Update: 2010-10-06 – Added link to SL Wiki and Mesh Costs
SL Meshes
Second Life Teen Grid
The teen grid closes at the end of this year. Today Terrence Linden posted in Welcoming Teen Grid Organizations to the Main Grid that 13 to 17 year olds will be allowed on the main grid. Previously they planned to allow 16 to 17 year olds on the main grid. The change today is the Lab will allow 13 to 15 year olds into regions owned by approved organizations. Current teen organizations will continue to operate past the end of the year without interruption.
One would expect that ongoing talks with the education community have influenced the decision. Possibly the new speed in developing Second Life Software Releases has improved the possibilities. Possibly there is an income factor too. Whatever, new land management tools will allow land owners to control access to teen areas. The 13 to 15 age group will have restricted access. They will have to be affiliated with a teen organization. Their access will be restricted to the regions affiliated with the organization.
The 16 to 17 year olds will be restricted to regions rated General Maturity.
Access by adults to teen areas will be restricted too. But, organizations can have instructors and various members that are part of the larger SL population approved for access to their teen areas. Educational materials used in other parts of SL can be brought into the teen areas. These changes will be big improvements over the previous situation.
Teens will not be allowed to make purchases from the SL Market, or search the SL grid.
See: Second Life Teen Second Life Transition FAQ
Mesh Open Beta Begins on October 13th
Jack Linden made an announcement about Mesh Open Beta today about meshes going into Open Beta 2010-10-13. Yeah! I am looking forward to that.
The previous announcement about meshes came on 9/14. They said in two weeks they would tell us more. They made that time line.
Wiki documentation on meshes is coming as is a mesh-enabled viewer. A ‘Mesh Project Viewer’ will be added to the download page 10/13. This viewer will only connect to the Preview Grid (ADITI – which is a Sanskrit word meaning limitless, boundless, free). You will have L$5k each month to work with. Unfortunately the left over does not transfer to the main grid. 🙁 So, you will have funds to upload lots of meshes. The Lab would like lots of testers.
More information is coming out on the cost of meshes, upload and prim equivalency on tier. See: Second Life Wiki > Mesh costs.