This is the seventh of probably 12 articles reviewing the technical changes in Second Life™. Click Annual Review in the TAGS drop down to the right to see the other months.

Review: July 2015

This is the month Experiences Tools were partially released, actually 6/30. The release was to premium members only. Anyone could participate in an Experience, but only Premium Members could build one. Details here.

Kerri Fegte posted about photography tools one can use with the SL viewer. See: Second Life: Photography Tools.

This month Lance announced that he no longer can take the time to keep the Dolphin Viewer updated.

Kokua releases a Linux viewer in 32 and 64 bit versions.

Canary Beck completed research to see if people in general think of Second Life as a haven for sexual perverts. See: Second Life: Too Little Sex? The discussion continues throughout the month. Who’s number is on the bathroom wall?

 This is the month I speculated about whether Experience Tools would replace RLV, at least in Linden Lab’s viewer. It hasn’t. I now wonder when RLV will catch up with Project Bento.

Viewers

• Second Life Big Bird Viewer version 3.8.1.303130
• Second Life Maintenance Viewer version 3.7.31.302685, 3.8.1.303166
• Second Life Obsolete Platforms Viewer version 3.7.28.300847
• Second Life VMM Viewer version 3.7.31.302677, 3.8.1.303315, 3.8.2.303583
• Second Life Importer Viewer version 3.8.1.303230 – RC
• Second Life Project Importer Viewer version 3.7.28.300878
• Second Life Project Notice Viewer version 3.8.1.303211
• Second Life Project Oculus Rift Viewer version 3.7.18.295296

This month we got: Second Life Obsolete Platforms Viewer version 3.7.28.300847.

How the viewer handles SL DAMAGE changed this month.

Migration to the new Viewer Managed Marketplace started this month.

Other Stuff

The forum thread ‘Ask the CEO’ opened. It is now 23 screens long. ‎The last Linden post in the thread was 2015-07-15 12:44 PM. The last post as I write this was 2015-12-04 10:37 AM.

The Lab explained a reason for fewer July server updates. They had people working on updating the Experience Tools’ Mongo database. For most of the month we only saw a server update every other week.

Linden Lab released new promotional videos.

Oz Linden spoke about Jelly Babies and where the project was in the development pipeline. The project is still in RC viewer stage as I write this: Second Life Quick Graphics Viewer version 3.8.7.306758.

Kohua released a Mac version of their viewer.

Blender adds the ability to bake textures with Cycles. AvaStar releases version 1.6-59 Beta. Also this month, AvaStar released a compatibility chart for which mesh bodies and appliers work with it. See: AvaStar Compatibility. This month Gaia announced they would be starting a project named AVA Mesh, a standard mesh avatar to be used as a starting place for mesh projects. But, I’ve heard nothing else about Ava since the announcement.

We learned about Grendel’s Children Saved from Shutdown this month.

Flickr was changed their embed code this month. Flickr Image Embed Code Change. This was the first problematic change for me. Others have followed.

July is the month I begin to question whether there was enough news to allow me to maintain my focus on SL Tech and have anything to write.

July saw Dr. Phil visit Second Life. The video of the show made it to YouTube. But, CBS soon had it removed. Others have done a better job of dealing with the copyright issue and survivied.

AT&T started marketing a US$10 VR app.