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Archives for December 2007

Latest guide to Australian locations in Second Life released

December 11, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Simon Kline has updated his excellent list of Australian presences in Second Life. I was surprised as to how many new areas have popped up and in coming weeks we’ll tour some of them for you.

Here’s the info Simon has supplied:

“This is a guide to Australian Locations in SL. If you have an Australian location in SL please IM Simon Kline to get it added to this list 😀

I sometimes get my IM’s capped so if i don’t respond keep pestering me till I do because i probably didn’t get your msg! Likewise if you gave me a LM and it’s not here it maybe because the list didn’t save properly when i added you, send me the LM again 🙂

If you didn’t get this from a notecard giver and want to be added to the handout list to receive updates automatically visit my store and touch the notecard giver. (currently 120 subscribers woot!)

If you own one of the places listed here pls check the information presented and let me know of any errors! Also let me know of any additions i can add!

Also i’m distributing these via notecard givers, if you wish to have a notecard giver at your place to help distribute this list and promote Australia in sl let me know. I now also have the bare scripts available so you may create your own notecard givers and just put the scripts in!

Please share this around with anyone you think may like it, even newbies find it handy to have a list of places to explore!

Thanks and Enjoy!,

Simon Kline 😀 ”

Filed Under: Australian News, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: ,

Anglicans in Second Life

December 11, 2007 by 1 Comment

The Revd Mark Brown is a New Zealander leading an Anglican Ministry in Second Life and says its has grown to five church services per week with a congregation of over 300.

The group have their own blog and a range of service times including an Australian friendly one – 6pm Sunday evenings AEDT (11pm Saturday SL time).

Check it out in-world.

Filed Under: Australian News, Religion, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: ,

ABC Sandbox Xmas party this Thursday

December 10, 2007 by 5 Comments

ABC Island Sandbox is the venue for a Christmas shindig this Thursday night at 1am SL time (8pm AEDT).

abcsandboxxmas.jpg

Hope to see you there.

Filed Under: Australian News, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: ,

Religion in Second Life – overview

December 10, 2007 by Leave a Comment

The Second Life Herald have started an overview of religion in Second Life, starting out with Christianity.

We covered Chebi Mosque earlier in the year and the thing that struck me was the attention to detail with the architecture and the desire to create a place of reflection. It’s something all religions have in common that is accentuated in the virtual world context.

Filed Under: Religion, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: ,

Deloitte and Westpac explore Second Life

December 9, 2007 by Leave a Comment

A story last week in The Australian’s IT section mentions that both Deloitte and Westpac have made some initial forays into Second Life. Both appear to be adopting a model of using it for internal purposes like meetings, something that business is increasingly latching onto.

Both companies have enormous numbers of staff – Westpac has 27 thousand and Deloitte has 4 thousand in Australia (135 thousand worldwide). Those are the sort of numbers that make virtual worlds a very attractive proposition from a cost-saving viewpoint, let alone the innovation potential.

Thanks to Ross Dawson for the heads-up.

Filed Under: Australian News, Business, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: , ,

VastPark creator – a glimpse

December 8, 2007 by Leave a Comment

I haven’t heard a lot from the VastPark team recently but I did notice this video from them:

Pretty impressive stuff from a platform in beta. Have you applied for the closed beta? If so, we’d love to hear about your experiences.

Filed Under: Alternatives, Australian News, Virtual Worlds Tagged With:

Legality of virtual stock exchanges – ASIC makes a call

December 7, 2007 by 1 Comment

Massively’s Tateru Nino has written about the legality of virtual stock exchanges, including Second Life’s World Stock Exchange run by Australian Luke Connell.

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ASIC is Australia’s financial market watchdog and their view on virtual stock exchanges is that they don’t fall under their purview – but that Fair Trading entities may scrutinise any claims of such markets being touted as only a game. As Tateru states in her piece, “There’s no real difference, of course, in a bank or stock exchange that deals over the Web, over the telephone or in a virtual world”. It’s hard to see the logic in the opposing viewpoint, however it appears that some virtual exchanges have a vested interest in claiming it’s all a game. It’s increasingly appearing that such a claim isn’t even a defence from a legal viewpoint.

Filed Under: Australian News, Business, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: , ,

Linden Lab commence survey on voice in Second Life

December 7, 2007 by 2 Comments

Linden Lab have announced their latest survey is devoted to Second Life residents’ experience with using voice. Get your voice heard by completing the survey.

We also have a voice forum if you’re passionate about the issue.

Update (January 2008) – a further survey is being undertaken on preferred voice features into the future.

Filed Under: General News, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: ,

Time to take out the intellectual trash?

December 6, 2007 by 4 Comments

Malcolm King is a former media adviser to the ALP and Australian Democrats. He’s written a piece on virtual worlds and it’s fair to say he’s scathing of their potential.

Once you wade through the hyperbole King himself engages in while condemning the excesses of virtual worlds, there are some valid points made. However, one point that seems totally over the top is the claim that virtual worlds are “not the place for serious dialogue”. I doubt Mr King has ever had any involvement with some of the health and education projects in Second Life if he believes that. The fact he called Linden Lab ‘Linden Corp’ tells me direct familiarity with Second Life is limited at best.

Filed Under: Education, Virtual Worlds, Virtual worlds in the media Tagged With: ,

Second Life age verification – beta is live

December 6, 2007 by 6 Comments

After many months of development, Linden Lab have announced the beta version of their age verification system. Tateru Nino has a great summary of what it does and doesn’t do. Suffice it to say, it’s not compulsory unless you want to be able to access restricted areas in Second Life.

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To test the system I contacted two SL residents I know who are casual users and asked them if they’d mind verifying their age for the system. One resident provided their actual name, address and NSW Driver’s Licence with a fake date of birth – they were verified successfully. The second person also provided actual name and address but used a fake Driver’s Licence and fake date of birth. They too were successfully verified.

You do check a box stating you’ve provided correct information so I imagine there’s some protection in the system for Linden Lab if false information has been provided. However, if Linden Lab started to claim that it was a fairly robust security measure, I’d be quite concerned. For the record, my age verification was flawless using a Driver’s Licence – so the company running the service obviously has some Australian information on its servers….

Update: A further missive from Linden Lab admitting to high rates of failures for international users.

Update 2: Another clarification on the process by which the verification occurs – I’m still fascinated how the third-party system has so much information about individuals in the first place.

Filed Under: General News, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: , ,

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