New World Notes

STILL SURVEYING!

Did Linden Lab address your concerns with the world at SLCC '06?  Take the poll on the right column, mid-page.  Voting booth closes on the afternoon of the 29th, after which, I'll bring them up with the Lindens themselves.  Watch results as they come in here. 

GET YOUR FLICKS ON ROUTE 66

By popular demand, the Creative Commons-licensed documentary mentioned here will be screened in its entirety in Second Life.  Come in-world to watch Route 66: An American Bad Dream, the misadventures of three plucky Germans driving across the storied freeway in a decrepit caddie.  Presented by filmmaker Gonzo Oxberger and CC-in-SL.  Mark your calendars: Next Thursday, August 31st, 4pm Second Life time, in Kula.  More resources here.   Disclosure here:  I'm a proud part-time consultant for CC's Second Life office.

THE NEW WORLD NOTES TRAVEL GUIDE (Updated)

This is an ongoing (and by no means exlusive) compilation of places I've visited and/or reported on that are also my personal recommendations for some of the very best sights and experiences Second Life has to offer.  When someone asks you, "What's there to do in SL besides gambling and dancing at night clubs?", I hope you send them this link.  I also intend to update it frequently, so if there's places and builds that absolutely need to be on it, post a description and SLURL in Comments, or e-mail me.

THE UNCANNY VALLEY EXPO: IDA KEEN

Ida Keen's submission to the Expo is untitled, but, she says, "I am pretty sure her dog just died." Ida also models.  Her expression was created with Siggy Romulus' Mood Ring, with tears created by Material Squirrel (they're actually tear-shaped particle emitters.) Details on submitting your own Expo screenshots and videos here.

A BROTHER-HUD OF MAN

Watch the Video (Requires Windows Media Player, or watch the YouTube version.)

So pretty much on a lark, a guy named Yossarian Seattle sat down and whipped up something that could change the world.

"It started off with me wanting to have a go at building a heads-up display for a bit of fun," he says to me via IM. "That coupled with the fact that I'm doing some real life work with translation at the moment brought about the idea."  Relatively new to Second Life, Yossarian first did some digging to see if someone else had used SL's XML capabilities to create a translator, and not finding any*, he began creating one of his own. 

"Given that the number of non-English speakers is increasing all the time [in SL], I figured it would be a handy tool to have," he continues.  (Indeed, nearly 40% of Second Life residents are now from outside the US)

Still in Beta, Yossarian's translator operates through a HUD that attaches to your display, allowing you to quickly switch between 10 languages.  During an impromptu trial run yesterday, I happened to spot SL visionary Gwyneth Llewelyn in-world, and knowing she was in Portugal, I called her over to an oceanside, and started chatting in her native tongue.

A video of our conversation is here-- view as a Windows Media file for best quality, or via YouTube here.  As you'll see, simple sentences come across more or less coherently, while the translation starts running off the rails, the more complex they become. What's striking is how quickly each of our sentences is translated, coming and going, processed in less than a second.

"I'm using the httprequest [script] capabilities of SL to call out to external translation services via my own website," Yossarian tells me.  "[It's] pretty fast (about 0.1 seconds) thus the translator speed." He sends the data out to his website, where it's run through several on-queue translation services like Babelfish, then returns to the world in less than a breath.

And just like that, untold vistas of possibility emerge.  Because if interacting as avatars is more emotionally engaging to us than watching video or reading words on a screen (and that seems to be the case), and if doing so with people from different countries around the world improves our attitudes toward them (and that too, seems to be true), what happens when yet another international barrier to direct communication is broken down?

POST-SLCC POLLING!

Days before SLCC '06, I launched a web poll asking NWN readers to select the most important issue Linden Lab should publicly address at the Convention.  Now's your chance to decide if your concerns were addressed adequately enough, because I just started a new, week-long poll.  Right column, mid-page:  "At SLCC '06, your concerns over Second Life's current and future issues (user-interface, grid downtime, land management, scalability, IP rights enforcement, etc.) were addressed by Linden Lab... Sufficiently/Somewhat sufficiently/Somewhat insufficiently/ Insuffienciently/Don't Know."  If you weren't at the Convention, you should first check on coverage around the SL blogosphere, starting with the great talk notes taken by 3pointD here and here.  View aggregate the poll results as they arrive here.

(Photo of Cory and Philip Linden at SLCC taken with generous permission from Pathfinder Linden's Flickr stream.)

THE UNCANNY VALLEY EXPO: TORRID MIDNIGHT

Today's Expo submission is "Simple Joys" from Torrid Midnight, modeling for a screenshot taken by Nephilaine Protagonist.  The pose is also by Torrid, with the facial expression created through *Sonic* Spress, a HUD-controlled emote system by Kenzington Fairlight.

Details on submitting your own Expo screenshots and videos here.

CREATING A CHAMBER

Fresh from her lauded appearance at SLCC, Chili Carson is convening a meeting tonight to generate support for a Second Life-based Chamber of Commerce that would serve the thousands of in-world businesses in operation-- and by extension, the customers who depend on them.  Considering all the controversy and acrimony in-world commerce often provokes (accusations of texture and design theft, scams, and so on), you have to think some kind of self-governed business organization is amply needed.  Details on attending Chili's call to form one after the break.

Update, 8/23:  SignpostMarv Martin has a transcript of the event here.

SLCC WRAP-UPS

Since New World is reserved for in-world only reporting, I've been covering the Second Life Community Convention through other venues, with business-related write-ups for GigaOM here and here, and a cultural, big picture write-up for Kotaku, featuring a reunion between Baccara and Nick Rhodes, the raucous, hardware-enabled "Sex and Relationships in Second Life" panel, and more. (With photos!)

Be sure to visit the open forum post to share your own insights, reports, photos, and videos from the scene.

SLCC '06: THE OPEN FORUM POST!

Used to be, San Francisco was the place that eccentrics went when they needed a place to freely dream.  (Now that only happens if they're able to secure a $50K+ salary first.)  This weekend, however, the city is abuzz with people around the world who've already realized dreams which make San Francisco at its most imaginative pale by contrast.  And I do mean abuzz:  just yesterday, while coming out of the MUNI/BART train station on my way to a totally unrelated engagement, someone shouted "Hamlet!"-- and right there behind me were master avatar fashionistas Launa Fauna and Mistress Midnight, as vivacious and lovely in person as they are as avatars.

I'll be moderating SLCC's "Media in Second Life" panel tomorrow afternoon, and covering the business side for GigaOM-- first entry, featuring Philip Linden in a codpiece, here.  Since I'll be busy with that, this open post is for everyone attending or wishing they could attend.  Go to Comments, and post first-hand reports, links to pics, Flickr streams and video, random shout-outs, requests from the non-attending audience, and more.  I'll highlight or repost particularly cool comments and photos as they arrive (and when I'm not moderating, interviewing, or over-indulging.)

Update, 8/20:  Here's a nice SLCC 06 Flickr stream, mostly pics of SL musicians performing live-- keep them coming!  I have a short business-of-SLCC post on GigaOM here.

Update, 8/21: Some of my photos from the event are now showing up here, from my "wjamesau" account. Please e-mail me if you'd like to have your SL name added in a caption.