New World Notes

SLCC 2011 Registration Now Open - This Year in Affordable Oakland; Here's Some Local Travel Tips

Registration for the annual Second Life Community Convention is now open, and this year, it's happening mid-August in Oakland. That's good news for the many who've complained when previous SLCCs were set in much pricier San Francisco (or for that matter, Boston, Chicago, and New York.) Hotels in Oakland are about $50-75 per night cheaper than San Francisco, but SF is still a 15 minute BART ride away. (And Linden Lab is right near the first San Francisco stop, Embarcadero.) Some travel tips from a local:

• Oakland Airport is an unqualified pain the ass - it's quite far from the actual downtown area, has less routes, and public transportation to the SLCC area is seriously inconvenient. (You have to drag your bags onto a shuttle bus, pay $3, and then again drag your bags into the BART station.) SFO has way more routes, and the BART station is actually connected to the airport.
• Arizmendi Bakery (a short cab ride from the hotel) has the best California-style pizza in the state, and quite arguably makes the best pizza in the world. (Yes, New Yorkers, I went there.)
• Unfortunately, Oakland has many areas with quite a lot of crime. You should be fine near the hotel/downtown area and traveling via cabs, but I wouldn't recommend randomly wandering too far away, especially solo and at night.

Hope to see you there (if I go)!

SLCC 09 Notes and Pics Around The Web

Update, 4:00pm: Here's Philip Linden talking about Lainy Voom's "Stolen Child", "tremendous change" coming to Second Life, and asking the community to "try to work with us as much as you can". Many more SLCC video clips on YouTube here.

Before we get back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming, here's just a few more glimpses of SLCC 09 from other Residents:

• Dusan Writer has a thorough report on both the speeches of Philip and M. Linden here. The slides from M's talk (with some interesting user/performance data) are available here.
• Orlando7 DeCosta of Mixed Realities has a good post on T. Linden's stirring roadmap presentation.
• Writing for the San Francisco Examiner, Apollo Manga has meaty day-by-day reports: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4.
• Fellow SLCC panelist ArminasX Saiman took some great SLCC shots for his Flickr stream, many starring Eshi Otawara and her fabulous stiletto shoes.
• Crap Mariner also has a nice photographic collection; I particularly love the SL musicians gathered in Union Square for an impromptu jam session.

Got more links? Post them in Comments!

Keiko Finally Rocks SLCC (As She Was Destined To Do)

Though the musical career of Keiko Takamura has been shaped quite a bit by Second Life over the last several years (as NWN posts here and here will attest, not to mention this MTV documentary), this is actually the first year she's performed at SLCC. In that time, with the encouragement of seasoned pro performers like Cylindrian Rutabaga (who put together SLCC's musician's ball), Keiko's come into her own, now fronting The Shebangs, a solid pop punk band with great hooks. Since The Shebangs' set streamed into SL on the Molaskey's Pub stage, Keiko insisted her non-SL bandmates get avatars of their own, to accompany her there as well. (If you'll notice, they're wearing noob-style T-shirts.) Overcome by the sheer kickass of the proceedings, the cameraman found himself joining Ms. Takamura for some impromptu, mid-guitar solo dancing and thrashing. Because after all, how many times do you get a chance to dance with Keiko in the real world?

Artists, Educators, Astrophysicist (Some Folks I Met At SLCC)

How diverse across several spectrum is attendance at the Second Life Community Convention? Here's a few folks I met there, a random sample who happened to pass by my book signing table or greet by chance in a hall. From left to right by avatar name:

• Ina Centaur is a metaverse artist, renowned for her extraordinarily detailed, live action stagings of Shakespeare in Second Life, among other projects.
• Pema Pera is a Princeton astrophysicist who simulates Newtonian mechanics in OpenSim/SL (as featured on NWN here) and helps run an interdisciplinary salon in Second Life.
• Mariis Mills is a Ph.D. Candidate based in Denmark, studying the efficacy of the 3D immersive medium as an education tool. (Photo by ArminasX Saiman.)

Just a small sampling, as I say. Whose acquaintance did you make there?

Open Forum: What Were Your Favorite SLCC 09 Moments?

I've written a bunch of posts on SLCC and have several more to write, with so many surprising, innovative, and exciting stories to tell. And that's just gleaned from my limited panel attendance, and from the folks I met while signing my book. I'm sure there's much more I missed. What were your own personal highlights? Please post those in Comments, and include links to blogs, videos, and other medium where available, and I'll try to highlight as many as I can.

Also, this is a good time offer props supreme to the main folks who made SLCC '09 possible: Nexeus Fatale, Crucial Armitage, Rhiannon Chatnoir, Misty Rhodes, and Lilly Eliska. As anyone who's ever been involved with convention planning knows, pulling them off is a logistical and emotional nightmare, and it takes a brave and dedicated team to make that happen.

Import 3D Mesh Objects Into Second Life (Someday)

Hulk like full articulation in metaverse. What you're looking at above is a Second Life statue built on a mesh, created from industry standard 3D modeling software. It was perhaps the most "Oooooh!"-worthy portion of Tom Hale/T. Linden's roadmap presentation yesterday, a feature Hale says is under development by a Linden staffer, and is coming to Second Life at some point.

Hale showed video of the mesh-based object responding to a dynamic lighting system which also seems to be a step or two above the existing version that's now in unsupported Beta. (Objects responded not just to the sun and moon, but the reflected illumination from the marble stone the Hulk was standing on.) Both are much-desired features by content creators, especially those who want to make use of existing assets made in Maya and other industry standard building tools. However, Hale made no promises on when they'd be available, so for now at least, this is just a tantalizing glimpse of what's to come.

The New Second Life: Lindens Announce Dramatically Improved Viewer and Website for 2009; Interactive, Dynamic Web Media in SL by 2010

Saving the best for last at SLCC, Chief Product Officer T. Linden just announced a dramatic user experience roadmap this morning, which even managed to excite the hundred or so groggy/hungover attendees able to make it. Slated to hit this year is a new SL viewer with a much more streamlined, intuitive layout that shifts the menus to the edge, as to unclutter the display.

Also coming soon ("Over the course of next year") are interactive web media files displayable in SL -- i.e., collaboratively work on a Google Doc with other avatars, click and control Flash-based applications like YouTube in SL. (A camera lock function is incorporated with this feature, to optimize the display.) A media API/plug-in is also coming.

Also coming by the end of this quarter is a vastly improved Second Life website with a keyword searchable map, and an improved xStreetSl. About Second Life the world and the site, T. Linden acknowledged, "We have a lot to do to make it a first class destination." These additions, however, are decisive moves in that direction.

Keiko Prepares to Rock SLCC

SL music star Keiko Takamura prepares to rock SLCC with her band, The Shebangs, topping off a FIVE HOUR ball of live music (mostly folk) with a blast of kicking pop punk. Video to follow soon.

What Will Take Live Second Live Music to the Next Level?

Led by Colussus Linden (with headphones ) in San Francisco and musician Grace McDunnough in Second Life, a meeting on improving live music in SL. Grace suggests a web-based "preview" video clip of an ongoing live show that'll take you to the SL show in a single click, and pushes Colossus on whether musicians can sell MP3s on xStreetsl, who punts on that point. Paisley Beebe wonders when the log-In screen will promote live music events - "80% of people in SL don't know there's live music in here!" Question is, what's the best way to far better connect the audience to the performers?

Philip Linden Predicts Revolutionary Change, Asks Residents For Support

I just caught the tail end of Philip Linden's kenote to hear him praising Lainy Voom's "Stolen Child" machinima as a phenomenal example of SL content, and proof that revolutionary changes are coming. This is the source of the resistance and contempt that non-SLers have for Second Life, he suggested, for if the real life elite feel comfortable with their first lives, they will also feel angry and intimidated by the sense that SL is becoming important in their world too. To continue this revolution will require changes to Second Life, some of which established Residents and even Lindens will not like. But Philip asks the community to bear with and be supportive of these changes, to complete this transformation.