New World Notes

Trump's Second Life Supporters Erect Giant Anti-Hillary Billboards Across the Street from Hillary HQ

So remember that Hillary Clinton headquarters in Second Life I told you about earlier this month? The one that had replaced a Trump fan's tribute to the Republican's Florida mansion? On a visit to the Hillary HQ this week, I felt a blobby mass looming over my head behind me, and so slowly turned around. And saw this:

Yes: Trump's Second Life fans may have lost the mansion, but they put up a big billboard for Trump's SL headquarters (with a couple proposing Hillary for prison, for good measure) directly across the street. So now, both Trump and Hillary HQs stand at a literal crossroads:

Oculus Rift Terms of Service Warns VR Exposure May Increase Risk of Injury "in the Real World"

Some VR experts believe the technology can endanger users in the real world, and in fact, Oculus Rift's Terms of Service warns consumers of just that -- however, you need to dig around to find that caution. Item 15 of Oculus' ToS, "Disclaimers", points to a .pdf document with safety warnings, then says "BY USING THE SERVICES, YOU REPRESENT AND WARRANT THAT YOU HAVE READ AND UNDERSTAND THESE WARNINGS AND INSTRUCTIONS". The "Health and Safety" document is pretty standard for high tech devices until you get to the Discomfort section, which lists a host of symptoms ("seizures, loss of awareness... involuntary movements; altered, blurred, or double vision or other visual abnormalities" etc. etc.) followed by a passage in bold (captured above), which says this:

Project Sansar May Require RL Names, Suggests CEO, UPDATE: Audio/Transcript Confirms, "But We Have Not Made Final Decisions", UPDATE 2: Linden Lab Disputes

Update, 7/28: Linden Lab Disputes Real Name Requirement for Project Sansar, But Unanswered Questions Remain

Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg made a public appearance in Second Life yesterday during that virtual world's 13th year anniversary, and dropped this potentially unlucky bombshell about Project Sansar:

Ebbe was then asked if users of Sansar would have the option to chose their own names for their avatars, or would they be having to use real-life identities. Ebbe answered he was leaning to the latter, "I think what's best for Sansar is real names. ... anonymous identities makes things confusing."

I missed this press appearance, so it's possible that SL blogger Bixyl Shuftan misheard Ebbe on this point; I'm double-checking with Linden Lab now. But if that's accurate -- still a big if -- that's a pretty big potential showstopper:

VR Industry Risks Major Liability Exposure Due to Disorientation, Expert Warns

"How big an issue is the nausea problem for Virtual Reality products?" is the title of a really fascinating if disturbing Quora post by Steve Baker, who's been working in VR for over two decades, primarily for the military and defense contractors, who got into the virtual reality business way back during the Cold War. Baker carefully analyzes the nausea problems associated with VR, argues they are fundamentally unsolvable, and then drops this jaw-dropping factoid taken from a military study of test subjects' reaction to long term use of a flight simulator:

Anecdotal data continues to be received indicating there is a part of the aviation population that experiences delayed problems beyond the simulator exposure and for periods that exceed 6 to 8 hours for approximately 8 percent of the population and l-to-2 days for an even smaller population... an aviator should wait postflight before piloting an actual aircraft or even driving a car.

"Yeah," Baker observes, "the US Navy believes that some people shouldn’t drive a car within one to two DAYS of being inside a VR environment."

In conclusion, he raises a liability issue I brought up from another direction a few weeks ago:

Cool Demo of SL's New Project Bento Avatar Customization

We're still seeing a dearth of Project Bento-based avatars since the new SL avatar technology launched, but here's a pretty impressive new demo from Medhue showing how avatar customization works with a Bento-borne avatar -- starring, of course, a talking fox.

Speaking of dearth in Bento avatars, reader Adeon thinks the delay is due to needing a special viewer to see them:

Oculus Rift for Second Life Promoted on Official Site But Actual SL Viewer for Oculus Outdated

Now that the commercial model of the Oculus Rift is showing up in consumers' hands, some of them might want to try their new Rift out in Second Life. After all, Oculus Rift for SL is promoted on the official homepage. Some Rift owners, however, report some not too great results:

First of all, the official viewer with Oculus Rift capabilities hasn’t been updated since 2014... What I didn’t realise was that yes, Second Life will work with an Oculus Rift using that viewer, BUT only if it is the DEVELOPMENT MODEL. My commercially released treasure is more powerful, and NONE of the viewers have been updated to support it. To say that this sucks balls is an understatement.

More ranting in a post cheekily titled "Oculus MIFFED". And indeed, clicking "Explore now with the Oculus Rift" on the SL homepage takes you to an official announcement from October 2014, which takes you to a download link of an SL viewer compatible with the DK2 development kit version of Oculus Rift.

Where's the updated viewer for the commercial version of the Rift? I've asked Linden Lab about this, and will update this post when/if I get a reply. Until then, if you're planning to use your new Rift with Second Life, caveat emptor. (Or however you say "downloader" in Latin.)

Flickr of the Day: "Singing Butler" Recreated in Second Life

I love this new Flickr image from Goodie McCross, which started as a screenshot taken in Second Life, then after quite a bit of post-production, became a more moody and melancholic recreation of Jack Vettriano's famous painting "The Singing Butler". Click below to compare and contrast:

HBO's Westworld Remake Sure Seems to Have a VR Twist

The 70's original was about animatronic cowboys and showgirls in an old West theme park going haywire, while the HBO remake (to judge by this new teaser trailer at least), sure seems to suggest something more akin to clones in a VR simulation of the old West. Lead creatives include J.J. Abrams (Lost) and Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan's brother and frequent collaborator (Interstellar, Memento), so expect mind-bending in any case.

VR, or something else? Discuss.

Second Life Users Raise Over One Million Linden Dollars in Donations for Orlando Shooting Victims

Great news to start the week: As of the last hour, the total in Linden Dollar donations that will be converted from Linden Dollars to US$ donations to the victims of the Pulse shooting stand at L$1,053,210 -- that's over $4100 in US dollars, that will soon be sent to the official GoFundMe Pulse Victims Fund for Equality Florida (which as of today, has nearly $6 million total). That amount is almost double from last Thursday, when the total was just below L$600,000. So clearly a lot of SLers donated during the weekend.

One big help was the distribution of donation boards, enabling anyone to collect donations from their land. And Casper Warden, the reputed SL entrepreneur who launched the drive and created the sign, tells me those boards have been going out like crazy:

Watch Realistic Avatars Powered by Oculus & Vive Interact in High Fidelity

I meant to blog this video last month, but it's still worth a watch -- two impressively realistic avatars, one powered by a Vive user, the other by an Oculus user, playing tic-tac-toe (kinda sorta) in High Fidelity:

High Fidelity's lead artist is a veteran of Pixar, so most avatars we've seen in demos are decidedly Incredibles-like, so it's good to watch eerily human-looking ones in action. (Dangling in mid-air Wiley Coyote-like over the Uncanny Valley though they may be.) In a new blog post, HF Director of Content Caitlyn Meeks includes this demo while summarizing the startups' mission to make the VR experience more human: