Psyke Phaeton has an article up on the Lab’s new request for tax information. Since Psyke lives outside the USA (Australia) and is not a US citizen he does not have to pay US taxes. But, the US government forces Linden Lab to collect a 30% tax from foreign nationals making money in the USA. If the Lab cannot get RL tax information on an individual they cannot pay them and in some cases may have to close their SL account, which Psyke says happened to him.
@ BS’s Bring a Friend & Stay Awhile – 2014 Music & Dance
Psyke made the Psyke’s Defense Systems® HomeSecurity™ Orb. You can find it in the Market Place here. The web site is here.
There is a new viewer in the pipeline called the New Login Viewer. I don’t know much about it or when we will see it on the RC Viewer page. I think this viewer is still running A-B tests with new users. As existing users we probably will not see it until the A-B testing is done.
Tableau 2014 July – Hidden Location
Word is the Zipper RC Viewer is having lots of problems on older hardware. Oz says they are not sure at this point if they will continue with this viewer. He recommended that third party developers not merge this code into their viewers. That is a pretty clear ‘stay away’ from this version warning.
There are new versions of the Oculus and Experience Tools viewers. Both are going well. There is no ETA on when improvements from the DK2 may be seen. But, there is work happening in that area. So, I am guessing the Lab has received their DK2 units.
Lots of data is coming back from Experience Tools. There are some problems, but Oz says nothing big. So, that is moving ahead. My guess is we will see more users invited to the Beta or even a public RC Viewer.
The Library Refresh RC Viewer will NOT support Mac 10.6. Once it makes it to being the main viewer, the Lab will stop supporting 10.6 and older Mac operating systems. Otherwise this is the viewer using the newly rebuilt libraries.
Windows 8.1 users have amazingly low crash rates. The Lab is encouraging users to update their operating system if they are on older OS’s. Especially Win 8 users as the upgrade to 8.1 is free.
Maestro Linden is on vacation. Caleb Linden is handling the Server Beta meeting and Oz and Simon Linen were there. No new information on what server updates may be in the works. As all regions are running the same server package, the main channel is unlikely to get any updates and there may be no Tuesday restart.
DryLand – 2014 July – BD, Before the Dry
The RC channels may get a restart and new package, but if they do we currently have no idea what that update may be. My guess is there will be no rollout/restart of the RC channels in week 32.
JuicyBomb has a poll running on whether you wear a mesh body; never, some of the time, always. Check it out and vote: POLL: MESH BODY.
I’m thinking about getting one. I have the Slink demo. My thinking is there are not enough clothes yet. So, may be latter.
Dolphin Viewer
There is a beta release of the Dolphin Viewer out. The viewer still does not catch up with the SL Viewer, notably lacking the SL Share features. But, how often do you use that feature?
When the new mesh avatars for new users were first released (5/15) many were concerned about what would happen when someone using one of those bought ‘system’ (e.g., shirt, pants…) clothes and tried to wear them. As was expected we are starting to hear from people about that problem in the SL Forum.
Second Life 2014
If new people find the forum they have a chance. But, the Knowledge Base is out of date (example: Controlling your avatar’s appearance), the SL Wiki is out of date (example: Appearance), and almost any place you look the information fails to make any mention of the difference between ‘Classic’ avatars and ‘People’ or Vampire avatars. If you don’t know, those are the selections new users are going to see when signing up now.
