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Archives for April 2007

Teens protesting – unification with main grid an option?

April 17, 2007 by 2 Comments

Some activists on the teen grid are protesting at the lack of access to PG areas on the main grid. On the 6th of May a march has been organised to raise awareness on the issue.

Like any proposal to increase interaction between children / teens and adults, there are some significant benefits and downsides. The first problem that occurred to me with such a proposal is the potential grooming or related scenarios that could occur. It’s an extreme example to use but like any online medium it is a risk. Any integration would need to involve a heightened level of monitoring of interactions without destroying the spontaneity of Second Life. That said, young people should have access to the superb educational resources on the main grid and should feel safe in the process. Achieving the latter without the former is a big ask indeed.

Is integration achievable? We’d like to know your thoughts.

Acknowledgement – the idea for this story came from an article run by SL Insider

Filed Under: General News, Virtual Worlds

101 resources for freelancers

April 16, 2007 by Leave a Comment

I can’t recommend this list highly enough – I found three things that will change the way I work. Enjoy.

Filed Under: Who knows...

JJ’s Coffee Bar – Music Streaming Evolution

April 16, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Remember Happy Days, the iconic American program of last millennium?

It started off with a shot of a jukebox playing a record of the program’s signature tune. Throughout the past 100 years or so the idea of people listening to, talking about and enjoying music has been a mainstay of modern culture.

One of the issues confronting SL is the provision of content and it may be through the medium of music that the content void may be filled in these early innovative and developmental days.

Take, for instance, JJ’s Coffee Bar.

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JJ’s currently streams music from the UK, The USA and Australia.

The owner, Jeremy Jorda, has chosen to use Triple J as his Australian choice of provider. And, whilst there may be some question of copyright issues there can be little doubt that music, and radio programs in general, are an easily executed content source for areas in SL.

The question may not be whether the radio stations listed at JJ’s Coffee bar have an issue with such online provision of content, but whether they can afford not to be part of the developing medium. After all, many radio stations already embrace apps like MP3 streaming through iTunes radio or Real Player, and Windows Media Player. Venues such as JJ’s Coffee Bar are the obvious next step in that evolution.

Filed Under: Music

Speed building in Second Life

April 15, 2007 by 2 Comments

If you’ve ever wanted to see a large build in a short amount of time, then watch this.

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SL resident and Urban Planning student Lordfly Digeridoo tracked his own progress over a week timespan building a 6000-prim replication of a real-life area. I hope he got the marks he deserved. What the video accentuates as well is some of the shortfalls of SL’s building tools – there’s a lot of avoidable and repetitive work in a large build.

Filed Under: For the new user, General News, Virtual Worlds

SBS TV looks at virtual worlds

April 14, 2007 by 2 Comments

This coming Tuesday at 8.30pm, SBS TV are screening New Cyberspace Worlds as part of their Future Focus series:

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It’s unclear at this stage whether the show is a local production or an imported product.

Update: the show was a Europena production that covered SL, WoW and Entropia Universe, all in quite some depth.

Filed Under: Australian News, Virtual Worlds

New viewer update next week

April 14, 2007 by Leave a Comment

As per the offical Linden blog, there’ll be six hours downtime for the upgrade of the grid – with viewer update required. The details of the new features / improvements can be found here.

The most exciting addition for a lot of users will be the embedding of the LSL Wiki into the browser.

Filed Under: General News, Virtual Worlds

Profile: Bella Dutton

April 14, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Bella Dutton is an Aussie SL resident who has a very busy second life split between her involvement with QT Labs and her own clothing line, BDD (Bella Dutton Designs). Add to this Bella’s role as a member of the production crew for the band Space Junkies and a raft of other building and shop projects and Bella has filled the nine months of her residency in SL to the brim.

After opening up a shop called “Red Earth” within her first few weeks in SL, Bella is now at the point where she is running a team of designers for her current shop BDD whilst acting as part of the QT Labs group as an Advanced Virtual Integration Expert.

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I caught up with Bella the other night and asked her where she was at with her Second Life and involvement in QT Labs.

Bella Dutton: We believe that at QT Labs we provide a virtual integration of creation, nurturing, building and subsequent maitenence/upgrades of virtual communities. We understand the philosophy, design requirements and intended use and schedule for occupancy so we provide the skills to integrate any organisation or collaborate into SL enviroment/community.

Graham: And you personally – where do you see yourself in say 6 to 12 months in SL? Apart from the AVIE and QT involvement, the shop is your personal enterprise isn’t it?

Bella Dutton: It is, l work with a team of designers and work as a mentor too for newbies.

Graham: I have noticed that SL is a sharing community. Do you think that aspect is a vital one?

Bella Dutton: It does have that sharing community, that is very true as when you think with us all here we are creatures of nature, we all need to feel part of a group or team.

Filed Under: Profile, Virtual Worlds

VastPark

April 12, 2007 by 4 Comments

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VastPark is essentially a 3D-interactive workspace for game developers, business or anyone wanting to create 3D content. It’s a business fronted by Australian, CEO Bruce Joy.

Using the VastPark site builder you drag in a 3D model from your modelling application and go from there. There’s a good overview provided on how VastPark works here, and the first thing that occurred to me after watching it was the ease of the relationship between offline modelling and the actual creation of the 3D experience.

Is VastPark an obvious takeover target for Linden Lab?

Filed Under: Alternatives, Profile, Virtual Worlds

Fishace – in-world environmental education

April 11, 2007 by 6 Comments

On a modest plot in Epsilon Orionis, Fishace Pye has set up a backyard waste management system to demonstrate the real-life benefits. Fishace sums up the purpose of his plot:

“Fishace Ecological Engineering is an Australian consultancy specialising in the design of zero waste systems. With climate changes ahead we need to do things in different ways. This system shows how you can treat your waste and get value back from recycling nutrients. The microalgae photobioreactor has just hit the news as one way to soak up CO2 from smoke stacks and then recover biofuels from the algal feedstock. The educational exhibition outlines future nutrient mining technology.

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Check it out in-world or go to fishace.com.au.

Filed Under: Education, Profile, Virtual Worlds

Making real music in real time

April 10, 2007 by Leave a Comment

I was pointed to a fascinating blog post – a Tokyo-based artist, Lance Shields is the real-life alter ego of both Andres Watanabe and Juria Yoshikawa. He’s developed Sound Station 1.0 – there’s a streaming video on his site.

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If you watch the video, the Sound Station has obvious uses for musicians or other performance artists in-world. We’ve dropped Andres a line to find out more, watch this space. Anything that takes virtual music performance beyond streaming is a big step forward.

Filed Under: General News, General Tech, Music, Virtual Worlds

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