New World Notes

Midjourney Solely Credited as Article Illustrator in Major News Publication

The sharp eyes of New World Notes' image curator Cajsa Lilliehook caught what looks to be a pretty major breakthrough (or first step toward disaster, depending on your point of view): The Bulwark, a major US news analysis publication, is using Midjourney to create illustrations for their articles -- and crediting Midjourney as the image source. (As opposed to, say, an actual human illustrator.) From a cursory search, this seems to be the first example of Midjourney used for a non-tech, non-grassroots illustration by a professional publication that would normally pay a graphic artist and/or image bank like GettyImages or Shutterstock for work like this. 

So this is notable! Also notable: It's not very good. Meant to illustrate Trump's questionable legal defense fund, the image doesn't convey any of that context at all, and actually looks more like a pro-Trump graphic. (Except, that is, the "Save America" slogan is washed out by the background -- a sloppy look, whatever your political perspective.) In other words, a human illustrator would have done a much better job.

But then again, hiring a human is a lot more costly.

Linden Lab Buys User-Made Commerce System Too Valuable to the Second Life Community To Fail

Here's the latest lesson for metaverse platforms:

• If you give your user base incredibly powerful content creation and scripting systems, some of them will create in-world products and services that become so popular with the user community, they'll effectively become integral to the virtual world.* 
• That also means if these user creators were to suddenly quit (boredom, business, sudden death, etc), the entire virtual world economy will feel the shockwaves.
• So, congrats: Your user-made product or service is now an official part of the platform. Get out your checkbook.

Latest example just announced today: Linden Lab acquired Casper Tech, creator of various virtual world commerce services (rental systems, vendors, etc.), run by a mostly-anonymous Second Life user known by his avatar "Casper Warden". (Interview below.)

"My feeling is that this is a risk reduction move," longtime SLer Da5id Kronfeld observes. "So many people rely on Casper that the service suddenly vanishing represents a significant risk to the SL economy."

Variations of this have happened to Second Life before, with (for example) the L$ open exchange system and the SL Marketplace ecommerce website originally starting as user-made platforms.

"I suppose it shows they're still keen to keep Second Life going as a project if they're investing money in some aspects of it," Sler Natalie observes. (Then again, it's probably more cost effective to buy CasperTech rather than hiring 2-3 Linden Lab engineers to recreate its functionality.) Echoing other veterans, she suspects Linden Lab will adding extra costs to use CasperTech's tech: "I can see Caspervend being a subscription thing, maybe bundled into a Creators tier which would be Premium Plus AND Caspervend etc."

All that to one side, it seems like a necessary move (and much congrats to Casper). That said, it does feel like another duct tape fix on top another duct tape fix, with the Second Life platform kept online by successive layers of short-term hacks, since it would be too costly to do what's really necessary: Overhaul the entire thing.

On that front, very longtime Second Life user Allegory Malaprop has an excellent and salty rant:

London in Second Life Flooded With Mourners & Well-Wishers At News of Queen Elizabeth's Death; UPDATE: Added SLImage Tributes

As news of Queen Elizabeth's death spreads across the globe, mourners in the virtual world of Second Life have been converging into London City, a sprawling island devoted to the UK's capital. I have tried over the last hour to take photos of the impromptu memorial, but as avatars keep teleporting into London, the surroundings continue to be a blurry as actual London in the worst fog imaginable.

You can see them in the screenshot here, green dots indicating users from around the world, piling into the town square, where the British flag has been lowered to half-mast, and the audio stream has been changed from the usual Britpop music to somber songs played on piano and pan flute.

"May she be in God's arms half hour before the devil knows she's gone," announces a mourner in chat.

"There is music on the stream now," says someone who helps manage London. "I hope it is fitting. I'm raising a glass to Her Majesty The Queen!"

As is often the case, the serendipitous mourning is basically SLers gathering and chatting together in the wake of monumental offline news at a virtual world location with some mirror relationship to that news. (See also: Mourners outside the virtual recreation of the Eiffel Tower, after a terrorist attack in Paris.) 

And as also befits Second Life, the arriving mourners include Superman in a Batman helmet, a sentient dog, and a humanoid fox (not to be confused), along with various supermodels. Many or most are from the UK, but mourners and well-wishers from outside Britain are arriving too:

Linden Lab Unveils Puppetry Project to Animate Avatars With Webcams & Mocap Equipment in Real Time

Impressive unveiling by Linden Lab just now -- real time puppetry for Second Life avatars:

We have been working on this feature for some time and now we are ready to open it up to the Second Life community for further development and to find out what amazing things our creators will do with this new technology... The codebase is alpha level and does contain its share of rough edges that need refinement, however the project is functionally complete and it is possible for the scriptors and creators of Second Life to start to try it out.

This is not just a lightweight "wave into your webcam and your avatar waves too" technology (which has existed for many years) but is meant to integrate much more devices -- and the whole avatar: