A very interesting press release from HP* today, which sounds perfect for - in a near, or far future - LL’s server parks:
HP today announced that researchers have proven the existence of what had previously been only theorized as the fourth fundamental circuit element in electrical engineering. This scientific advancement could make it possible to develop computer systems that have memories that do not forget, do not need to be booted up, consume far less power and associate information in a manner similar to that of the human brain.
This functionality could play a significant role as “cloud computing” becomes more prevalent. Cloud computing requires an IT infrastructure of hundreds of thousands of servers and storage systems. The memory and storage systems used by today’s cloud infrastructure require significant power to store, retrieve and protect the information of millions of web users worldwide.
Memristor-based memory and storage has the potential to lower power consumption and provide greater resiliency and reliability in the face of power interruptions to a data center. Another potential application of memristor technology could be the development of computer systems that remember and associate series of events in a manner similar to the way a human brain recognizes patterns. Artificial Intelligence Bots, someone? ;) This could substantially improve today’s facial recognition technology, enable security and privacy features that recognize a complex set of biometric features of an authorized person to access personal information, or enable an appliance to learn from experience.
More at the HP Press Release. Hattip to Mr. Zer0xXenox zeroX! ;)
* Normally I strongly dislike HP, especially after they succeeded at ruining two of my OS’s with their crappy drivers + whatever they pack with that. If they make this work, I might forgive them for that! ;)
Nadine Nozaki was as kind to invite me to the next facebook… for avatars. Having a strictly ‘no human’ policy, it seems like fun: Avatars United is a community for game avatars only. You cannot upload real life photos nor include information on your avatars description that could reveal your real life identity. You are welcome however to upload photos of your real life friends’ game avatars. It is also possible to link more than one avatar to your account, to make sure you list your alts - be they in Second Life or another virtual world. Basic facebook functionality (groups, events, …) is there, although, I did not find any API’s (yet?).
Avatars United Mission Statement
Avatars United (AU) is a community website bringing virtual characters from all online worlds together. The project is built in recognition of the fact that strong bonds and close friendships actually can be tied within virtual spaces. AU has furthermore gone one step further in recognizing virtual personas as personas in their own right by building a community for avatars only. Anyone involved in any type of virtual world is familiar with addressing people using their avatar names even after having gotten to know them. With tools to communicate with, find and track old virtual friends and share experiences from virtual realms AU wishes to stand out as a community highlighting the social aspect of life within virtual worlds.
Discrepency between WoW and SL presence
Currently 21 out of 558 avatars are Second Life residents. Is this because not enough SL avatars stumbled over this yet? Or, as we have a lot of ‘personal avatar’ blogs, networks, groups, on the web already, we actually do not need another networking site representing our avatars?
World of Warcraft - 396 avatars
Eve Online - 34 avatars
Second Life - 21 avatars
Everquest II - 13 avatars
Star Wars Galaxies - 12 avatars
The Lord of the Rings - 12 avatars
Ultima Online - 11 avatars
Guild Wars - 10 avatars
Everquest - 9 avatars
Entropia Universe - 6 avatars
City of Heroes - 6 avatars
Dark Age of Camelot - 5 avatars
Tabula Rasa - 4 avatars
Lineage 2 - 4 avatars
Age of Conan - 4 avatars
Finfal Fantasy XI - 3 avatars
Dofus - 3 avatars
Vanguard: Sage of a Hero - 3 avatars
City of Villains - 2 avatars
Lineage - 0 avatars
IMVU, There and Kaneva not represented
Strangely enough, it seems IMVU, There, Kaneva and the Sims 2 avatars are not welcome. It’s not one of the possible picks when signing up. And is this any - direct - competition for Myrl.com, a website aimed at connecting avatars from different virtual worlds - Second Life and There at the moment - solely and offers more networking functionality?
Why* does this ‘documentary’ by Pure West Films called ‘Second Skin’ on MMORPG’s feels a bit to ‘tabloid‘ like to me? Is it because I refuse to believe what kind of a world I, Vint, life in? Or could it be because the trailer seems not very nuanced on where MMO’s and Virtual Worlds are - according to Vint - about? Why does it make me think of a combination of CNN and Jerry Springer?
*I quote a quote:
I knew I was sick from playing it, I knewI had to stop, 14 to 16 hours a day easily, I’d fall asleep in front of the computer: wake up, keep going, … . I wanted to … just kill myself. (Add dramital music.)
Yet, if able, I’ll take the human to go watch this one anyway. ;)
Pure West Films about Second Skin:
Second Skin takes an intimate, disturbing look at computer gamers whose lives have been transformed by the emerging genre of computer games called Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs). World of Warcraft, Second Life, and Everquest allow millions of users to simultaneously interact in virtual spaces.
Second Skin introduces us to the real people who populate these online virtual worlds. Couples who have fallen in love without meeting, disabled players whose lives have been given new purpose, those struggling with addiction, Chinese gold-farming sweatshop workers, wealthy online entrepreneurs and legendary guild leaders- all living in a world that doesn’t quite exist.
It says ‘More info at www.secondskinfilm.com‘, but that domain does not look very alive yet. Now it does, here you go: secondskinfilm.com
If you just occasionaly upload texturs, the 10L$/texture upload is not a big thing. But if you are a poor n00b - no offense - or have tons and tons of textures to upload, or even just a few for non-commercial experimenting reasons, the 10L$ fee for uploading textures to Second Life quickly starts to become annoying.
Be annoyed no more, as slup.jp - obviously derived from ‘Second Life Upload’ - has released it’s beta version for a free texture uploading service for Second Life. At the moment they are admitting 500 beta testers.
So, what do you get?
You get to upload20 free textures/month for now. (That’s a total of 200L$.)
You may upload .jpg, .bmp and .gif images. SLUP.jpg does not mention .tga, but I’m going to test that later. It would be sad if alpha layers are not available for the texture upload.
A nice Japanese interface with some English mixed inbetween. ;)
The texture upload service is currently free & sponsored by showing an ad once in a while: when uploading that is, not on your texture. Register for beta testing - and thus free texture uploads - on slup.jp here.
Yep. Browsing the dmoz directory led to me discovering an - unknown to me - awesome site, kinda YouTube for Second Life named SecondLifeVideo.com.
It has all the needed features such as hosting your machinima and screen captures, tagging those, rating them, easily sharing the machinima, embedding the Second Life videos, RSS feeds, … . A little extra is that you can also submit videos that are hosted on other sites such as YouTube, Koinup, and the like.
SecondLifeVideo.com is powered by Magnify.net and has a low ads to video ratio.
Some machinima and other Second Life realted video’s I’ve discovered on SecondLifeVideo.com:
Wondering how much Second Life sites are represented in the dmoz listing aka open project directory - I had to be there for other reasons - I went to Google’s Directory. To my surprise, the open project directory and thus also Google says that there exist only 50 sites on Second Life?!? That few, you say? Yes, indeed, there are more: I forgot the mention the 18 corporations and the 4 that handle on subjects such as FAQ, tutorials and Help.
In the Google Directory, where the dmoz listings are ranked according to pagerank, I’m in the top 20. Woot! Although with only 74 sites, that might not be such an enormous achievement. ;)
What surprises me most though, is that under the ‘Corporate’ listings no such companies as Rivers Run Red, The Electric Sheep, Crayon, etc can be found. Those ‘Second Life devoloping’ companies constantly tell us that web 2.0 and the internet highway - be it the virtual reality part of that road or not - is the route to take to business and marketing succes. Yet, they themselves fail at the basic duty of submitting their websites to what is to be become the yellow and white pages of our so-called digital future. Also the SL Bloggers are hardly represented in the listings.
What is dmoz, you say?
The Open Directory Project (ODP), also known as dmoz (from directory.mozilla.org, its original domain name), is a multilingual open content directory of World Wide Web links owned by Netscape that is constructed and maintained by a community of volunteer editors.
ODP uses a hierarchical ontology scheme for organizing site listings. Listings on a similar topic are grouped into categories, which can then include smaller categories. ODP data powers the core directory services for many of the Web’s largest search engines and portals, including NetscapeAOL Search, Google, and Alexa.As of September 8, 2006 the ODP listed 313 English-language Web sites that use ODP data as well as 238 sites in other languages.[7] However these figures do not reflect the full picture of use, as those sites which use ODP data without following the terms of the ODP license are not listed.
I want to be listed on dmoz too!
As more and more search engines and other traffic generators are trusting on the OPD database, I can understand. So now you’ve decided to spend half a minute of your time on submitting your site to dmoz, how do you do that?
Check if you’re not already listed on dmoz by searching your site on dmoz.org. If it’s already there, well, you’re done submitting. If not, proceed to step two.
Find the appropriate category to submit your site to. If you are reading this article, that is most probably Computers: Virtual Reality: Multi-Users Systems: Second Life. If you are Natalia Zelmanov you might want to go with ‘tutorials’ as subcategory, and if you run some kind of Second Life business or RL to SL business you go with the ‘companies’ subcategory. For the Frenchies, Dutchies, Germanies, Spaniesh and Italiesh, if you have a website regarding Second Life in your native language, you can drop the site in those sub categories.
Find the ’suggest URL’ button on the appropriate category page. Or for the lazy ones that want to quick-submit, press here.
Fill in data, read the guidelines, fill in some more data, decipher captcha, fail at that, refresh page, fill in captcha, et voila… it’s done.
Await inclusion in the open directory.
Top-5 of Shame for not submitting to dmoz
Really, if you preach new media, you should have snapped away from SLex - or PS -, lifted the lazy metaversed ass and submitted the website!
Metaversed - ahead of the virtual curve? u’re sure of that?
Zoe Connolly - SL bloggers powerhorse, needs presence on dmoz.
The honorable mention for not being listed goes to Prokofy Neva.
Smart Submitters
If I already knew of the existence of these sites or projects, they get an asterix. If for any reason I dislike them, they get a strike trough. Listings ranked according to Google Pagerank.
Second Life companies
Reuters - http://secondlife.reuters.com/ *
Company portal. Offers news, videos about first and second life news and statistics from their island.
Vstex - http://www.vstex.net
Offers scripting and stock exchange services.
Advanced Virtual - http://www.advancedvirtual.com
Provides strategic consulting and practical resources to corporate and academic clients setting up a presence in the game.
Trade Lindens - http://www.tradelindens.com
Offers to buy and sell linden dollars. Funds delivered in game within 15 minutes.
Meme Science LLC - http://www.memescience.com
Development firm that provides metaverse building and scripting services and metaverse statistics with an emphasis in the Second Life Platform.
Isle of Wyrms - http://www.isleofwyrms.com/ *
Offers to adopt a dragon and follow it from the birth to the grown age.
Nb Horizons - http://www.nbhorizons.com
Offers a service to businesses and organisations that wish to create a corporate presence within the game.
Hosoi Estates - http://www.sl-estates.com/
Offering design and building services for businesses in-world. Includes client list, products available and company profile.
Citrus Virtual Ltd - http://www.citrusvirtual.com/
Content design and creation consultancy for the game. Offers to design uniques virtual environments.
Terra Bella - http://www.terrabella.co.uk
Offers custom terraforming, design services and ready-made raw terrain files.
Ikon Metaverse - http://www.ikonislands.com
Provides islands to rent for personal or business use.
Blue Fusion - http://www.bluefusionsl.com
Jazz club. Promote artists and music in the game.
Phillip Stonewall - http://phillip-stonewall.de/
Escort and architect. Presentation of its realizations.
Luna Bliss - http://www.lunabliss.us/
Offers design and sim building services. Information, projects and contact.
TheSLAgency - http://www.theslagency.com/
Offers in-world brand marketing and event planning services. Includes services, portfolio, and press.
SL Realty - http://www.asecond-life.com
Helps peoples to find a land to buy or rent in the game.
Devonshire Designz - http://www.devonshiredesignz.com
Offers to establish presence to companies and individuals in the game. Sells custom products for Second Life to assist residents in creating an individualized online presence.
Subscribe O Matic - http://www.subscribeomatic.com *
Provides an alternative to advertising with in-world group notices.
Second Life general
Second Life - http://www.secondlife.com/ *
Official website. Provides an online society within a 3D world, where users can explore, build, socialize and participate in their own economy.
Linden Lab - http://www.lindenlab.com/ *
Game’s editor. Presentation and news.
SLurl - http://slurl.com/ *
Offers to create direct links to any place in the game.
Linden Blog - http://blog.secondlife.com/ *
Includes news and tips for the game.
Wikipedia: Second Life - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life *
Includes technical information, history and explanations about how the game functions.
Second Life Herald - http://www.secondlifeherald.com/ *
Presents the game’s events, news and author’s tips.
New World Notes - http://nwn.blogs.com/ *
Blogging the news from SL by Wagner James Au.
Second Life Grid - http://secondlifegrid.net/ *
Describing the technology platform that underlies the virtual world, intended for corporate uses.
Second Life Insider - http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/ *
Weblog with news and tips about both the players and the game.
B.Places - http://b-places.com/
Offers to vote for favorite places in the game. Provides SLurls towards these places and HUDs to travel between b.places.
SL Exchange - http://www.slexchange.com *
Sells objects, clothes and others things used in the game.
Gwyn’s Home - http://gwynethllewelyn.net/ *
A weblog about the game’s news and essays on socio-economic issues.
Lib Second Life - http://www.libsecondlife.org/ *
Project trying to understand the game from a technical aspect.
Second Life Liberation Army - http://secondlla.googlepages.com/ *
Movement for national liberation of the game. Want to establish political rights in it.
Vintfalken - http://www.vintfalken.com *
Offers news from the game focused on snapshotting, designing and building.
Starting a Second Life Business - Entrepreneur.com http://www.entrepreneur.com/startingabusiness/businessideas/article172768.html
Article by Laura Tiffany about the entrepreneurial opportunities that the world has to offer
OnRez - http://www.onrez.com *
Online market for resident created products. Offers free Second Life viewer, free product listing, forum, and blog.
Second Life Project - http://www.secondlifeproject.com
Provides a collection of tools to build and manage projects in the game.
Second Life Cable Network - http://www.slcn.tv/ *
Virtual television delivering video clips of live events that occurred in-world.
Second Life Videos - http://www.secondlifevideo.com/
Provides a directory of movies shot in the game or about it.
Squawk Nest - http://www.squawknest.com/
Offers a directory of good places to visit.
Avimator - http://www.avimator.com
Offers an open source tool to create and edit avatar animations.
Phasing Grace - http://phasinggrace.blogspot.com/ *
Includes perspectives on the trends, culture, technology and user experience within the game.
SLQuery - http://www.slquery.com/
Provides an in-game search engine for objects and places.
SLProfiles - http://www.slprofiles.com *
Second Life online community for all residents. Provides help, blogs, forums, and product listings. A place to meet an establish online friendships and associations.
My Second Life - http://www.mysecondlife.com
Provides a list of locations to see.
Supercharge - http://blog.veyronsupercharge.com/ *
Weblog offering news and information about the game.
SLTweets - http://www.sltweets.com *
Enables researchers to add notes to places in the game and share them with others users.
SLFinances - http://slfinances.net
Provides a wiki about businesses exchanges in the game.
Dryesha - http://www.dryesha.com
A blog by Dr Yesha Sivan that explores and shapes the space between the metaverse and the realverse. Provides links to news about the game.
TinySL - http://www.tinysl.com *
Offers to compress slurls into short web addresses.
Prim Perfect - http://www.primperfect.net/ *
Web magazine and weblog focusing on design of homes, furniture, gardens and landscapes.
Kami Harbinger - http://kamiharbinger.com/ *
Weblog with social and technical commentaries.
SL Account - http://www.sl-account.com
Offers an in-game transactions history tool.
Open Metaverse - http://www.openmetaverse.org/ *
Provides an open source server simulator. [Pre-alpha]
Vam TV - http://www.vamtv.com
Provides an online tv about the game and its news.
SLRepublicans - http://slrepublicans.blogspot.com/
Weblog of the american republicans. Offers news and opinions about the game.
Second Life Update - http://www.secondlifeupdate.com
Blog about experiences and technology in the game.
Iceberg Outpost - http://www.secondlifeiceberg.com/
Floating iceberg off the mainland in the game. Offers a nightclub and a store.
Apez - http://www.apez.biz/
Sells Second Life products, financial services, leasing, and banking services, all related to Second Life residents.
Second Life Music forum - http://www.secondlife-music.eu
Information about music and streaming in the game. Free registration, forum, and chat.
Shadow Consumer - http://www.shadowconsumer.com
Explores economic concepts of the shadow consumer, metaverses, 3D worlds, and features slideshows on education using virtual worlds.
sl2go - http://www.sl2go.com/ *
Provides a directory of places including pictures, descriptions and direct links.
Wicked Toast - http://www.wickedtoast.com/article.php?id=108
Review, with screen shots. Score: 4 out of 5.
ShinyLife - http://shiny-life.com
Offers tutorials, free tools, artist exhibits, videos and events in Second Life.
Apolon Online - http://www.apolon-online.com
Motorized creation in Second Life. Lists slurls, links, and support pertaining to products.
Gogolita - http://www.gogolita.com
News, photos, and feedback about the game.
My Freels - http://neograph734.awardspace.com/
Offers 8 ways to make money in the game.
The Seventh Sun - http://www.theseventhsun.com
Monthly paper providing coverage of issues, technologies, and culture.
Pretty Str8 Forward - http://prettystr8forward.blogspot.com/
Fashion blog covering new releases, product reviews, fashion related events and contests, appearance tips and tricks, discounts and freebie notices
Second Life tutorials, faq and help
Second Life Resources - http://www.2lifeblog.com *
Offers resources, scripting guide and tutorials.
SLTutorials - http://www.sltutorials.net *
Offers tutorials and help for new players.
SLBuilding - http://www.slbuilding.com/
Offers tutorials and information to create objects in the game.
Sam’s life in Lost Gardens - http://saminlostgarden.free.fr
Offers news and tips about the game.
Somewhere next week, CNN will start to distribute in-world kits that allow Second Life Residents to send newsworthy items directly to CNN, comparible to their real life i-Reports system. With a minor investement CNN hopes to envolve the Residents, if not only by promoting the news network as a ‘journalism school’ where interaction with CNN’s real life journalists will be possible.
“We looked at what are people doing that is meaningful to what we do,” said Susan Grant, executive vp of CNN News Services. “I love that we don’t have to take things from the real world and force them in.”
In fact, CNN’s aim in establishing the virtual bureau—which required “very little investment,” according to Grant—is to learn. “I don’t think we are betting the whole farm on it,” she said. “It’s one aspect of many ways we are engaging with users.”
I wonder if this - despite the ‘journalism counselling’ will catch on. Reuters is overall accepted as a serious and official news source for Second Life news and residents that wanted to be a reporter could already do so for the Second Life Herald, the Second Life Insider and the Avastar - often in exchange for a small (?) amount of Linden Dollars. And when extremely desperate for being heard, they could start their own blog and call it a newspaper. ;)
Ah well, we’ll see. Nice initiative none the less. =)
Let us hope this official anounce will mean the end of using the slash at live music performances in Second Life, so that Dolmere can finally find peace of mind. For those to lazy to even click: in the Client Menu go to Debug Settings and set ‘PlayTypingAnim’ to False to stop the typing animation and typing sound when you type in main chat. Is there also a ‘PlaySnapshottingAnim’ option?
I find myself asking two questions after this blogpost:
What grid problems are we facing tomorrow - or right now - as you call in Torley to colorfully distract us?
It’s just that the next best thing RenderGlow = True really really really confuses my graphics card. Find the flaws:
PS. Although I have ‘local lights’ enabled in my graphics preferences, RenderLight = True still makes a difference. *confused Neko scratching behind her ears*
DoSL.cc - which is still in Beta with strange characters Vint can’t read - is a new free SLurl bookmarking system for Second Life from Japanese origin.
In-world you can look at all your bookmarked SLurls on a personated overview page in the HUD. For the website’s functionality, you can see all comments on a certain location and all the persons that commented upon that place.
After registration, you’ll be able to add a user picture that will be shown with your DoSL bookmarks. Tracking the bookmarks of people you added as your friends is also a feature, although I didn’t figure out how to do that yet.
Still puzzled over the characters. *grins* If you want more information on DoSL, I suggest you start to bug Nock for a translation. ;)
In addition a new shopping site is being added. Which you can view here. It combines the browsing style of an online store with the ease of use of posting a forum post anyone can place an ad easily you just need a picture of the product, a SLURL link to where to buy it, and boom. As a shopper, you can add things to your wish list so you can easily go back to them when you want to buy them in world.
If you know anyone who sells stuff, let them know about it - He hasn’t done a formal launch yet as he would like to get it filled with more content. The new SLU Classifieds site initially it will just contain new product announcements, but will expand to contain land for sale and rent, help wanted, and more. In creating new forums, Cristiano didn’t want repeat the same format that has been used over and over again ad nauseum.
Avatars United (AU) is a community website bringing virtual characters from all online worlds together. The project is built in recognition of the fact that strong bonds and close friendships actually can be tied within virtual spaces. AU has furthermore gone one step further in recognizing virtual personas as personas in their own right by building a community for avatars only. Anyone involved in any type of virtual world is familiar with addressing people using their avatar names even after having gotten to know them. With tools to communicate with, find and track old virtual friends and share experiences from virtual realms AU wishes to stand out as a community highlighting the social aspect of life within virtual worlds.
If you just occasionaly upload texturs, the 10L$/texture upload is not a big thing. But if you are a poor n00b - no offense - or have tons and tons of textures to upload, or even just a few for non-commercial experimenting reasons, the 10L$ fee for uploading textures to Second Life quickly starts to become annoying.
Somewhere next week, CNN will start to distribute in-world kits that allow Second Life Residents to send newsworthy items directly to CNN, comparible to their real life i-Reports system. With a minor investement CNN hopes to envolve the Residents, if not only by promoting the news network as a ‘journalism school’ where interaction with CNN’s real life journalists will be possible.
I wonder if this - despite the ‘journalism counselling’ will catch on. Reuters is overall accepted as a serious and official news source for Second Life news and residents that wanted to be a reporter could already do so for the Second Life Herald, the Second Life Insider and the Avastar - often in exchange for a small (?) amount of Linden Dollars. And when extremely desperate for being heard, they could start their own blog and call it a newspaper. ;)
DoSL.cc - which is still in Beta with strange characters Vint can’t read - is a new free SLurl bookmarking system for Second Life from Japanese origin.
I think they should add a ’services’ section. (And no! Not - solely - ‘that kind’ of services.)
