New World Notes

SLer Survey: Will You Pay to Change Your Avatar Name?

At long last Linden Lab has announced plans to let SLers change their first and/or last avatar name -- but it comes with a revenue-generating catch:

We heard you loud and clear. Soon it will be possible to change the name of a Second Life account. This is one of our Residents’ most requested features and we’re working furiously to make it available by the end of January.  Name Changes will be exclusively for Premium members at an additional fee. Changing one or both of your First and Last Name will be available as a single transaction. Last Names will be picked from a list, which you can help us curate.

Hence this survey above -- please share with other SLers! Results posted right before Thanksgiving next week. 

Cajsa's SL Flickr Pick: Milena Carbone Makes Gorgeous Virtual Photos to Illustrate Provocative Essays

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

Milena Carbone is an amazing find. Not just wonderful pictures, but many of her photos include interesting narratives and essays, sometimes on her Medium, sometimes attached to the image itself. I love this picture above where the people disappear into the background. It is such a striking photo that I would feature it on its own, but then I read her essay attached to this image (read it here) about how the axioms that rule our lives must be questioned if they keep us from love. Maybe we should divide by zero.

Reader Challenge: What's The Most Uniquely Second Life Image Ever?

For reasons I'll hopefully get to explain soon, I recently spent several hours plunging through Flickr in search of The Most Uniquely Second Life Image Ever. At 3am or so, I found this glorious one above, by Nomi Gothly, "I'll search the flight of whales". (Yes, there's flying whale islands in SL, or at least there once was: Click here to check.)

Why'd I dub this the most SL pic ever? I have several criterion, and I'm challenging readers to top this example:

Why VR/AR Devs Should Stop Referencing Minority Report-ish Gesture Control

"Why Sci-Fi Is Bad for Design" is a new Modus essay (reg. req.) by my colleague Amber Case (a fellow at the Institute for the Future) delving into some classic science fiction movie and TV tropes -- such as Jarvis from Iron Man and Star Trek-esque voice control AI -- that have infected the tech industry for the worse. Another trope she discusses is seriously significant for AR and VR developers: Minority Report-esque gesture control. Here's the problem with that, as she sees it:

Since its debut in 2002, Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report has been an archetypal reference point for technologists enthralled by the way Tom Cruise could manipulate complex data with dramatic swipes of his hands.

But what looks amazing for a few minutes of screentime doesn’t necessarily perform as well offscreen. Can you imagine how sore your muscles would be after using this system for eight hours a day?

And as it happens, she can:

Cajsa's SL Flickr Pic: The Uniquely Atmospheric Fashion Images of Ary McCauley

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

As much as I like SL artists who experiment with different approaches, I also love the artists who define their aesthetic and stick with it. Ary McCauley has done that. When you see a picture by her, you know it is hers. The majority of her photos are vertical fashion shots, but she does a few mise-en-scène. This is an excellent example of her aesthetic shifted from the backdrop to the scene, the colors in her suit are found in the scene. There are tropical foliage in both. There is an echoing of color and a naturalness that is delightful

Struggling Stadia Should Shift Away from Twitch Games to Virtual Worlds

Google recently launched Stadia, its OnLive-like streaming service for AAA games, and to no one's surprise who's ever been involved with streaming services like OnLive (like, um, say, me), the reaction so far has not been surprising:

• Google’s Stadia Just Ain’t It (Kotaku)
• Google Stadia Wants You to Replace Your Video Game Console. Don’t. (New York Times)
• Google Stadia is here, but there are still huge issues (CNN)

The amazing thing is this was entirely a foreseeable reaction. Stadia is leading with action-oriented AAA games where split second reaction times are essential to gameplay. Which brings up the core problem with streaming services for that kind of content:

There is simply. No. Fricking. Way. To get past. The speed. Of goddamn light. I mean seriously. Dude:

Watch: How to Reduce Prim Count on Second Life Land (Kinda Sorta)

Here's a fun quick tutorials from SL YouTuber Luca on how to (kinda sorta) reduce the prim count on your SL land.

"Just make sure you don't link scripted and no-copy objects unless you know what you're doing," Luca explains. "The frames-per second doesn't get increased but the prim count of things that got linked does get reduced by 25-50%." 

In other words, you're not really removing prims, you're just tricking the system into thinking that you have. Right?

Cajsa's SL Flick Pick: Evie Heights Makes Masterpiece Pics in Black & White

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

“Mamma Mia” is a fabulous photo from Evie Heights. The bit of blur makes it feel so real. It certainly is effective even though it violates one of the “rules” of composition that says the subject should always look into the frame. Maybe it’s the signal, the “ssh” that asks to keep it a secret. If it’s secret, maybe you look out, not in.

VRChat Attracts Community of Deaf Users & Supporters Who Communicate With Unique, VR-Based Signs

This new video from Syrmor, VRChat's best embedded reporter, is easily among his very greatest; it's also one of the most profound and impressive use cases of social VR I've ever seen: A community of Deaf people and their supporters who meet in VRChat to communicate with each other via VR-based sign language. I capitalize "Deaf" thanks to this Google Doc from Helping Hands, "a community to encourage anyone who wants to learn sign to be able to interact with various Deaf communities and cultures inside VRChat", which explains:

Deaf: Deaf (with a capital ‘D’) refers to embracing the cultural norms, beliefs, and values of the Deaf Community. The term ‘Deaf’ should be capitalized when it is used as a shortened reference to being a member of the Deaf Community.

As that suggests, the Helping Hands community is seriously dedicated to supporting its members online: 

Carmack Quitting Corporate Life or Creating AI to Make VR Great? Readers Debate VR Pioneer's Withdrawal from VR

Some interesting thoughts from readers on news that John Carmack is almost completely quitting Oculus to work on artificial intelligence. My take was this:

It's hard to escape the conclusion that Carmack has decided that virtual reality won't or can't be improved, or sufficiently matured into a mass market product, within the span of his career...

The statements also stand in sharp contrast to how Carmack fairly recently described the importance of bringing VR to the masses -- as "a moral imperative"... Somewhere since then, it seems, that moral imperative became less imperative. It's possible he still believes in VR with the same zeal, but just lost interest in developing it on a daily basis. 

In Comments, VR blogger "Grey" has a more quotidian ass theory which is possibly more plausible -- Carmack just got sick of corporate life at Oculus:

What I'm "reading between the lines" is that Carmack feels constrained by the "corporate" culture a Facebook, one in which he's held back from working on truly next gen products.

Take the cancellation of the Rift 2, and all the work going into Oculus Link after it was decided not to put dedicated hardware in the Quest for connecting to a PC.

Carmack admits he's grumpy at work, which is a very good sign it's time to move on.

And with that in mind, given that he likely has a non-compete clause, what can he do?

What is the next most exciting computer and programming technology he could work on?

AI seems like the most obvious choice.

That's certainly likely! However, if Carmack really wanted to quit day-to-day activity at Oculus but still work on truly next gen VR products in the quiet of his own home on his own schedule, I'm sure the company would gladly let him do so. And so I'm not convinced this is the reason. 

VR developer Kim Baumann Larsen believes Carmack's move to AI is actually part of his ambitions with VR: