General News

Who is Winning the Virtual Reality Race?

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The financial people think it is Facebook and Apple that are positioned to win in the Virtual Reality War. But, it won’t be a fast war. It will last years.  Quoting Chris Ciaccia :

[A] Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster stated that virtual reality is likely the next key trend in technology, writing, “We liken the state of virtual and augmented reality today as similar to the state of mobile phones 15 years ago. It likely will take a decade before mainstream adoption as necessary improvements in displays and applications as well as lower pricing are needed to drive demand.”

Breaking bad$$$$
Breaking bad💵💵💵💵 by pokute Burt, on Flickr

They expect new virtual everythings to open up; gaming (obviously), live sports, concerts, immersive cinema and social experiences will have a VR version. The article, Facebook and Apple are Poised to Win the Virtual Reality Wars, gives us, at least me, some new ideas about VR can be used.

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Second Life: Designing for Newbies and Oldies

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Second Life has its challenges for new players/users. Massively Overpowered started a conversation with the question: How Can MMO’s Design For Both Vets And Newbies? There are quite a few comments being added. It got me thinking about our challenges for new users in Second Life™.

Cassie and Ciara
Cassie and Ciara by Caitlin ‘Caity’ Tobias, on Flickr

Many of the comments on Massively suggest removing leveling. Fortunately we don’t have leveling as a basic part of SL.

In 19 screens of comments no one mentioned user interface and only a couple of times mentioned learning how to play. In SL I think learning is a significant obstacle for new users. With 3,000+ viewer controls SL is on a level similar to Photoshop or AutoCAD.

Considering new users in SL, I think the design challenge is making it usable and reducing the learning curve. For the experienced users the Lab needs to keep as many creative options as possible, which adds complication. These seem to be opposing goals. I am curious to see how the Lab handles these challenges in SANSAR aka SL 2.0.

Second Life Bits Week 21

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Bright Canopy

For Second Life™ users Bright Canopy is software and service taking the place of the discontinued SL Go as the software for phones, tablets, and under powered computers to use for accessing Second Life. Hamlet of New World Notes is playing with it. He doesn’t seem to be having much success. Read about his experience here: First Look at New SL Streaming Service Bright Canopy.

Two Sides
Two Sides by Carthalis Rossini, on Flickr

Some People…

There are those that pay little to no attention to what Linden Lab is doing or saying. The headline from a blog article caught my attention: Linden Bear digs grave. Did a Linden die? No. 

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Second Life: The New New User Tutorial

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Hamlet is on about a video that shows the new user experience. I find those interesting. You can see Hamlet’s comments here: Second Life First-Hour User Experience by Returning SLer. I have the video just below. It is an hour long. Sheeeesh. Will anyone watch the whole thing?

Beau Hindman (YouTube name) made the video. He says he was first in Second Life™ (SL) in 2004 and has not been in SL for some years. So, this is a semi-new user experience.

Beau rambles a lot and stumbles on what he wants to say. He keeps his umm, errr’s to a level I can tolerate. The first 10 minutes is more just telling us what SL is than it is a logical ordered tutorial.

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Second Life: New Art Region

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Vivienne Daguerre let me know that she has remade her sim into Roxeter, a place supporting and featuring SL artists and live musicians, and in the future she hopes to add writers and theater performances to the list.

Vivienne  says Freya Lovencraft has started a machinima series, “Behind the SL Music”. The first machinima is this one:

Vivienne says the sim is totally non-profit, paid for by her store profits. For more information on that you can see her website: Roxeter.com. There is lots of information there.

Vivienne  has been around Second Life™ since 2004. I know her from our days at the Mesh Creators group starting in 2011 when mesh was just being added to SL. She is a 3D modeler & scripter that enjoys art and live music.

Second Life Things Week 21

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DDOS Attacks

A number of MMO games are the targets of Distributed Denial of Service attacks. I would expect Second Life™ to get its share of those. Massively Overpowered is reporting on the MMO Shroud of the Avatar getting attacked.

Has Your Favorite Mmo Been DDOS’ed?

Shroud Of The Avatar Gets Slammed By Ddos Attack

Discovering the Horizon
Discovering the Horizon by ~~*κïrα ß. murƒïη*~~, on Flickr

WoW Dying?

In Second Life™ we repeatedly hear that SL is dying. Everything is dying. Deal with it. But, World of Warcraft (WoW) dying? It has lost 3 million players in 3 months. That leaves them with 7 million active players. A game with 7 million players is not what most of us call dead. But, we are hearing the Chicken Little types crowing. 

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