New World Notes

Nylon Pinkney Is Online - Why Virtual Mirrors Are Popular in VRChat

Watch Live: Adam Frisby Builds a Volleyball Game in Sinespace at 9am PST

UPDATE, 11:02AM: The demo encountered a bug around 42 minutes, so Adam will upload the full version later today!

This should be fun, but then again I'm biased: Starting at 9am PST today, Adam Frisby, founder of Sinespace (a proud sponsoring media partner to New World Notes!), is going livestream his attempt to build a game on the Unity-based virtual world platform. Specifically, a multiplayer volleyball game.

Go here to the live YouTube stream to comment and question what he's doing as it happens. Or post in Comments below!

Inside the Avatar-Based Transgender Community of Second Life

ECLIPSE magazine has a fascinating and beautifully illustrated feature on the transgender community in Second Life. Perceptively written by NWN contributor Cajsa Lilliehook, who interviewed six transgender SL users, it connects their struggles in the virtual world with the real life activism of the LGBTQ community, and the tension they sometimes encounter with the SL community at large -- for instance, by resisting the traditional concept (and accusation) of "catfishing":

“SL allows us to be seen as the men or women we are inside," as one member explains to Cajsa. "Because of this, I feel this is not catfishing and is incredibly different than people who 'role play' a different gender. My interactions with anyone in SL, whether a romantic interest or friend, are much more genuine and real than how I interact with most people in RL because everyone in SL knows me as Tiffany... not the person I was born as."

Read it all here. Also read: "Second Life's Strength Is Its Power To Transform Identity -- And The "Weirdos" Who Embrace It".

Cajsa's SL Flickr Pick: Hitsu Ruby’s Gloriously Detailed Outdoors Photos

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

Hitsu Ruby’s Second Life photos are a mix of decor and relationship photos. However, I am obsessed with her streets and sidewalk photos. Something about the clutter of bikes, signage, and leaf shadows that lead off into the light in the distance just makes me happy. It’s a nice touch that she adds the SLurl so you too can enjoy the sunny day and bikes.

Virtual Reality Pioneer: A Data Mining Crisis is Coming For Our Industry -- We Need Privacy Protections from Oculus, Vive & Others Now Before It's Too Late

Vice has an in-depth and incredibly important essay by Avi Bar-Zeev, one of VR's leading pioneers -- a co-inventor of Microsoft HoloLens, and over the last couple decades, a lead developer of VR/virtual world projects at Apple, Amazon, MS/HoloLens, Linden Lab, Google Earth, and Disney. And as Bar-Zeev carefully explains, the consumer launch of virtual reality has opened up a Pandora's Box in which companies like Oculus and Vive will soon gain access, through eye tracking and other data mining, and incredible amount of knowledge of its users -- and consequently, unprecedented power to influence or even manipulate them. And at some point, VR companies are almost certain to abuse this power. As he explains:

Eventually, without corrective forces, [VR] companies will make decisions that lower their own [user privacy] safeguards. It’s the business model, not the ethics of employees, that matters most...

In The Matrix, fictional AIs would occasionally alter the virtual world to further their oppressive goals. But even the Agents didn’t use the more sophisticated techniques we’re discussing here. In real life, people won’t be used as batteries. We’ll more likely be plugged in as abstract computational nodes, our attention and product-buying decisions channeling the flow of trillions of dollars of commerce; our free will up for grabs to the most ‘persuasive’ bidders.

The potential to use VR-based data mining against its own users is very well known within the industry, but is rarely brought up by the tech/VR press, let alone by VR consumers -- even though, just a mere three years ago, Oculus owner Facebook enabled a data mining scandal which quite literally helped changed the direction of world history.

"My best guess is that the tech press figures people aren’t interested, so they don’t write about it, which minimizes interest," Bar-Zeev tells me. "Also, VR enthusiasts have to endure a lot of pain to get an early 'fix' today, so maybe they’re a lot less picky about what form it takes. Maybe they assume that any exploitation of their data is not yet happening."

However, he adds: "These would all be rationalizations, in my opinion, because unrepentant data collected today can be used against them later. The easiest time to fix this is now. But people don’t see the crisis yet."

To start addressing this crisis, here's a question that Avi Bar-Zeev recommends that the press and consumers starting asking VR manufacturers now:

Survey Results: SLers Overwhelmingly Reject New Land Discounts & Premium Offer - But Enough Like It To Be Worthwhile

Here's the New World Notes reader survey results for Linden Lab's just announced new region prices (slightly cheaper) and Premium subscription offer (slightly more per month, but for more benefits, including expanded group memberships). With about 250 readers responding  -- a much larger sample than average! -- a strong majority (73%) are not any more interested in paying for an SL region.

Then again, that doesn't mean the discount announcement is a waste of Linden's time, because 11% are now much more interested in paying for a sim. Scale that 11% up to SL's active user base of some 500,000 users, and that'd be 55,000 new sim owners -- i.e. over $150 million in extra yearly revenue. (Or more likely, assume 1 in 10 of that 11% actually do get a sim -- that would still be $15 million+ a year.)

The survey results on the new Premium offer are just as stark -- and potentially promising:

Cajsa’s Second Life Creator Flickr Pick of the Day: “@tomic Viper”

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

I admire people who use their photography to explore their obsessions and experiment. “@tomic Viper” is certainly one of those. His photostream is filled with superheroes and exploration of digital art processes. This picture “Shadow” is relatively simple, a black and white soldier in the rain. I appreciated the facial expression that captures the perseverance of a soldier at rest in the rain. Just taking it as long as need be.

Watch: Daily Show Features VR-Based Baptism, Hilariously Misses the Point

The Daily Show's Ronny Chieng featured virtual reality-based baptisms in a recent segment, hilariously noting the strangeness of AltspaceVR avatars ("God created man in his own image, not in the image of a purple dildo!"), while just as hilariously missing the actual point* by asking, "Does a virtual baptism even count?" As it happens, I just asked that very question to Bishop DJ Soto of VR Church, who's featured in the Daily Show segment, and who had a very substantial answer:

"First and foremost, we believe the sacraments of baptism and communion to be symbolic. They are an external expression of an internal experience," as DJ puts it. "We don’t ascribe to the literal transformation of the bread into the body of Christ. We don’t believe that baptism literally washes away guilt and sin. We believe these sacraments are symbolic. Therefore, in the spirit of this symbolism, VR Church celebrates VR sacraments."

Still, Bishop Soto tells me he took the Daily Show segment in, well, good faith:

Cajsa’s Flickr Pick: Artistic Screen Captures from Shadow of the Colossus

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

LaMaLaWa’s photostream is full of great photos. I love the drama of this picture, “Shadow of the Colossus” from the game of the same name. It is shot from below. Low-angle shots typically make the subject seem powerful and strong. It sure works in this picture. Parts of the horse, the rider, and the eagle have been cropped off the picture, suggesting urgency and movement. It’s all very kinetic and powerful.

Good Virtual Communities Need Good Moderators (Comment of the Week)

"Goodbye Chouchou" by Loverdag

News that Chouchou plans to leave Second Life due to rampant user-to-user harassment that the owners were unable to curb provoked this blithe, "shit happens" comment from a reader:

There's no such thing as an interactive space open to the public where someone will not be offended by something. Some people are simply unpleasant and others are simply impossible to please. The only way to change this is to change human nature itself, and if you start actively trying to figure out how to do that: you are part of the problem.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of thin skinned people out there.

Han Held's reply to that is worth considering -- not just for Second Life or virtual worlds in general, but pretty much any virtual community:

There's a lot to unpack here, most of it wrong.

1) In the real world, if you "troll" in a club or an art gallery, you will be escorted out. It's the same for most forums; any forum worth spending time on is moderated.

2) Some people are simply unpleasant and others are simply impossible to please.

The first group can -and should- be shown the door, and there's a world of difference between 'impossible to please' versus 'wanting polite, adult behavior in the space we pay $300/USD a month in'.

Frankly, someone paying as much as $300/month deserves 24/7, on-call armed response security from the company. (Premium real world home security systems charge less -- $100/month!)

In any case, Han Held is just getting started: