Travel to other virtual worlds and look cool doing it. Cool as in wear your skin, shape and clothes. How is ths done? Answer: Dynamic Hypergrid Links or just Dynamic Links. Dynamic Links? What the heck is a dynamic link? In this case the Open Sim crowd means links between virtual worlds. The idea is a Second Life resident (player) can open the world map and select other worlds, not just regions.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIikPdQBsoI]

Another video about it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=902N3_ON8zw

Notice what the AV is wearing in the video as she jumps from grid to grid… was that movie magic or did the clothes really follow along? I don’t know… yet. In protype grids it appears possible now. But being able to do that for real is on its way for Open Sim.

Zonja Capalini writes about it here in more detail: Dynamic Hypergrid Links

She updates the news and writes about other aspects of the Hypergrid here: Prototyping the next generation Hypergrid

This means I could put up a region on my home computer using Open Sim… er… could? I did. I have a play world that is certainly nothing to brag about. But it is mine. I know how to put it online but getting people to it right now is a PITA for them and me. Dynamic Links would make it easy for us both.

IBM and LL are working together to make it possible for AV’s to travel from virtual world to virtual world. Their idea is your AV can wear its hair, clothes, skin and shape in any world. Including thing you bought not jus things you made. The getting from one to another has basically happened. The clothes and hair thing, not so much. Torley fun video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v45EOma7wDo

IBM and LL are concerned about how to protect private property so that it is not stolen and taken to other worlds and resold. Others of us are more interested in how to get the stuff we built or bought into our other worlds without rebuilding it or buyingit again. The Meerkat viewer now allows us to do that. This is a big step in making Open Sim a more desirable choice for many. We can build once and use often in many worlds.

Now there is the problem of pirates and content thieves. Read the second article at Zonja’s to understand the problem. It’s a geeky thing but it is written in simple English and I think anyone will get the idea. Basically, right now be careful where you travel and when you access your inventory when in other grids. Your stuff can be stolen. A pirate can modify a sim and steal all your stuff or a griefer can delete your entire inventory.

There is an easy solution. Well easy for us. Zonja describes the new Grider Filter. A filter sets between your viewer and the grid or game servers. It intercepts requests for inventory services and makes sure the local sim does handle the request. It sends the request to your sim and your server handles your request keeping you safe. All this is in Alpha testing. But, it is coming. Soon I hope.