safe and out of (relative) danger, and hope to be back posting on my usual pace tomorrow, when the material world has stabilized (relatively).

Stay safe, everyone, and care for the people around you as much as you can!

Cajsa's Choices: Tupper Moran's Delightful Rockwell-Esque Americana Re-Enacted by Second Life Avatars

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Tupper Moran wrote in the description for “The Puppy Shower” that she likes Norman Rockwell and Thomas Kinkade’s artwork and aspires to offer an homage to their work with her own. She seems to trend more toward Rockwell by featuring several people in the midst of living life, the way he did. In “The Puppy Shower” they are all laughing because the puppy just shook water off to dry while giving the woman a shower. It’s a fun picture and does have that feeling of Americana that was central to Rockwell and Kinkade’s work. 

“The Trick or Treat Gang Cometh, Again” is another slice-of-life Americana, the annual candypalooza that occurs when families knock on neighbors’ doors and are rewarded with candy.

The title made me look for an earlier Trick or Treat Gang picture and from 2022, I found this delight: 

 

My Five Metaverse-Related Predictions for 2025 on Meta, Apple, Roblox, VRChat & Second Life

Just to put my 2025 predictions in digital concrete:

• Apple won't announce Vision Pro 2 this year. This one feels inevitable with sales still slow and production of Vision Pro 1 already winding down.

• Thanks to the launch of Linden Lab's mobile app and cloud streaming, Second Life increases peak concurrent users by at least 20%. That would mean hitting a CCU of around 55K-60K.

• A leading metaverse platform start-up will be acquired or announce itself as being on an IPO track. Despite (or rather because) of VRChat's painful layoffs last year, I think that startup is best positioned to jump to this next level -- especially after hitting another peak concurrency record.

• Roblox reaches 100 million daily active users. This one feels a bit like a cheat, since the company just announced hitting 88.9 million last quarter. But a big juicy milestone like that will still encourage a reassessment of the Metaverse concept, and renewed interest in Roblox in particular.
• Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses will not reach a 2 million install base this year. A research firm estimates Meta reached 1 million shipments late last year, but I seriously doubt that growth will continue to any great degree.

In New Records, VRChat Hits Nearly 140,000 Concurrent Users --- And 200+ Users in Single Instance

As expected, VRChat hit another platform concurrency record over the New Year's Eve holiday, hitting nearly 140,000 CCU as peak. (136,589, to be exact.) That's a new record breaking the last one of 100,000+ on NYE of 2023/2024, though falling a bit short of the 150,o00 I predicted last month. 

This continued usage growth is pretty impressive for VRChat the company, especially after coming out of some painful layoffs in 2024, when 30% of the staff were let go. Despite those cutbacks, another milestone was achieved. Ironically, while avid VRChat users know all about that, most of the tech world was still on holiday when it haappned, and probably didn't notice. 

VRChat community head Tupper has the details on Bluesky, where they also reveal a new record: Over 200 users in a single, uncapped shard/instance. Up until now, VRChat instances are usually capped at around 50, but the company did some updates to grow the potential of its instanced concurrency:

12 Amazing Second Life Images We Couldn't Feature Last Year. So Here They Are to Start 2025!

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

I suppose opening the new year by looking back at the old year is a bit at cross-purposes, but I can’t resist. I thought it might be fun to highlight some favorites that for one reason or another, I failed to highlight in 2024. I love this gorgeous picture from January. It’s called “Walk with Me” from Vee. She erases most of her picture, leaving the essentials. You just see her legs, the shadow tells you it’s a sunny day and there are the wildflowers along the path suggesting she’s enjoying some free time outdoors. In an interesting play on the rule of thirds, her subject fills one-third while white space fills two-thirds of the picture. It’s brilliant.  

Aria Blackwood posted “I’ll Find Someone Like You” in February. I love the way the structural details of the building seem almost like lace in the silhouette, while the fronds of the pine trees look like feathers. The sun is setting behind the house, the light creating a vignette framing the picture beautifully.

Samyi posted “Paris Piage” in March. He uses Depth of Field in an interesting way. The sharpest part of the picture is a rivet in the folding chair. Everything becomes more blurred as they are more distant from that rivet. The way he frames the picture, he almost divides it into quadrants, but the rivets are perfectly in place for the Rule of Thirds. 

Sari Choche posted “At Night” in April. I love this for capturing exactly how I feel when I wake up in the middle of the night, confused. The circle of light over her head could be the flash of a camera but to me, it is the disappearing remnants of a dream, the kind of dream that wakes you up in the middle of the night. This picture made me feel seen because I seldom know why I wake up in the middle of the night, but I will sit up and my thought balloon is exactly this empty. 

For more 2024 favorites I missed , click here:

 

Sannyのおすすめバーチャルワールドニュース : 2024年12月 Sanny Reports For Virtual Japan

Sanny Yoshikawa が、New World Notesのなかから、毎月おすすめのバーチャルワールドニュースを日本語で紹介します

Sanny Yoshikawa covers the monthly virtual world highlights from New World Notes for virtual Japan.

 

 

Readers Predict Meta, Primfeed, Roblox, Valve, Vision Pro News in 2025

Loving these 2025 metaverse-related predictions from readers, starting with:

The Lab will purchase Primfeed within the next 24 months. You read it here first. -- Peter Stindberg

That sounds quite possible!

Here's several more from Martin K:

Top New World Notes Posts Including Browser-Based Streaming for Second Life, and Highlight Posts from 2024

Above: At my office in Waterhead via Project Zero

• Open Forum: What Are Your SL / Virtual World / Metaverse Predictions for 2025?
• Casja's Choices: My Five Favorite Second Life-Themed Flickr Groups of 2024 -- Consider Joining Them in 2025!
• BREAKING: Linden Lab Test Launches Browser-Based Streaming for Second Life -- And You Can Try it Now!
• My Personal Top Ten Favorite / Important New World Notes Posts of 2024

Open Forum: What Are Your SL / Virtual World / Metaverse Predictions for 2025?

Post your own predictions for highlighting here and on New World Notes, the more concrete and easier to validate, the better!*

I'll start with two of my own:

• Thanks to the launch of Linden Lab's mobile app and cloud streaming, Second Life increases peak concurrent users by at least 20%. I predicted something like this would happen last year, but muffed it. But I'm still bullish on this happening in 2025!

• A leading metaverse platform start-up is acquired or goes on an IPO track. This is another prediction I missed in 2024, but I actually think VRChat's painful layoffs last year better position them for this happening (if they want) in 2025.

I'll think of more predictions over the weekend, but want to read yours first!

I usually post an open forum for New Year predictions in late December, by the way, but this time, when I got the sense something big was coming in early January, had to move it to this week.

Casja's Choices: My Five Favorite Second Life-Themed Flickr Groups of 2024 -- Consider Joining Them in 2025!

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Joanna Kitten’s “To the Lighthouse” is just one of thousands of pictures of Second Life birds in Second Life Avians, a Flickr group organized by Bella Blackheart.She took an interesting approach to the Rule of Odd Numbers. There are five birds, four in the background and one in the foreground, in the upper right. I confess, for a moment or two, I mistook the umbrella for a corvid which made me laugh and love this picture even more. I love birds but am allergic to their feathers, fortunately I am not allergic to Second Life birds. So the bird groups are dear to my heart, which puts this group on my list of favorite SL Flickr groups of 2024, and the first to be featured in today’s column. 

For more of my favorite Flickr groups, click here:

BREAKING: Linden Lab Test Launches Browser-Based Streaming for Second Life -- And You Can Try it Now!

Above: At my office in Waterhead via Project Zero

Starting now -- and starting 2025 with guns blazing -- you can try out browser-based streaming of Second Life, enabling you to experience the virtual world with maximum graphics settings displayed on a web browser, even on low-end PCs/laptops -- go here to access it for up to 10 minutes.

I just tried it out, and it's pretty impressive, even in this early test phase. Teleporting to sims is quicksilver fast, taking less than a second. Right now, you access it through Linden Lab's existing default browser, but in future iterations, the streaming user interface will completely change. (More on that below.)

This streaming project, internally dubbed “Project Zero”, has been in development even before Philip Rosedale rejoined Linden as CTO in late 2024, is hands-on proof that the company is not completely pinning the future of Second Life to the new mobile app. Project Zero is shaping up to be the way new users will first experience the virtual world, seamlessly and beautifully, whether or not their machine can manage SL's full 3D graphics.

A Surprising Solution to Post-PBR Problems

Project Zero also an answer to a problem Oberwager acknowledged during another briefing last year: Second Life’s recent upgrade to PBR graphics caused a drop in log-ins among the existing user base, as people with lower end machine had trouble displaying physically based rendering.

“We have come up with an incredible fix that will have an amazing impact on all current and future residents," he told me last month. I initially thought he was referring to bug fixes, but no: It’s a whole new way of experiencing Second Life, and when it’s officially rolled out, will come with a modern upgrade to the UI, re-built from the ground up.

I should say a new old way: Linden Lab originally tested out browser-based streaming of Second Life in 2010, then again in 2015, from well-funded startup OnLive. (Disclosure: I helped OnLive launch that project on the marketing side.) It worked pretty well, but broadband and computing costs were too expensive back then to make it scalable. Since then, however, those prices have come substantially down, driven in part by the recent boom in large language model AI programs like ChatGPT.

2025, Linden Lab believes, is the year Second Life streaming is finally ready to deploy with Project Zero. 

In internal testing, Philip Rosedale told me on a recent briefing, they’re getting zero latency. It doesn’t even necessarily require super high-end broadband. “If you can watch Netflix [on your machine],” as he put it, “you can do this.”

Another key difference from the 2010 and 2015 deployments: 

My Personal Top Ten Favorite / Important New World Notes Posts of 2024

If you missed these stories over the year, I hope you give them a second look: They're among my personal favorites and/or the ones I believe will remain relevant for the coming year.

Study Suggests Emotion & Player Agency More Important Than High-End Graphics in Virtual Experience

 "Field of view and visual realism – achieved through cutting-edge graphics and usually powered by high-end headsets – can be relatively unimportant in creating a believable VR experience. Far more important is the way a user is made to feel (e.g. happy or scared) within the virtual environment, the study found." This specific study was conducted in VR with over 300 volunteers, but the results probably apply to flatscreen 3D experiences just as neatly...

CONFIRMED: Adam Schiff's Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act Would Apply to Video Games, Virtual Worlds & Metaverse Platforms

While the 2024 election means Schiff's specific bill is dead in the water, the gen AI intellectual property controversy will likely come to a head in 2025. (Or stagger on, bloody and bedraggled, through protracted court battles.)

US Government-Funded Researchers Found That Women Using Quest Devices Much More Likely to Experience VR Nausea. No One in Meta/the VR Industry Has Contacted Them About It.

I can't believe the tech/VR industry hasn't given this revelation wider (hardly any?) coverage, so I'll keep bringing it up until they do:

Dr. Kelly tells me no one at Meta, let alone the VR industry at large, has contacted him about these findings.

“I'm not sure why they haven't reached out,” he tells me by e-mail. “My guess is they have their own ideas of how to solve the problem of cybersickness, but I don't think the industry track record on that is very good.”  

He adds that they may just be unaware of this research (from a NSF-backed, well-ranked science and technology-focused university), but I tend to agree about the unimpressive track record. Then again, no one at Meta contacted danah boyd about her findings, even though she’s a senior researcher at Microsoft.

Seven more beneath the break!

 

Top 10 Most Popular New World Notes Posts in 2024!

Based on social shares and/or total pageviews, roughly arranged in chronological order, here's the most read New World Notes posts of 2024. Overall, these also posts happen to be a pretty good reflection of the year that was!

Midjourney Metaverse? CEO David Holz Confirms AI Startup is Building "Real-Time Open World Holodeck"

I received a late-night reply from Midjourney CEO David Holz himself, in answer to my email with the subject line, "Confirm Midjourney holodeck announcement?"... Holz's one sentence reply: "roughly correct quote yes". 

Confirmed: Linden Lab Investigating Serious Allegations Recently Posted to Social Media, Say Sources

I can now confirm through at least two highly credible sources that the company is indeed investigating these claims -- both the accusations themselves and whether they have defamatory intent.

CONFIRMED: Adam Schiff's Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act Would Apply to Video Games, Virtual Worlds & Metaverse Platforms

I contacted Adam Schiff's office [asking:] "Would the Act apply to 3D models, i.e., content in video games, virtual worlds, and metaverse platforms? So for instance, 3D models of castles, heroes, user-generated 3D models, and so on."

Rep. Schiff's communications officer confirmed to me that indeed it does: "Yes, it would apply to any copyrighted material."

With Real Time Mirrors Officially Part of Second Life, Here's a Tutorial for Reflecting Your Virtual World

More than just a fun visual effect (as amply demonstrated by Gogo of JuicyBomb), mirrors are likely to alter the culture of Second Life. We've already seen that happen in VRChat, where mirrors are central to the social experience.  That said, setting up your own Second Life experience for mirrors takes some work...

What Went Wrong With WoW? A Blizzard Veteran’s Theory on World of Warcraft’s Fall From Its 12 Million Subscriber Height

“This is a classic blunder that game studios make -- they feel they need only to throw more content at players, more storytelling and more narrative. I love storytelling, narrative, don't get me wrong. But the whole point of a great open world is for you to explore it at your own pace, not to be compelled to do things in an order.”

Four more after the cut!

 

Why a Woman Bonded With Her Virtual Baby -- Excerpt from the New Coffee Table Book, SECOND LIFE: The First, Best Metaverse

As a holiday treat, here's an excerpt of Hari Sutherland's new coffee table book, SECOND LIFE: The First, Best Metaverse in Words and Pictures:

For many, romance is a big part of the online and virtual world experience. While this can undoubtedly lead to real life difficulties and breakups when people form online attachments and cheat on their partners, many virtual world romances lead to happy real-world outcomes, with people who first meet in Second Life eventually meeting, and often marrying, in real life.

Second life offers a “partnering” option, whereby people commit to one another and their name appears on the partner’s profile. For the more traditionally or romantically-minded, virtual weddings are common, and there’s an active pool of wedding planners and officiants in-world, and numerous sims  or regions specifically designed for use as wedding venues. There are also celebrations of life when a community member passes.

It doesn’t stop there. In-game apps or HUDs (Heads-up Displays that sit on your screen) offer the ability to conceive and gestate a child, with the mother’s avatar developing realistically during the course of the pregnancy. There are clinics and midwife services available in-world to deliver the baby. Many people, not least those who don’t or can’t have children in real life, find this an immensely rewarding and joyous experience. 

As SL resident, photographer, and creator Maggie Runo explains:

Top 6 Posts Including New Second Life Economy Numbers, A VRChat Game Case Study, and a Now-Paused AI NPC Project from Linden Lab

• Kickstart This: Trip the Light, a VR Game That Teaches Hand-in-Hand Partner Dancing! - UPDATE: It's successfully funded!
• Watch: Machinima Artist Shows How Hand-Made Visuals Are Better Than AI
• Amazing User-Created VRChat Adventure Game World Gets 200,000+ Visits / Favorites... But Only 29 People Paying to Play. Here's Why.
• Linden Lab Alpha Launches AI-Powered Character Designer for Second Life -- Community Concerned About Impact on Virtual World, User Accounts. UPDATE: Linden Lab "pauses" project.
• SL Mobile App Has Not Increased Peak SL Usage (Yet). Plus Other 2024 Predictions I Got Wrong (or Right).
• 14 Second Life Creators Became Real Life Millionaires Last Year -- And Other Surprising Economic Stats Linden Lab Just Revealed

Give the Gift of New World Notes! Send Someone Special a Patreon Membership or My Book Autographed

Please join my Patreon for free to help sustain New World Notes!

You can now also send someone a membership to my Patreon as a gift here. If you enjoy reading New World Worlds, I hope you consider sharing and supporting it over the holidays -- plus get quality early/exclusive content via the Patreon app, plus other benefits!

I'm also giving away my autograph plate to anyone who buys a copy of Making of Second Life or Making a Metaverse That Matters. I'll even write a special (short!) dedication message to you or a special someone.

Here's how:

14 Second Life Creators Became Real Life Millionaires Last Year -- And Other Surprising Economic Stats Linden Lab Just Revealed

Originally published on my Patreon

Linden Lab just publicized a trove of impressive Second Life economic data through a new VentureBeat article which headlines the most impressive stat: Linden Lab has spent $1.3B building Second Life and paid $1.1B to creators.

Yes: The company has taken very little profit from Second Life over the course of the virtual world's 21 years, instead re-investing it into the platform, while giving the lion's share of in-world earnings to its grassroots creators.

This is great, though not completely surprising: As I reported in 2017, SL's grassroots creators were likely earning more money from Second Life than Linden Lab itself. Now we know the company is earning slightly more.

VentureBeat's Dean Takahashi frames these revenue splits in comparison to Roblox, which has vastly more users than SL, yet still shares far less earnings with its creators. (See chart above.)

Further, Linden Lab gives 90% of in-game transactions to user creators, while Roblox only shares roughly 30% of transactions with theirs. Philip Rosedale told me something similar in 2022, but it's good to see the company publicizing this story to a major tech business outlet.

Anyway, the economic meat that's likely to interest SLers most is much further down in the article:

SL Mobile App Has Not Increased Peak SL Usage (Yet). Plus Other 2024 Predictions I Got Wrong (or Right).

Originally published on my Patreon

Courtesy Tyche Shepherd, Second Life's unofficial (but highly qualified) demographer, here's a chart of SL activity since the mobile app was made free to play in mid-November. She shared these peak concurrency numbers -- i.e. how many people are logged in the most during a given period -- after I asked her if she'd seen any usage trend upward since the app's launch. (See above.)

"No, it hasn't, there was no noticeable uplift in in 7 day moving average of concurrency metrics around the public release on the 13th." (Check out the data for yourself on her Grid Survey site.)

So that's surprising! Especially now that over 100,000 SLers have downloaded it. My interpretation is that existing SL users are trying it out, but it's not (yet) increasing their overall usage or changing their log-in behavior. I'm talking with Linden heads Brad Oberwager and Philip Rosedale next week, so will hopefully have more insight then.

At any rate, this also means I muffed one of my metaverse predictions for 2024:

Thanks to the launch of its mobile app, Second Life increases peak CCU by at least 20%.  Jury is still out whether Second Life's upcoming iOS/Android app actually grows the total user base with new users (especially if the initial launch targets existing users) but I do think we'll see it enabling more of the existing user base log into SL more often. Peak Second Life concurrency is now around 50,000 (hat tip: Daniel), so growing that by 20% to 60,000 seems quite feasible!

So, well, whoops. And also: Dang.

Anyway, here's a review of my other predictions on new startups, acquisitions, ROBLOX growth, and Apple VisionPro adoption:

Linden Lab Alpha Launches AI-Powered Character Designer for Second Life -- Community Concerned About Impact on Virtual World, User Accounts

Linden Lab just Alpha launched an AI/NPC character builder for Premium Plus Second Life users in collaboration with Convai, the startup that tested out some NPCs in SL earlier this year (to somewhat dubious if comical results). Now they're rolling out an entire toolkit:

The Character Designer provides a solid foundation for immersive roleplay, offering a range of features that let you shape and refine the personalities and behaviors of your inworld characters. Current capabilities include:

Early-Stage Roleplay Support – Characters respond intelligently through IM, adapting and evolving as you interact.

Custom Personalities and Backstories – Define unique histories, preferences, and communication styles to bring your characters to life.

Integration with Existing SL Systems – Connect through a dedicated alt account, set arrival points, and fine-tune behavior filters for a seamless inworld experience.

As this is an alpha release, several improvements are planned:

Expanded Communication – Beyond IM-based interactions, future updates will include local and group chat support.

Voice Integration – Upcoming versions will allow characters to speak, enhancing immersion.

Contextual Awareness – Characters will gain awareness of nearby objects and avatars, enabling more relevant responses.

Advanced Actions – Over time, characters may perform tasks like exchanging inventory items or changing outfits.

Extended Configuration Options – Additional LLM models and Character Designer APIs will provide greater customization and integration possibilities.

More here. To judge by early community response as here on /SecondLife, there's much more consternation, than enthusiasm. 

"We already have a problem with a LOT of residents staying logged in and being AFK a majority of the time," as SL author Hari Sutherland just put it to me. "Sim owners place animesh faux people in sims already. Add in NPCs, and the chances of human-to-human interaction, growing community, and forging friendships plummets... it's just statistics."

This is an Alpha launch available only to a few thousand Premium+ users, so we may see these concerns addressed before the official launch.

In the meantime, if you are planning to play with these tools, be careful with what the AI characters you create say. Reddit host Coffee Pancake points out a pretty perilous warning in the documentation, if you uncheck the subject matter filter:

Cajsa's Choices: Beautifully Icy Photographs of Virtual Winter in Second Life

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Maka Orion’s picture “The light of winter is the poetry of patience” struck a chord with me. I immediately recognized the COLD he is portraying. It’s not just his breath condensing in the cold. It’s the way his shoulders hunch forward, how he brings his hands up to warm them despite the gloves, and it’s the effect of black and white. It feels colder. The only thing is he really should unroll his cap and pull it down over his ears. You know it’s cold from the way he holds his body. It’s not below zero (-18 C), though, or the snow flakes would not be so big and soft. 

This got me wondering. There are thousands of winter pictures taken by Second Life residents, but how many capture the COLD of winter? After all, in Second Life we have people posing on frozen lakes in bikinis or even less. Most of the snow in Second Life is the soft, fluffy snow of warmer winter days, not the hard dry pellets of a COLD snowy day. I wanted to see the kind of COLD where it has to warm up enough to snow. 

To see some real virtual COLD, click here: