New World Notes

Running Second Life on Netbooks, Continued

The quest to run SL adequately on a low cost, low frills Netbook continues. Snowy Hoobinoo reports that he can get an EEEPC 901 with 2 gigs of RAM running SL at 15 frames per second. (Which come to think of it is what I sometimes get on my high-end laptop.) The catch: you need to install an open source SL viewer, and do some major tweaking with the settings. Then again, some folks find that kind of tuning fun. Go here to get the step-by-step.

First Couple in Second Life: Michelle Obama Avatar Arrives

The avatar of President Barack Obama has been in Second Life for several months, at least in the photorealistic form created by Italian Resident Mrsigmund Fride, but sadly for such a social world, he has had to make do at parties and other events without a First Lady on his arm. That identity lacuna has finally been resolved, because Mr. Fride has at last completed his Michelle Obama avatar, and now sells them at his store. [Direct SLurl teleport at this link] As one would expect, she is on default elegantly coiffed and smashingly dressed, and about as instantly recognizable as Mrs. Obama as the avatar version of her husband. (Creating avatars based on identifiable real world celebrities, as this series strongly suggests, is no easy task.) One significant shortcoming: the avatar's arms aren't as perfectly sculpted as the First Lady's most famously are. On the plus side, my style writer has already written a fashion guide for prospective SL versions of Mrs. Obama.

MrSigmund Fride has been selling astoundingly accurate avatars based on real world celebrities for some time. "I think that anyone can dress an avatar with a different spirit," he tells me. "I just create the avatar and people can create an imaginary." So far, his President Obama is by far his top seller, followed by one based on Chinese superstar Gong Li, and Italian President Silvio Berlusconi. Half-jokingly, I ask Mr. Fride if people buy his Berlusconi avatar to take to hot sex parties, in tribute to the real life counterpart, and he immediately answers Yes, indeed they do.

Open Forum: What Can You Do With HTTP-in LSL? (Updated)

Second Life Server 1.27 contains an LSL HTTP-In feature which (as the release notes say) "Allows prims to become mini web-servers. Objects acquire a url, and then process http requests for that url." (More Linden notes on it here.) Opensource Obscure suggested devoting an open forum to this tech, and so here it is. My technical kung fu is weak, so I put the question to coders and scripters with the wisdom to tell: What SL-to-Web applications are you most excited to see created with HTTP-in LSL?

Update, 9:58am: How important is this feature? Cory Ondrejka, one of SL founders, says of it: "Few will grok why, but Second Life just fundamentally expanded."

Rezzable Updates BuilderBot Release Plans

"BuilderBot" is a program created by UK metaverse developer Rezzable to copy the studio's content from Second Life, to easily export it to OpenSim. It is not the only such application in existence -- only last month, for instance, I noted that OpenSimulator's Adam Zaius had created a program with similar functionality. However, when Rezzable CEO RightasRain Rimbaud recently announced plans to release or sell a version to other developers, it generated a fair amount of controversy, with many spying shades of another CopyBot controversy. Mr. Rimbaud has just updated the company's plans here; in response to often vehement objections to his first post, he writes, "We will try harder to make a commercial version of BuilderBot useful for legitimate practices and not easily applied to abuse." As longtime readers know, Rezzable is one of this blog's sponsoring partners, so it's probably best if I refrain from any further editorial comment, at least for now. I also recommend reading this official statement from Bettina Tizzy's NPIRL group, home to some of Second Life's best content creators.

Second Life Tweet of the Day

From Jacquicain, a teachable moment that leaves one wanting more education on the topic. Retweet me your favorite SL Tweets.

Other World Notes: JoCo on the Rock Band Network, Mochi on Virtual Currency, Me On Retail Gaming's Waning

I just jammed out three new posts for GigaOM, which somewhat slowed my output here these last couple days, but think they're worth a look for NWN readers:

GigaOM: Can the Rock Band Network Transform the Music Industry?

I interview beloved geek troubadour Jonathan Coulton on the recently announced Rock Band Network, sort of an App Store for musicians, which Second Life-based performers looking for another channel to promote their music and make money from it should definitely take a look at too. JoCo, as it happens, is a Second Life Resident named Yonatan Coalcliff, who performed live in-world in 2006. Would be great to see him perform in SL again, wonder if someone is interested in sponsoring a show (hint hint.)

GigaOM: Mochi Media Gets Into Virtual Currency Game

An extremely huge (as in 100 million monthly users) gaming service adds a virtual currency to its system, one of many already on the market. The Linden Dollar was once the largest virtual currency used in the West, but with the advent of social networks, this is likely no longer the case, certainly not in volume.

GigaOM: Online Gaming Grows as Retail Gaming Wanes

Online game usage increases as retail sales of games drop, partly due to the recession, but in my view, also due to a broader trend of digitalization of content, i.e. free games. Probably explains why Second Life reports large usage rates, but so-so in-world spending.

Website Tracks Second Life Resident Names/New Sims

I'm having a lot of fun browsing the Second Life stats available on the website of ObiJan Technologies, a security and enterprise software company. Here, for example, are twenty of the most recently added regions, and you can make a fairly reasonable guess on what will go on there, just by the names. (I think it's safe to say "Disturbed Fear" isn't a haven for candy-colored tinies.) No SLurls, unfortunately, so if you want to investigate further you'll have to enter these region names in SL search. Lots of other useful metrics to look at on the site, such as popular surnames, recently removed regions, new custom names, and more. Much thanks to reader "Yak" for the tip.

New World SLurl: Grungeboardin' Above Grendel's Children

High above Grendel's Children, the store for fabulous avatars, is a board-riding wonderland (ably depicted in this machinima by Pyewacket Bellman), the invention of Constantine Riel, which he dubs Grungeboardin'. You can ride for free, just be sure to follow the equipping instructions in the lobby. Getting there is a challenge, as it's three thousand meters up, so you need to use this teleport SLurl, just provided to me by Grendel owner Flea Bussy. (Tell me if you have trouble ascending.) Direct SLurl to Grungeboardin' at this link.

Open Forum: How Can Second Life's Relay Raise Over $500,000 in 2010?

According to the American Cancer Society's Second Life Relay page, SL Residents raised a grand total of $263,361 in Linden Dollars this year. That's roughly $50,000 more than last year, and absolutely excellent news for which everyone who participated, especially the main volunteers, who deserve huge praise. At the same time, as this graph of year-to-year donation data shows, the rate of increase has slowed some, in the last couple years. To be sure, that's due in large part to the slowing growth rate of active SL users during that period, but at the same time, there's probably a number of additions and improvements that would grow total donations. As I mentioned Sunday, for example, I tried to make a last-minute L$ donation, but the Relay track was already so laggy from so many runners and supporters, the in-world donation kiosk was unidentifiable amid the unrezzed gray. (And far as I can tell, the official website only accepts direct US$ contributions, not Lindens Dollars.) So a ready list of SLurls to donation kiosks all over SL would be an enormous advantage.

What other improvements would you suggest for next year? And do be constructive, this is a community effort operating toward the same goal.

Can You Run Second Life on a Netbook?

One of Second Life's biggest adoption hurdles now is the growing popularity of low cost, low spec netbooks, which are ideal for working on web applications, but with little or no 3D graphics computing power, not so great an entry point into the metaverse. So I was surprised to read this post by Peter Stindberg, who managed to get Second Life running on a $280 Asus Eee PC. Slight drawback: it only runs at three fricking frames per second. "[N]ot thrilling," Mr. Stinberg allows, "however I can walk around, access objects, work with my inventory, script, pay people, deliver notecards and interact socially." Read how he did it here. Anyone else manage to get Second Life or OpenSim running (or maybe better to say, crawling) on a Netbook?