Oculus Rift Update 2016 w27

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For some time people have debated the accuracy of the hype around the Oculus Rift. Now as competitors enter the market there is; hype, spin, rumors, and lies about the various Virtual Reality (VR) Head Mounted Displays (HMD).

LinusTechTips provides a video to give people a sense of what the facts are.

It appears HTC Vive is taking a lead. But, there may be more Google Cardboard mashups in use than all the other HMD’s combines. Vive ≈ 100k, Oculus ≈ hidden, Samsung Gear ≈ hidden. When companies hide their sales figures it usually means they are not meeting expectations.

Projections are Samsung will be the top seller, Oculus the second best, and Vive the third best.

Google Cardboard is reported to have 57% of all VR headset sales. (Reference) Samsung has 31%, Playstation 9%, and all others combined 3%. Oculus doesn’t even show.

So, do you think it is a good idea that the Lab is focused on supporting Oculus? Or… are they supporting the one device that is least likely to be used with Second Life™?

I’ve already said I’m waiting. I’m spending my money on a new computer. Then my first HMD is likely to be Cardboard or Samsung Gear… if we don’t count my trying VR with my S5, which was limited to one app a demo.

AvaStar Update: 2.0 Alpha-4 & Project Bento

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Gaia Clary announced another update of AvaStar 2 is out. This is not the production version. This is the Alpha version with Bento support. In the announcement Gaia explains the current problem people are debating. The video by Medhue shows and explains what is being talked about.

Gaia says this alpha version of AvaStar complies with the current proposed Bento model that includes rotation and translation. But, there are concerns about the Bento plan to allow rotation and translation. See the release announcement for a longer story or below the fold for the shorter version. This is an extensive document. If you are animating in SL, read the thing to understand what is coming. 

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Project Sansar: What’s Different? Has Linden Lab Learned Anything from Second Life?

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Stephanie Condon wrote Second Life™ Lessons: What Linden Lab is doing differently with its new VR platform for ZDNet’s Between the Lines, a sort of technology meets society section of the site.

Let's party
Let’s party

Stephanie points out that Second Life (SL) was thought to be the tech revolution to take over the web, way back in 2006-2007 when an Internet in 3D was imagined. But… it didn’t happen. SL has remained profitable. It just didn’t catch on as people expected. 

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Second Life News 2016 w27

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Servers

Surprise. There is roll of a new package to the main channel. I did not expect that the day after a Monday holiday.

This is the package that has been running on the RC channels. It contains security fixes… or a fix… depending on how and what one reads. Also, the Bento animation file size for animation uploads is increased. And there is some fix to email address problems from within scripts.

Adah
Adah

There is no roll to the RC channels this week. So, the entire main grid will be running the same server software. 

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