Second Life and Virtual Worlds
Nalates Urriah The main grid got a roll out Tuesday (9/29). This package has internal fixes to improve inventory performance. We know little else from the Deploy post and release notes.
The RC Channels will all get the same package. The package includes: a fix for a server crash and a fix for the Region Debug Console help text.
The announcement is on the Kokua blog. They say, “Release 3.8.4.37073 brings Kokua to parity with Second Life version 3.8.4, DAE Mesh Uploader cohort and Marine Kelly’s RLV version 2.9.14.”
Check the release notes for more details.
This Second Life game involving RL money has been in and out of the news in Second Life™ for some time. The story has been that the Lindens were giving the owner of Capital Exchange a hard time getting the game approved under the new SL Gaming Rules. The latest news suggests why the Lab was having a hard time deciding to approve the game.
The issue is even more congested as RL politics gets mixed in. I and others believe it is reasonable to assume how one behaves in RL will likely be how they behave in SL.
From last Friday’s Third Party viewer Dev’s meeting we learn the Firestorm Dev’s are looking at what will be in their next release. As it stands now the Mesh Importer changes are likely the latest they will include. Tentatively the Firestorm Viewer will go into feature lock Oct 18. Figure two to four weeks of testing then a viewer release. So, a good guess, operative word ‘guess’, is a new Firestorm Viewer in early to mid November, if things go as planned, which you can’t count on.
The last Firestorm release was mid August. The one before that in May. So, November is the target for the next release based on the team’s plan of making a release every 3 months. Seems they are staying pretty much on schedule.
From the Third Party Developer’s meeting we learn a bunch of inventory changes are ready to roll out to RC testing. But, they are waiting on the HTML HTTP* viewer, Azumarill. Once the viewer is out, soon, the HTML HTTP part of these changes can start rolling to the servers.
This is another significant change in technology. For users it will be mostly transparent. You aren’t going to have new features or buttons, at least as far as I know. You will have fewer problems and inventory operations will be more reliable and I suspect quicker. Less chance of losing inventory.
Expect a Project Viewer version with Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) this year and maybe this month, probably in October. Webkit is being replaced with Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF). This is a major change in viewer technology for Second Life™. It will catch the viewer up with the new tech being used in phones and across the web.
CEF is sort of the engine that makes video and animation possible in the web browsers. It used to be that Adobe’s Flash was the only way to add reliable video and animation to a web page. But, Adobe didn’t respond to Steve Job’s requests to support the iPhone, this was pre-iPhone release days. So, Apple moved ahead without Adobe. Now CEF type tech is replacing Flash in an HTML5 world.