Second Life News 2014-5

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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 for Linden Scripting Language (LSL) function llModifyLand() and an unnamed bug fix are about it.

Viewers

The main viewer this morning is still 3.6.13-284995.

RC Viewers

We have 4 RC viewers and 1 Project viewer.

  • Second Life FittedMesh Viewer version 3.7.0.285669
  • Second Life HTTP Viewer version 3.6.14.285253
  • Second Life Interesting Viewer version 3.6.14.285213
  • Second Life Maintenance Viewer version 3.6.14.285499

Project Viewers

  • Second Life Project Merchant Outbox Viewer version 3.6.13.284731

Blog News

Blogs are mostly talking about whether Rod was a good or bad CEO for SL.

Otherwise most are writing about places in SL. The others are writing about fashion. It leaves me wondering what is going on with SL. We hear several projects are ongoing but we are hearing little about them. It seems mostly partying and shopping is what’s going on in SL.

Drax Radio Show #3

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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]

Index

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. 

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Cloud Party Closing

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Well… this January I’m seeing a lot of closings and endings. Cloud Party has announced it will be closing in February. The announcement is on their blog here: Cloud Party Joins Yahoo.

I am not sure what it means when they say they are joining Yahoo. If Yahoo were buying Cloud Party, we would be reading an acquisition announcement. So, it looks like the talent behind Cloud Party has been hired by Yahoo. What would Yahoo want with virtual world programmers?

A bit of Googling and I find the acquisition announcements and stories. Tech Crunch has this article: Yahoo Acquires Virtual World Gaming Startup Cloud Party, Will Shut It Down. Darrell Etherington, the author of the article, has the take that it will be something to do with gaming. But, he points out this is more likely a talent acquisition than a technology acquisition.

I think the fact that they are providing an exporter for Cloud Party builds suggests they are done with this virtual world.

In May of 2013 Yahoo bought PlayerScale. So, as Darrell points out, the combination of the two at Yahoo might produce something interesting. Or it could just be a talent grab to enhance Yahoo as Microsoft looks at buying Yahoo.

Rod Humble Leaves Second Life

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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. 

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Second Life and WebKit

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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.

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