Second Life and Virtual Worlds
This DMCA thing is a law I absolutely hate. It turns the American concept of innocent until proven guilty on its head. This has made it a prime candidate for abuse and caters to large corporate interests and extortion.
We have a number of people covering the DCMA Notice given to WordPress to take down photos in a users blog, Mademoisl-Eve.com. You may be wondering why this is a big deal. I mean someone got a DMCA notice and took stuff down. So?
Massively Overpowered points to an article at Rock, Paper, Gun that mentions Second Life™. See: The Declining Magic Of MMOs.
The author, Richard Cobbett, is writing about the declining audience for MMO’s. He thinks that is due to a lack of magic. He makes a reasonable point and I can see his point at work in a number of places.
With the onetime best selling game Myst, the magic was the new level of imagery possible with the advent of CD delivered games. With World of Warcraft it was the magic of being the first MMO to interest a large audience or said another way: have LOTS of players.
Second Life is mentioned as never making it because of complexity, cost, and clunkiness. In other words too hard to learn. Minecraft overcame those problems and became a larger success.
I suppose if this idea of magic is true, the next big success will be virtual worlds that support virtual reality and do a good job of it. That places Project SANSAR in a good position. I think it is a matter of whether or not Linden Lab can remedy the complexity. I am pretty sure cost and clunkiness will get handled. But, the Lab is likely to have to decide if they are going to build a Minecraft easy thing for kids or a more adult and complex world for advanced hobbyists and professional 3D modeling types. Can they come up with a way for type to use SANSAR aka SL 2.0.
Second Life has been banned from Twitch, surely you have heard. Motherboard, a tech reporting blog, has an article about that banning that features comments from Wagner James Au (Hamlet Au) of New World Notes. See: Second Life Is Banned From Twitch Because Cocks Can Happen at Any Moment.
The article is accurate enough based on what I know and can find. But, that has not stopped some from placing blame on Hamlet for what various reporters are doing to capture readers.
Over the years I have found Drax to be a very talented but emotional supporter of Second Life. He has done an amazing job of finding the high points of Second Life an reporting on them. His ability to portray the good side of Second Life and the people that use SL to positive effect surpasses all others. (Please notice the period)
This morning I found a tiny icon on my Windows 7 Tool Bar. The official release date is July 29. Now I am wondering how well it will or won’t work with Second Life.
This icon is a link to a Microsoft promotional about Windows 10. According to it, you can reserve a copy of Windows 10. I supposed if you haven’t been following Win 10 development you may think this is some great free offer you need to jump on. I have no doubt a large number of people will.
Windows 10 is a free upgrade. Microsoft is no longer charging for operating system upgrades. They are following Apple and Google. Both have been giving away their upgrades. The idea is the original purchase and install of an operating system is made by the hardware manufacturer. After that all upgrades are free.