Second Life and Virtual Worlds
This is another of the interesting videos Drax produces showing how Second Life is used by creative people.
[youtube lcL1xLCyf60]
Ciaran Laval has a different take on this video: The Drax Files Episode 14 – Rose Borchovski. I found it confusing but interesting.
Alphaville Herald has an article up about a class action settlement. People that were banned are getting US$. See: Refunds For Banned Second Life Players!! SHOCK!!!
The Second Life blog now has a post from the Lab regarding tax reporting issues. See: Required Tax Documentat
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requires Linden Lab to collect and retain Form W-9 (for U.S. residents) and Form W-8BEN (for non-U.S. residents) at certain transaction volumes. If you reach the transaction threshold and we do not have your completed and signed W-9 or W-8BEN on file, we are required to withhold funds from your account (at the current rate of 28% of your gross amounts received). Additionally, for U.S. residents with 200 or more transactions with a total amount in excess of $20,000 in a calendar year, we are required to file a Form 1099-K with the IRS reporting those transactions for that year.
If you are required to submit a W-9 or W-8BEN form to us, we will email you before the end of the year with instructions on how to do so. Please follow the instructions to complete and submit the required Form W-9 or W-8BEN within thirty (30) days of receipt. You will only need to complete this paperwork once unless your information changes from year-to-year. If you do not receive an email from Linden Lab, we do not need you to complete these forms.
The last podcast from Metareality was in April. In this cast Kim/Gianna is saying they plan to be back doing more regular casts, back to the weekly format. You can listen to the cast here: Weak Sauce.
This is an uncensored audio. No bleeping, so there is some profane language… actually a lot.
I remind you, my usual warning is: I paraphrase what I hear and make no attempt to transcribe the audio. Listen to the audio before you react to anything I’ve written.
[youtube 9hUUsqhetX4]
02:00 TOS Discussion starts. Karl describes the change as the Lab becoming a co-owner in all that you create and upload to Second Life™. Karl rants a bit, not much, and I have to agree with his points. Spot on little rant in my view.
LEAP Motion Controller is the mouse free controller for your computer. I figured this would be a good device for use with the Oculus Rift. I went on eBay and picked up a near new one for US$50. I tried it out with the default apps and some free games.
It does not come with any app or adaption for Second Life™. One needs a free or retail app to adapt LEAP to SL. Drax made a video showing his experience with LEAP and Second Life.
[youtube mso4D8sOLmY]
The app Drax is suing is Game Wave (US$4). I tried some free apps. I didn’t find anything that would work well. So, I tried the app he is using in the video.
It has a good introductory manual, a tutorial if you will. The best I have seen explaining hand gestures for the LEAP.
There has been a turn taken in the battle to get the TOS changed. Mostly drama and little productive result that I can see. I’m mostly involved in RL projects the last couple of weeks. I obviously missed something. So, what’s going on?
Hopefully, you know about the TOS change in mid August. It is hard to tell how many people are troubled by the August TOS change. I believe it is a small number. I also think the ones bothered most by the change are the more left brained creative types that can see and understand the impact of the TOS change. I think that more left-brained group is a small part of the creative community. I believe the result from the nature of artists is; the majority of the creative community is just not interested in the TOS change.