New World Notes

Sneak Peek of Jaron Lanier's Octopus Avatar for His April 3rd Book Appearance in Sinespace

When I asked Jaron Lanier and his people what he'd like his avatar to look like for his April 3, 4:30pm PST appearance in Sinespace to talk about his latest book (click here to reserve a spot!) here's the answer that came back:

"He said if you can make it in a porcupine/octopus style (while still being Jaron?) that would be his preference."

And so here's the first draft of his avatar -- a fully articulated octopus with Lanier's trademark dreadlocks. Octopi come up a lot in his book, Dawn of the New Everything: Encounters with Reality and Virtual Reality, which I'm enjoying quite a bit, and which may be his inspiration for the octopus. At one point early in his VR career, he wanted to create a haptic-powered octopus avatar:

We used to have a long-term plan to make an "octopus butler robot" that would present such a wide range of haptic feedback that you could just let your imagination loose, as we already can with the visual side of VR.

Jaron's Sinespace avatar isn't haptic-controlled (at least not yet) but it does some have impressive 8 arm action -- watch:

Watch: Xara Fiasco, Spectacular Singer Who Performs Originals Live in SL

Xara Fiasco is an Australia-based singer who performs original songs live from Second Life, and when I started watching this video above, I was somewhat skeptical until about 2:13 minutes in when she started belting out an original that pretty much blew me away. There's vocal range, there's emotional depth, there's some Tori Amos-eseque piano virtuosity, there's some Regina Spector-ish whispery inflections, there's some thrilling crescendos which light up the room.

Three minutes in, I knew I needed to blog this, but I have to conclude with a mystery:

Cajsa's Choices: The Surrealist, Kahlo-esque Second Life Images of Halfwraith

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

The poet André Breton, the founder of surrealism, described it as a “fusion of elements of fantasy with elements of the modern world to form a kind of superior reality.” To see where fantasy and surrealism intersect, you only need to take a look at Halfwraith’s photostream. You can also see the influence Mexican surrealists Remedio Varas and Frida Kahlo in the rich colors and the way she surrounds her subject with evocative objects that create a story. It was no surprise to learn that both Varas and Kahlo were among her favorite artists when I interviewed her.

How do you describe your style of photos?

I think my style attempts to tell stories - with varying degrees of success. I wasn’t a natural at SL photography, when I started off in 2011 I was pretty terrible and did not know Photoshop. I am a blogger in SL that definitely has improved over time.

Who do you think may have most influenced your aesthetic?

I studied printmaking in RL both as an apprentice and at art school. It had a lot of influence on how I use form and compose images.

Who are some of your favorite artists in SL and/or RL?

My favourite RL artists are Dürer, Goya, Hogarth, Chagall, Kathe Kollwitz, Remedios Varo, and of course Frida Kahlo. My favourite SL artists that have influenced me are Duchess Flux and Kynne L. both who have been kind to me and I learned a lot from observation of how they set-up images. Other photographers I love are Loverdag, Nekotto, Rainbow Mubble, Alles Klaar, Awesome Fallen, and many others.

Much more Halfwraith below!

Eerily Awesome RL Images from the SL Artist Formerly Known as AM Radio

Memory.Radio is the Instagram account of Jeff Berg, the artist formerly known as the legendary Second Life artist avatar AM Radio, which currently features a series of hauntingly beautiful real life-based images in which a strange sphere of glowing light dominates the world. They're very reminiscent of his classic Second Life installations, like this one, and this one.

"The series is called 'Sleepwalking'," he messages me via Instagram. "I sleep walk. The spheres represent the unknown task or goal or destination I'm attempting when I sleep walk. The house is my fear of leaving the house during these walks." How he creates them, he'd prefer to keep secret, so as with his SL-based work, just click and be absorbed:

Infographics: Which Social VR Platform is Ready to Become the Real Life Ready Player One? Compare & Contrast Features to Judge for Yourself

Click to expand

Dean Takahashi's VentureBeat has an in-depth, tech-heavy review of Spielberg's Ready Player One (with some spoilers!) which features an infographic I helped put together with a former analyst who has worked with Deloitte and Forrester and who's now with Sinespace (a media partner with NWN). Here's the infographic showing as many of the key players as possible, including VRChat, SteamVR Home, Sinespace, Sansar, Rec Room, High Fidelity, Facebook Spaces, and AltspaceVR. 

Here's a feature comparison chart, so you can compare and contrast features such as platform compatibility, user-generated content options, and in-world economy - below:

 

Watch: Impressive Trailer for SL's New City Sim Inspired by Cyberpunk 2077

Hey remember Drune, that amazing homestead sim with a whole cyberpunk city built with minimum prims? Hera, the creator, commissioned a trailer for it inspired by the recent viral trailer for the upcoming game Cyberpunk 2077. Shot and put together by SuperiorGurl, it's got some of the most amazing visuals I've seen in an SL machinima, with some post-production assistance via Adobe, Poser, and After Effects. (NSFW warning: While it has no graphic nudity, it's very male gazey throughout and gets decidedly porny toward the end.)

A fan of the 2077 trailer, Hera thought, "I wonder if I could come anywhere near that with SL. SL takes so much flak for having bad graphics when that is rubbish." Rubbish indeed -- watch above, and show your gamer friends.

Listen With Headphones: High Fidelity's New Spacial Audio Simulates Real Life Voices Based on Their Virtual World Locations

Listen with headphones when the rest of the room around you is quiet:

Just implemented in High Fidelity, as Philip Rosedale explains:

To process a sound into 3D, we figure out the angles (up and side to side) between your head and the sound, and then we make a slightly different version of the sound for each of your ears. But when a sound (like someone’s lips) is really close to your head, the model changes both because the angle to each gets quite different, and also because your head now blocks out lot of the sound. So we added a model that does just that — processing the sound differently for sources that are close to your head.

Perfect timing, because I've been thinking about audio quite a bit lately. The most immersive gaming experiences I've had were possible not quite because of the realism of the 3D visuals, but because of the realistic 3D audio.

Listen Then Donate: "Beacon", a Song Dedicated to March For Our Lives Protesters, Created by Famed SL Musicians Zak Claxton and Mulder Watts

Mulder Watts and Zak Claxton, a couple well-known Second Life-based musicians, were recently in Arizona for a group vacation of fellow SL performers, but their trip was shadowed by horrible news:

"By happenstance," Zak tells me, "it was the day after the shootings at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida." But being musicians, however, they responded in the way you'd expect:

"We sat down together during a quiet evening and created a little song on the spot. Mulder and I both have strong feelings about enacting sensible gun laws, and over the subsequent couple of weeks, he wrote the lyrics about the courageous kids leading the movement. We then recorded it together, and decided that it would be appropriate to donate any proceeds from sales of the song to the March For Our Lives Action Fund." Go here to do just that. 

There have been many tributes to March For Our Lives, but this one may be the most unique:

Join Me as I Interview VR Pioneer Jaron Lanier Within VR, in Sinespace - April 3, 4pm PST, Here's How to Reserve a Seat

Click here to reserve a seat at a special virtual world event I'm very proud to co-host: Tuesday, April 3 at 4pm Pacific time, I'll be interviewing VR pioneer Jaron Lanier, widely credited with popularizing the term "virtual reality" itself, within the social VR world of Sinespace. Appearing as avatars before a live studio audience of fellow avatars in Sinespace's Delphi auditorium, we'll be talking about his latest book, Dawn of the New Everything: A Journey Through Virtual Reality.

Spanning three decades of visionary work in VR, starting with his founding of VPL Research, the first company to sell VR goggles and gloves, Jaron's book tells a story of virtual worlds as only he could. We'll discuss that, Jaron’s work as Interdisciplinary Scientist at Microsoft, and his thoughts on the latest generation of VR technology and social platforms. (We may even chat about Spielberg's adaptation of Ready Player One, which open in theaters this weekend.)

 

In-person attendance is limited, so reserve a seat soon: Click here to request a space. Sinespace is accessible via Oculus, Vive, Windows Mixed Reality, along with Mac, Windows, and Linux desktop clients. A live video stream of the event will also be broadcast on YouTube during showtime.

Disclosure: Sinespace is a media partner to New World Notes.

Linden Lab Hiring Digital Marketing Manager to Grow Second Life User Base

Linden Lab has a good new job opening if you're in the digital marketing business, but even if you're not, it's still an interesting sign of the company's direction -- they're investing more resources into marketing and growing Second Life, especially on social media:

Second Life’s Digital Marketing Manager will be responsible for developing and executing paid search and paid social tactics to drive customer conversion and retention. This includes Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Pay Per Click (PPC), display advertising, paid social (Facebook, Twitter) and other digital advertising channels.... Work with Marketing (including designers and community managers), Web Development, Customer Service and Product Management teams to deliver customer-facing campaigns focused on acquiring and/or better monetizing customers.... Lead efforts to convert new customers into active users of Second Life.

My impression is that much of Linden Lab's digital marketing campaigns have been outsourced up until now. Remember those odd "Second Life pregnancy" ads from last month? Linden Lab said they didn't create them, so the likeliest explanation is that they were created by third party advertisers who get an affiliate reward whenever their ads lead to a new Second Life account being created. So now, apparently, Linden Lab is taking a more active and direct role in marketing SL to grow the user base -- which also suggests that Second Life is not quite Linden Lab's neglected red-haired stepchild that many SLers assume it to be.