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Archives for 2007

The scenery just got prettier

May 23, 2007 by 6 Comments

Yesterday’s Linden Blog posting heralded a major step forward in the visual strength of the SL platform – Linden’s acquisition of the Windlight graphics technology from Windward Mark Interactive.

As Linden Labs say themselves, the short story on the technology is “killer skies”. The initial shots supplied certainly live up to that description:

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(Photo part of set created by Torley Linden – access the full set here)

The Windlight-enabled viewer is available “now” for PC users – though I can’t find the specific download link. No firm date on the Mac release as yet.

What’s not clear for Australian users of SL is the impact on bandwidth and whether lag will increase further. However, announcements like this do flag the oncoming wave of enhancements resulting from open sourcing SL. And here’s a YouTube video provided by Linden Labs to showcase Windlight:

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

ABC Island Update

May 22, 2007 by Leave a Comment

As anyone who’s visited ABC Island this afternoon will know, things are back to normal. Rollback is one of the strengths of the platform and it was demonstrated today. At the AIMIA seminar this evening on The Future of Virtual Worlds (wrap-up of the event will be published tomorrow), Abi Goldflake recounted how the community response to the issue had been a vivid demonstration of the Australian SL community working together and that the cause of the issue was yet to be established.

It was also a demonstration of how Australian SL users value the Australian community areas that are available.

Update 1: Abi Goldflake has posted a message to the ABC Friend Group on the events of yesterday:

“Hi everyone, just to recap for those who didn’t hear – the island has been rolled back after being griefed and everything is back to normal. We’re working with Linden Labs to try and find out how this happened so we can prevent it in future. Thank you so much to all of you who helped us detect this and then deal with it – the loyalty of the community has been fantastic to see. I’m thinking we might have a small memorial (!) in the sandbox with some pictures of the bomb site for those who didn’t see it.”

Update 2: The mainstream media has also covered the issue, led by the ABC themselves mid-afternoon yesterday, with ninemsn and Sydney Morning Herald following suit

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

ABC island hits a snag

May 22, 2007 by 15 Comments

ABC island today experienced a significant degradation overnight due to unknown causes. Veteran aussie resident Wolfie Rankin, who is one of the ABC island admins, was offered the whole ABC Sandbox as inventory, which obviously rang some alarm bells. The island looks a little different at present:

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We’ll keep in touch with the ABC’s Abi Goldflake to determine further details as they become available.

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

Why we all hate Telstra

May 22, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Mark Pesce does a great job of explaining why here

Filed Under: General rant

Smart Internet and business in SL

May 21, 2007 by 5 Comments

Smart Internet, a joint venture between a range of universities, State Governments and industry, has released a report called ‘Business in Second Life: An Introduction’. Authored by Swinburne University-based Senior Researcher Mandy Salomon, it provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of play in SL for Australian business.

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

Australia? There is at least one in SL.

May 20, 2007 by 3 Comments

Australia is an island continent, so it’s not surprising that someone would have an SL island of the same name. Tucked away and un-named in an SL search result is an interesting commercial venture that is simply called “Australia“. Whilst the island is not in the shape of Australia yet, its developer, Richard Tripp, has plans to terraform to the Australian shape in the near future.

Covering a handful of the best-known destinations for visitors this build has some important variations to other SL offerings of Australian icons.

Fancy a walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge or a stroll around Uluru? Though the Harbour Bridge isn’t in the same league as the Telstra BigPond offering, there is an undoubted attempt to offer an alternative experience to visitors.

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If the Harbour Bridge is less than expected the inside of the Sydney Opera House is certainly a different proposition. This build is a marriage of SL construction and RL photography to display 360º views from inside this icon of tourist destinations. It has a different aspect to that of the BigPond structure and gives visitors a closer understanding of the actual building’s impressive architectural attainments.

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The commercial nature of this venture can be seen in the Australia Harbour Centre. Opened only in the last 2 days it is a three level mall awaiting businesses to set up shop. The build skirts closely to the look of the RL Darling Harbour.

Without doubt the developers of this island are still in the construction stage. Their project’s shopping area and Australia-flavoured destinations certainly highlights the efforts people are making to fly the Aussie flag. It will be interesting to watch their progress over the coming year.

Filed Under: Australian News, Landmarks of note, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: , ,

Pontiac sims – heaven for the petrol-heads

May 19, 2007 by Leave a Comment

The Pontiac sims are a haven for everything motorised, as long as it has wheels. There’s a dirt raceway and a more traditional speedway plus a large range of motor-related vendors.

There’s plenty of vehicles to test drive (although most aren’t tall-friendly):

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The speedway:

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Two fellow residents at the speedway:

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Like a lot of scripted objects in Second Life, their performance can be a little unpredictable – or maybe it’s just my driving.

Check it out in-world

Filed Under: Landmarks of note, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: , ,

StarCraft 2 – The Latest News…

May 19, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Well, I wish I had the latest news but it’s all still very secretive. If you don’t know what Starcraft is, Simon Tsang from the SMH gives a good overview.

The Blizzard site currently has the following splash images:

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I loved StarCraft and played it for three or four years when it was released. My prediction for the title of its sequel:

StarCraft 2: Conquest Beyond Korea

Filed Under: Gaming News

Mainstream media and Lowell’s public appearance

May 18, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Crikey.com.au have covered Second Life twice this week, firstly in relation to crime, then a discussion on lawlessness and research and development issues.

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Similar issues are likely to be discussed at the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association forum on Tuesday 22nd May. Titled The Future of Virtual Worlds, it features Chris Collins (Logan Linden) from Linden Lab, Abigail Thomas (Abi Goldflake) from the ABC and yours truly as the moderator. Registration required on the AIMIA site.

Filed Under: Australian News, Business, TMJ in the News, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: ,

SL support systems take the next step

May 18, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Cyn Linden has announced the imminent launch of an improved support system for SL users. In the past few months there appeared to be a deterioration in support options for users including the closing of a number of sections on the SL community forums.

The new system is a tiered one – if you pay to use SL then your level of support increases. For premium users, support will predominantly be via the website however the inclusion of a support history is welcome to track responses to identified issues. If your land fees exceed $125 US per month you have access to live phone help on top of the other optiions.

I’d expect some backlash from free account holders on the new tiered structure and given the likelihood of most support requests coming from new users, Linden Labs have firmly directed those users to ‘read the manual’.

The full list of options are:

“Premium Accounts: Premium accounts that pay a membership fee monthly, quarterly or annually get further access. They can:
-Access the Knowledge Base and solution finder
-Submit a support ticket
-Have a live chat session with a support team member
-Have access to their own personalized support history page which tracks all ticket and correspondence, as well as live text chat session for later reference and to monitor progress

These services will initially be available through the Support Portal on the website.

Concierge Accounts: Concierge clients (US$125 per month or greater in Land fees, mainland or private estate) have access to the above services plus:
-Dedicated phone line currently with 17/5 coverage and moving to 24/7 shortly
-Live text chat and ticketing coverage with extended hours
-Monitoring of rollback requests17/7 with grid back up the hours we aren’t yet covering

You can access those services through the Support Portal on the website.

Filed Under: General News, Virtual Worlds

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