Miss Danielle from Zivity was as nice to - swiftly - respond to my questions regarding males, multiple models & CGI content on Zivity:

‘We are not currently accepting sets that feature men or sets that feature more than one model. We are also currently only accepting “real” human content.’

Guess that is it then. For Vint. And for now. The nice part of the news was for my human: ‘Thank you for submitting your portfolio shots to us. I certainly think it is worth it for you to submit a set to us.’ Now just need to convince one of the atomic friends to (partly) undress & model. That’s way more easy to get done from avies! :p

Tags: photography, zivity
Categories: Vint Falken
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Just look at this works by Starlight Mundo and be amazed! (Discovered thanks to Mr. Raul Crimson)

Tags: flickr, photography, snapshot, starlight mundo
Categories: Photography
1 Comment »

Only days ago, the SL Blogosphere was buzzing with rumours about SLim, a Second Life (lightweight?) IM client, after Tateru Nino got news on a trademark filing for ‘SLim’ by Linden Lab. Now, SLNN reports that it is not a ‘maybe’ but a ’soon’, for SLim. They quote Joe Linden saying: ‘it will be in First Look in a couple of weeks‘.

According to Joe ‘Linden’ Miller, SLim will be a very thin - lightweight, thus - client that is designed to stay in both voice and text - prioritize, please: text & voice thus - contact with your friends: ‘If you want to participate in a meeting but can’t actually run the SL app to do it, you’ll be able to do that with our thin voice communication client.’ I wonder if they’ll count is as an extra agent count on the sim? (to fill up the former orientation islands? ;) But overall, this is good news. This means people with old laptops might even still be able to enjoy the last weeks of summer outside, chatting to their SL friends, without having to know about AjaxLife.

Announced for ‘the end of 2008′ was ‘real world telephone to second life’, which seems to be still on schedule. SLNN quotes Joe Linden: ‘“This will work two ways: you’ll be able to sign up for an access number that will give people who are outside of SL (perhaps on a cell phone) the ability to reach you in-world. This is distinctly separate from the ‘SLim’ communication client.’ Of course, this comes with voice messages - if you want to - delivered to your email - if you want to. Is it just me, but if I want someone from outside SL to call me, I just give them my cell phone number?! Imagine: ‘No mommy, you can’t reach me on my phone. You can call me in-world though. It’s an USA number. *grin*” Hmm, I think I suddenly see a use! ;) Anyways, ‘real world calling to Second Life’ will not be part of the SLim client, just an addendum to their current grid services.

The most interesting on the whole voice deal might be ‘the ability to associate a standard telephone number – PSTN number – with a group, and that number can be used by a number of folks to join a group conversation for the purpose of meeting from outside of SL as well.’ Although, I remember the ladies over at BlogHer SL already used this in combination with mediastream, so just making something existing standard Second Life functionality?

A very positive message in the last sentence of the article: Twitter functionality will not be added in to the new SLim client. Yeey! :D Can’t wait for the SLim Release Candidate! =)

Tags: first look, second life client, slim, SLinovation
Categories: Second Life
4 Comments »

Miss Rheta, can I haz three kisses? Errr… I mean… last night, at Metanomics, a long time of waiting and anticipation finally ended, as Dusan Writer officially announced the three winners for the Second Life User Interface Design Contest. In reversed* order:

1. th place to Miss Rheta Shan, for an incredible re-design from the Second Life UI. She threw the current design completely out of the window, and realised a design that focusses on ‘what the user actually wants to do/achieve’. A deserved win! A Flash execution of Miss Rheta’s concept can be experienced on Dusan’s site.
2. nd place for Miss Jacek Antonelli. Ground breaking in Miss Antonelli’s design is an extended - and way more intuitive - design for inventory management.
3. rd place goes to Roy Cassini, who focuses on ease of learning for newbs. Getting rid of all orientation islands (<- check, but lost the link) and implementing user orientation in the viewer, teaching him basic functionality as more functions become enabled.

May we have a round of ‘woot!s’ and ‘applaud gestures’, please? I’m so glad I get to use my ‘SLinovation’ tag on this blog again! ;) Of course, as stated before, all the entries contained great ideas and a mixture - Frankenstein, I believe Dusan called it - of all the proposals would be a killer-client. (But Lindens, for starters, could you please implement Jacek’s inventory management ideas? ;)) I also owe Vincent Nacon a huge apology, as I skipped mentioning him in my previous overview post. Yes, his was a ‘late’ entry, but definitely worth mentioning. View it here!

More on the winning designs - and illustrations with their entries - can be found on - of course - Dusan Writers’s blog. You’ll also want to take a look at New World Notes, where Hamlet Au highlighted some of the most ground breaking ideas from all the contestants. Not very fond of reading? No problem, SLCN.TV filmed/machinima’d the Metanomics ‘Enhancing your View’, where Mr Writer announced the winners, and where Adam Frisby, known for heavy involvement on OpenSim - Adam Zaius inworld - shared his knowledge about XBAP and Xenki (and a whole lot of other stuff way above my head!). Running joke of the evening was ‘rendering virtual worlds in the clouds’, a reference to this techcrunch article. Oh yeah, almost forgot, that SLCN.TV video is here.

As for a very, very late entry, there’s an idea from Bob Wellman, which I’m rather sure he feels strongly about, as he could not help himself but posting it on two of my blog entries relating the User Interface Design Contest. So, here’s Mr Wellman’s idea:

What I would like to see in the UI is maybe not possible (you tell me). A screen that’s too crowded with too many things in one small space is the problem. Rather than try to find better ways to fit too much into too smaller space why not rethink the issue. How do we get more space?

I would like the option to use a second PC screen/monitor. One PC screen/monitor would contain the view of the SL scene that I am looking at and nothing else. The second one would contain all the controls and pop up windows. This way I can see where I am going and do stuff and chat at the same time. For building especially this would be great. Lets face it many people have PCs that can control 2 monitors and maybe even old screens that could be used for the second one.

Is this a radical enough redesign for you! Maybe the second screen could have an option for beginner, normal and expert mode, allowing new users just the basic options to get started and expert allowing all options. Also given a whole screen to play with gives more scope for laying out controls in an easy to use way. I am sure that there are many reasons why this will be difficult to do but my first question is if it can be done should it be?

Feel free to pull this apart or adapt the idea as you see fit guys. Lateral thinking is needed here.

Personally, when I feel I have to much on my screen, I just make the UI smaller. And one could of course also buy a bigger screen. Still, worth a few thoughts, as having one screen just for ’seeing’ SL, without HUDs, without inventory, without buttons, just virtual world, would be a great ‘immersionalistic’ experience, no?

And now? Rest of the pictures time! (If you got that far, looking back at the amount of linkage in here, that is.)

* Does somebody know how to get revert the counting of an ordered list in html? Or is it impossible? Yeah, so it goes 3, 2, 1 … in stead of 1-2-3. Duh! ;)

Tags: contest, metanomics, sl client, SLinovation, user interface
Categories: Second Life
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1. Virtual Worlds Timeline on Dipity - Timeline gathering the ‘milestones’ for virtual worlds. Birth (and end?) date of different virtual worlds, important corporate decisions, open source initiatives, … . Feel free to contribute, it appears.
2. Reuters/Second Life - Linden Lab’s cloak and dagger job ad - I wonder, can you even get ‘The candidate must either have government security clearance or the ability to be cleared for government contracts/engagement ‘ when you confess having a second life? ;)
3. Warcraft Players are Living in a Communist State - This is of the most-prodigious mysteries of the gamer soul; They let us cast off our mundane existence and become a colorful, empowered hero. And what do we do with this second life? We behave like obedient workers in a Soviet collective outside Stalingrad, circa 1971. Comrade, your job is to collect potatoes. For seven years. We pay $20 a month for this privilege. Read up unto the last sentence! Really! :p
4. What makes you ‘you’? - An interesting experiment about what defines an avatar. Is just exchanging shapes enough? And skins? And hair? And when do you become the ‘other’. Kewl!

Categories: Links
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The human <3's her hair. Mind you, she does not always takes great care for it - dreads, breads, bells & wistles, coloured thread, ... all this could be found inbetween the real hair in the past, but that meant more hair to hide behind, and more hair that she could feel gently gliding over her shoulders when moving her head. As she definitely has more than the 10 inch of hair needed to donate to Locks of Love (I'm sure she has 20 inches and can make a double donation) I told her about it, and suggested she'd take scissors, get rid of the hair, put it in an envelope and mail it the USA for the good cause of making wigs for children that are bald because of illness. Will you believe she blatantly refused?!! I told her it would grow back - a luxury we don't have, inventory lost is inventory lost, but no... that did not help.

So no other option for me left, than to attempt to do something for the Hair Fair 2008 and thus for Locks of Love my-humble-neko-self. I’m currently working on phase I: getting as much people as possible to know about the Hair Fair, using both my blog, the Rezzable Blog - they are sponsoring SL Hair Fair 2008 with the 4 event sims - and Flickr. Hair Fair 2008 is organising a photocontest on flickr - read more about the rules and submit here - and behold my entry:

I risk the chance to be instantly disqualified - no text! rule - but I figured the huge amount of colour and glowy, sparkling hair needed some explanation. :d The only problem I have with this photograph is that it is not very ‘Vintish’. I have black, ebony hair. I’m sure of that. But I wanted the effect that you get when you backlight blond hair. And I had no blond hair in my inventory, so I had to do with red. And then there was that beautiful colourful sunset that I could not help but using… and in the end, it seems to.. colourful.. to magically, fairytale happy. What you?

Anwyay, phase II of the ’support Hair Fair 2008 plan will be shop until you drop and add a few bandana’s to the collection on bandana day. Does anybody know of a creator that sells them with cut-outs for neko ears? :d

Tags: bandana, contest, flickr, hair fair, locks of love, rezzable, second life, special events
Categories: Contests, Fashion, Second Life
1 Comment »

Great overview of 50+ virtual worlds (although I only count 43 ;)) current open (or in beta) by Gary Hayes for Personalizemedia.com. This video collection of machinima and stills from different virtual worlds, is a perfect overview of what Second Life’s competitors look like. By following Gary Hayes’ ‘2008 Metaverse Tour’ you can (quickly) visit the following virtual worlds without having to create an avatar for each: in order of appearance, Kaneva, YoVille (Facebook), RocketOn, Prototerra, Gaia Online, HiPiHi, Google Lively, Habbo Hotel, Laguna Beach (vMTV running There), Whyville, Twinity, Cyworld, Football Superstars, Weblin, IMVU, Second Life (yeeeey!!! let’s hear an applause! ;)), Club Penguin, Active Worlds, vSide, a Tale in the Desert, Barbie Online, Amazing Worlds, Webkinz, Worlds.com, Spore (only the creature creator), ExitReality, Open Croquet, Metaplace, Mokitown, Moove, The Palace, Spine World, Tower Chat, The Traveller, Virtual Ibiza, Stardoll, The Manor, There, Vastpark, Qwaq, Playstation 3 Home and Go Supermodel. Definitely a lot more ‘metaverse parts’ then I even knew existed!

I’ve put the ones I already visited (or attempted to visit, HiPiHi keeps crashing on me) in bold. How many of this list have you tried? Did Mr Hayes forget about any? And from the looks of it, which ones would you really want to try - not necessary as an alternative for Second Life, but just out of curiosity?

Tags: metaverse, second life, video, virtual worlds
Categories: SL Web Resources
14 Comments »

I’m not a frequent visitor of the Metanomics sessions, not because they are not interesting - far from - but mainly because of lack of time. But tonight, there’s one that is a definitely must attend. Metanomics will be hosting an entire show on the User Interface. This event will take place this evening, Tuesday at 2:00 PM SLT. (That’s 23h normal people’s time and 22h UK time. ;)) During this broadcast, Dusan Writer will reveal the winners of his L$800,000 contest to design a better user interface. Adam Frisby will discuss his exploration of the viewer possibilities associated with OpenSim, including XBAP (and Xenki), one possible method for creating a viewer that meshes seamlessly with your browser. After this show, you may never want to look at Second Life the same way again! Residents may participate in the live broadcast at one of the Metanomics sites in-world or through Chatbridge technology which allows people to participate by voice while outside of Second Life. Seeing the recent discovery of the ‘SLim’ trademark filed by Linden Lab, I assume there will be some more discussion also, on what people expect/hope SLim to be.

If you are in the crowd there, do come and say ‘hi!!!’ I hereby also reserve the right to give the winners 3 - and all the other contestants 1 - animated virtual kisses. *Waves* See - or hear - you tonight, then?! ;)

Be prepared, and read:

1. My quick write up of the first presentation of the contestants of their user interface design to the jury
2. The entries from all the participating finalists

More information on tonight’s Metanomics event:

1. The official event listing on metanomics
2. RSVP for the event on Facebook

Tags: contest, metanomics, second life, user interface
Categories: Contests, Second Life
2 Comments »

I just quit Plurk. Not because I was not enjoying it, no. Hell, it’s even the most fun and entertaining social networking tool I’ve seen in ages! (Although I have high hopes for Zivity. ;)) I met some interesting new avies - and even some of their humans - but somehow reality was catching up on me there. Let’s call it RL drama, which is almost as scary as the typical everyday SL drama. Basically, if you don’t feel free to write an honest 140 characters about what you feel at the moment, or interests you, or you’d wish for, you might as well not write at all? Else you’ll end up just plurking ‘Goodmorning plurkers’ and ‘goodnight plurkers’ and I forbid myself to drop to that level of social networking. :d

As myself, I hate vague and dramatic ‘I’ll quit messages’, I’ll share - some - details on why I’m gone:

1. I felt certain persons were taking everything I wrote - although nothing personal, see #2 - to personal. I choose my live to revolve around no one but me - egocentric, maybe? - at the moment. Myself is already more than I can handle! ;)
2. If I were to plurk my real feelings on certain matters - shortly and tactfully summarized: Invasion alert, to close! Leave parts of my life just for me, please. - I’d be evoking a lot of real life drama. Maybe I am now also. But somehow needed to get this off my chest.
3. Someone I succeeded at successfully ignoring for a few months suddenly showed up. What I’d say if I were to send 140 characters? You really don’t want to know. I’m sure the person in question does not either. So we’ll just shut up.
4. I honestly felt the urge to plurk ‘what the hell would we care, get a life!’ sometimes, which must sound rather strange from someone who has a full time second. :d But I resisted doing just that, and I’m not proud for that one.
5. Because of above items, I dropped to the level of plurking I lost my car keys and other various random utterly stupid stuff. As I don’t want to lower myself to that level of social networking - I’m sorry, but time not well spend - I might as well say nothing.

So what about you? On twitter, your blog, facebook, plurk or whatever social networking gods recently invented, are you ‘totally honest’? Are you one of those people that post little unimportant details, or do you write openly about things - in your 1st or 2nd life - that really matter to you? What do you care about more: your ‘karma’, popularity… or the content of what you write?

Anyway, dear Plurk, it was nice knowing you. Lovely to write various, 140 characters maxed anecdotes off my chest. Fun experimenting with how to use you for blog-promo, what to write to evoke the most replies, to discover how easily people offer friendship. Maybe I did not take you serious enough, but limiting my thoughts to 140 characters was surely an interesting exercise. I’ll hop in from time to time to send a private plurk to people I do not have email for if I’m to lazy to log into SL. But that’s about it. Our relationship ends here. Mainly, because others are overly complicated.

So far for SL ft. RL ft. Plurk drama. Beat that, SL fashionistas! ;)

Tags: plurk, rant
Categories: Rant, Vint Falken
19 Comments »

Ladies, Gents, Avies, I dearly apologise, this is a shameless RL linklove plug. Y’all see, rather unplanned - Facebook relationship reminded me of it - I went to a kickass little festival in my old home town yesterday. Ok, to be honest, I can’t even judge it to be kickass, as I arrived late, and saw only one band. But that band swept me off my feet out of my boots*: Quantum Fantay was full of awesomenes! With a daring mixture of rock, psy, electro, trance, metal and folk - and whisperings of ‘this is _so_ like Ozric Tentacles - they were a pleasure to listen to and - bass player had the kewlest shape & skin ever - look at.

Finding it hard to describe just how wonderful their sound was, I don’t expect you to take my word for it. I suggest you go listen for your self, either on Quantum Fantay’s official website or on their - I know, but just for once - MySpace. See, Belgium does not just have great beer & chocolate, but also friggin’ awesome sounds.

As usual, I got the dress code all wrong. Woops. :D

Tags: music, quantum fantay, real life
Categories: Music
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