Second Life and Virtual Worlds
After my Tuesday morning post I found the main release viewer updated to 3.7.4.288138. This was the Hotfix RC viewer compiled Mar 15 2014 and released some time Monday.
I am finding this viewer runs pretty fast (30+ FPS) when few people are around. Add a dozen people and it slows down horribly. I’ll need to spend more time with it and try it around other groups, but in the little time I have had it, that seems to be a pretty consistent experience.
There is something going on with the SL system this morning (7AM-8:30AM). People in a large number of groups are talking about Bake Fail. It seems lots of people are staying gray. There is no good work-around. Some have solved it by relogging. Some have solved it by waiting. DO NOT clear your cache. That … Read more
It seems the new scam is fake memory chips. These are the chips we need for cameras, phones, and other mobile devices. The old proverb, if it seems too good to be true then it probably isn’t, is at play here.
[youtube UmFKUeVQYas]
This is reportedly the fastest growing social app out there. On the Google Play Store it is described as: Share your photos and videos with friends and followers in a photo feed, or send posts directly to your friends. Instagram is the clear leader in photos and video captured with mobile devices. There is more to it. But, that is the basic idea. It is a free service. Or is it?
Do you remember those apps that used to say free, just give us your email address? If you did, you suddenly found yourself inundated with email spam. How does Instagram pay for the servers and bandwidth to handle 150 million plus users? Why are the Facebook owners willing to pay US$1 billion to buy a company run by a dozen or so employees? (Reference)
For that matter how does Facebook make its money? There is the on-site advertising. Those ads along the right side of the page. Google does something similar. I have Google Ads on this site. They pay for the web site and most of my Internet connection cost. But, is Facebook/Instagram going to make $500+ million per year and up just displaying page ads?
In 2011 85% of their money came from selling advertising. 15% came from ‘payments’. (Reference) Some portion of those ‘payments’ come from phone service providers. AT&T and Verizon need something for you to burn up those data plans. But, how much money is there in those channels?
It seems there is a new griefer gift rumored to be making the rounds. If you are given anything, make sure you know who gave it to you before opening or rezzing it. If it is a griefer crasher that you rez, you show up in the SL server logs as the one rezzing the … Read more
Within the SL Blogospher several people are writing about the NSA listening to players in Second Life™ and other games like World of Warcraft™. Well, they are listening to our phones, reading our emails, tracking our Internet use (notice how often Google comes up in the results) and tracking our GPS locations. It should be no surprise that they are inside our games and listening to us.
I’ll paint you the really dark picture of what is most likely happening.
[youtube HiwjXGjbPD4]
The security teams are looking for any way that terrorists and bad guys can communicate. If that was all the information was used for, it would not be a problem. But, they are limited by law in the USA and they are breaking it. If they are willing to break one law for a supposed good reason, they will have little if any resistance to breaking others for what they consider good reasons. But, they are still breaking the law, something politically active citizens shape.
I saw a discussion on SLUniverse about a number of regions closing without notice. The discussion centers on the closing of Beach Front. See: Beach Front Realty Closed?
It seems the land owners collected the month’s tier from tenants and then closed the regions. Correspondence with Linden Lab revealed the closing was ‘deliberate’. I suppose that means the region owner contacted the Lab and scheduled the closing. Not having seen the actual correspondence I cannot tell if the phrasing is nuanced spin that might indicate the Lab closed the owners regions for some reason.
The tenants may be able to get their money back via PayPal. The Lab generally considers these things a resident-to-resident matter and stays out of them.
Thursday morning (11/7) starting about 7 AM PDT Second Life™ will sort of be down. The Lindens will be doing some database maintenance. They will have the following impacts: During this period, a number of Second Life services will be impacted. Some users may be logged off and may be temporarily unable to log in … Read more