Second Life and Virtual Worlds
Things about SL
This appears to be a significant release of the Singularity Viewer. The release announce is at: Singularity Viewer 1.8.5.
You’ll find the viewer now has a new way to move the avatar around. I am not sure why a new way would be needed unless this is preparation for Oculus Rift. I steer my avatar with a combination of the A, W, S, D keys and the mouse, mostly the W key and mouse. That requires I use both hands.
Sever Rolls Tuesday we got a rollout. This package ran on all three RC channels last week. The package contains only one crash fix. So, this won’t be a noticeable change for most residents. RC Channels Once again all three RC channels will get the same package. This one contains very little change. A fix … Read more
I just got around to listening to the show. I am writing this as I listen. I love that it is a fast paced show. But, that makes it hard for me to get all the details in.
The main interview with Esteban Winsmore is annoying… well, it is Esteban that is annoying. Drax asks the pertinent questions, which a good interviewer does. It is obvious Esteban is just having fun with it.
There are some interesting discussions on Oculus Rift and augmented reality.
[youtube Bc_TCLoH2CA]
02:00 – Net Neutrality – Drax provides a link to an audio by Brooke Gladstone at On The Media, an NPR property. See: Net Neutrality and You. They are pointing out how Google controls our Internet experience now. I doubt many realize what Google is doing or how it limits information. Drax points out how Americans are not fighting for Net Neutrality, which is both a good and bad thing.
This came as a surprise. I am a bit behind on things Second Life. There has been a death in my extended family. That Rod Humble has left is another loss I’ll grieve.
I see the announcement in Jo Yardley’s blog: Rod Humble leaves Linden Lab. There is also a thread in the SL Forum: Rod Humble leaving Linden Lab. I suppose this is about as official as it gets without an official announcement from the Lab.
Hamlet on New World Notes has confirmed it: Rod Humble Leaving Linden Lab CEO Role to Start New Art/Entertainment Company, Reports Rod Humble.
Webkit™ is a core Internet Browser, sort of. More precisely it is the render engine for the Safari web browser. Until mid 2013 it was the render engine for Google’s Chrome browser on Mac. The Internet Explorer browser that Microsoft uses is powered y the Trident engine. Firefox uses the Gecko engine. A number of mobile devices use Webkit.
In 2005 it was announced by Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Bertrand Serlet that WebKit would be open source. In 2010 a WebKit 2.0 project was announced.
All this is of interest to us because the Second Life™ viewer uses Webkit to power its internal web browser and Media On A Prim (MOAP). You see it used most by in-world TV’s. I suspect panels like User Profile are also displayed using WebKit.
Honour has a post up titled: How Deep is Your Field in Second Life? She was having a problem getting the viewer’s Depth of Field (DoF) feature to work. She links to Ricco Saenz’s explanation of how to get it working: How to actually capture depth of field on your SL photos. But, not why it does what is does.
DoF is one thing I have found I cannot control in my RL S4’s camera, or have yet to learn how. It is a reason I still use my Sony digital camera for RL imaging. DoF is something I seldom use in Second Life™ because I prefer the control I have in Photoshop. But, I can imagine that some will find DoF more usable in the viewer than adding it in post production.