New World Notes

Rik's Picks for February 28-March 4

Rik Riel's weekly round-up of upcoming SL events...

As Second Life becomes more and more international, we can anticipate that the cultural offerings in-world will be increasingly more global and diverse.  For example, this week you can attend a German Linux user's group meeting, a Swedish showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, an Australian jazz diva's performance, and perhaps the first Latin American concert in SL.

The Brazilian electro-punk band Montage will be performing a live set at Club Republik (teleport SLURL) on Thursday March 1 at 5PM. The Montage duo, formed by Daniel Peixoto and Leco Jucá, come from the underground world of Brazilian electronic music, known for their creative sound and extravagant performances.  Sounds like a perfect fit for Second Life.

Also coming up: A virtual technology expo, support for alcoholics and people with HIV/AIDS, consumer protection, techno from the moon, and balloons in Antartica.  All that and more after the jump...

YOU AND WHAT ARMY?

The SLLA storm the virtual Davos stage to demand... something or other

Is there a widespread uprising against the decline of Second Life utopia?  Reading the Los Angeles Times last week, you'd assume so.  After all, the Times reports, a clandestine band of rebels known as the Second Life Liberation Army has been launching attacks on numerous corporate-owned sites, demanding all Residents be given the right to vote, while other Residents are departing SL with complaints that the world has lost its otherworldly freedom.

A galvanizing story, to be sure, which has the only flaw of being, as far as can be discerned, not strictly true.  Instead, it's more likely that the Times has fallen prey to a phenomenon that's so common in the mainstream press, it has a name: astroturfing.  It also represents another variety of confused mainstream coverage of Second Life, in which the world is taken seriously enough to devote feature length stories to, but not seriously enough to apply traditional standards of accuracy.

ALL ABOUT MY AVATAR: STELLA COSTELLO

I noticed acclaimed 3D artist Stella Costello in the bleachers of Kula, just a touch to the left of the svelte Ivy Darrow.  Since Stella seemed decidedly more full-figured than when I saw her last, I asked her if she'd changed.

Tateru's Monday Reality Mix

Tateru Nino's weekly take on mixed reality...

The Second Life Relay-For-Life 2007 is coming up this year, and Moriash Moreau (well-known SL humorist, gadgeteer and closet genius) has come up with a novel way to walk the Second Life Relay in both worlds for the betterment of himself and others.

We'll look at Second Life in your purse, ThinkGeek, and our usual mixed reality traffic and shorts, as well as Moreau's walk between the worlds, after the fold.

THE SHEEP LOOK UP

The Electric Sheep just landed $7 million in funding for 3rd party metaverse development; as Tateru just pointed out to me, 7 mill is almost as much as Linden Lab itself got in their first round of funding.  My interview with Sheep CEO Sibley Hathor is now up on GigaGamez.

SOUSREALITY

... is a mind-bending, SL-to-RL art installation proposal, developed by folks affiliated with MIT's famed Media Lab, and intended for the SIGGRAPH gallery.  I talked with Sousreality developer Zetetic Aubret a few weeks ago, to explain a bit more about it.

THINK WE'RE TURNING JAPANESE?

I really think so:  according to What Japan Thinks, a blog that translates Japanese surveys for us gaijin, nearly 20% of the country's Internet users are already familiar with Second Life (though a localized version hasn't  totally been introduced yet) and nearly 50% of them want to give it a try.  Nearly four years after being out there, I frankly doubt you'd find that level of SL awareness and interest among American Internet users even now.  Read the whole survey here.

WEEKEND OPEN FORUM (Updated)

Got an SL-related issue you want to talk about, a grassroots event/project you want to promote, a gripe you want to air or praise you want to publicize?  Post here, and come Monday, I'll mention noteworthy items and discussions in a front page update.

Update, Monday 2/26:

- Using his innovative camera technology, Geuis Dassin showcases the awe-inspiring Chapel of Yule created by Xenius Revere.  High quality version here-- no post-production trickery, Geuis insists, the church "actually looks that good"-- lower quality YouTube version here.  Direct portal to Xenius' build here.

- What's the story behind the controversial, mysteriously high-yield Ginko Financial service?  Benjamin Noble announces a detailed blog entry on an analysis of Ginko from, of all places, the University of Illinois College of Law.

- Waiting on it with bated breath, Vincent announces the official arrival of SL's 4 millionth Resident.  (Be that Resident an alt, or a perennial "one try then bye bye" temporary citizen.)

- Gwyneth Llewelyn wonders when I'll looking into what Linden Lab's planning with my.secondlife.com.  (But I have the sense that Gwyn can guess far better than I.)

- Finally, "polygone" asks the machinima question few are brave to say in public:  "Isn't it weird how there's said to be so much sex in Second Life, but NO ONE has made a full-feature film porno with avatars?"

ALL ABOUT MY AVATAR: VGM GOBO (TSL)

"I am a basic scripter," vgm Gobo tells me from Teen Second Life (pictured here in the TSL region of Tenshi).  A 14 year old Resident, he's also my first entry in the Teen Avatar Expo, an adjunct to the "All About My Avatar" series exclusively for those in what's colloquially known as "the teen grid".

"I was insipred to make my avatar," Gobo explains, "because of a friend's novel/story (in progress) called Dynasty." It is a story about six young kids starting a virtual reality game that takes place in medieval times and they get stuck in the game and have to find a way out.  I have a character in it, and that is what the avatar looks like: green hair, leather outfit, and red headband."

DIGGABLE PLANET

Now this is quite possibly revolutionary: the ever-urbane Walker Spaight reports on a new heads-up display that lets Residents make Digg-like ratings on Second Life objects, ratings that are stored in an accessible database:

[A] green thumb appears that cycles through objects in your field of view. A number appears above the thumb displaying each object’s rating. At any point, when the thumb is hovering over an object, you can click the green thumbs-up or red thumbs-down that appear at the top of your screen. This increases or decreases the rating of the object by one point. That’s it.

Created by low key mad scientist Babbage Linden, the HUD still has kinks to smooth out, but the potential to influence the SL content experience, just as Digg has done with the Web at large, is already there.  Read about the coming folksonomy of virtual objects here.