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Philip Rosedale - TIME 100 Roundtables. Second Life: Moving Away from Server Class. The Korea Herald : The Nation's No.1 English Newspaper. Is a virtual 'second life' for real, ask religious communicators. Is an online alternate life for real, and how does it relate to the life of faith? Christian and other faith communicators plan to discuss the latest web phenomenon at a major gathering in Chicago next year.

The hot interactive media topic will be tackled by David Louder, a Lutheran (ELCA) Campus Pastor at Western Michigan University, at the Religion Communication Congress scheduled for 7-10 April 2010. Focusing on the virtual world of Second Life (SL), the presentation and workshop will offer examples of ways in which faith communities are employing SL to share, develop and communicate religious commitment. Participants will consider additional possibilities for using SL as a platform in service to faith communities. The pros and cons of virtual worlds as they may impact upon spiritual development will be explored, concentrating on the relationship between virtuality and reality.

Registration for the 2010 gathering in Chicago is now open. Students, that tweet may be your professor || OnlineAthens.com. The Wired Campus - Second Life Duty Is Now Required for Penn Sta. Denver -- Plenty of colleges have a presence in Second Life. Pennsylvania State University is taking that a step further. Academic advisers at the university’s online campus are now required to be available for meetings with students in the virtual world every week, a Penn State official said during last week’s Educause conference here. Students on the real campus get to chat with their advisers face to face.

Now online students who never set foot there can do the “exact same thing,” says Shannon Ritter, social-networks adviser for the Penn State World Campus. Almost the same thing, anyway. Ms. “Second Life has been a completely new thing to almost all the advisers,” she says. Leaked test feedback offers insights into Linden Lab design proc. Back, just before Halloween, a Linden Lab staffer accidentally sent an email intended for internal circulation to a mailing list containing quite a number of Second Life users. We were sent a copy a few minutes later, and the email was widely circulated among developers of third-party Second Life viewers by Halloween.

What caught people's eye about the email was how harsh it was when it came to describing aspects of the upcoming Second Life Viewer 2.0 user-interface (the key feature of that software). It certainly didn't pull many punches leveling criticism at various design choices that were obviously in evidence in the evaluation version that had come up for testing. And for just that reason we are, after a little thought, rather heartened by it.

The email represents a rather revealing (if accidental) look behind the scenes at the Lab's design and testing processes. Of course, we'll know how much of this feedback has been taken on board once we get our first official look at Viewer 2.0. I gotta be me, or not | pnj.com | Pensacola News Journal. Tufts Daily - UEP program uses Second Life to plan community pro. Philip Rosedale Unveils New Company: "LoveMachi. The mystery around Philip Linden's new company keeps getting, well, mysteriouser. Just announced on his Facebook feed (where he also created an invite-only group for it), the LoveMachine Inc site is pretty sparse so far, except to say, "We believe that the right band of people can work together, have a huge amount of fun, make a bunch of money, and try to save the world.

" Adding a bit more meat to that mission statement is Philip's help wanted ad for an executive assistant posted to Craiglist, which mentions that "what we are doing is about Artificial Intelligence," then somewhat curiously, says the company will value "freedom, fun, greatness, and the destruction of the ego". (My theology is a bit rusty, but aren't elimination of the ego and massive money making usually considered mutually exclusive?) In any event, it does seem to involve creating, as I first suggested, a mass market version of the original Love Machine, apparently with some AI functionality. I gotta be me, or not | pnj.com | Pensacola News Journal. Canada, Intellectual Property, Linden Lab Aims To Make (Second) Terms & Conditions and Privacy Statement Mondaq.com (the Website) is owned and managed by Mondaq Ltd and as a user you are granted a non-exclusive, revocable license to access the Website under its terms and conditions of use.

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The hot interactive media topic will be tackled by David Louder, a Lutheran (ELCA) Campus Pastor at Western Michigan University, at the Religion Communication Congress scheduled for 7-10 April 2010. Focusing on the virtual world of Second Life (SL), the presentation and workshop will offer examples of ways in which faith communities are employing SL to share, develop and communicate religious commitment.

Participants will consider additional possibilities for using SL as a platform in service to faith communities. The pros and cons of virtual worlds as they may impact upon spiritual development will be explored, concentrating on the relationship between virtuality and reality. (Ekklesia) Back to list. BigPond pulls plug on Second Life. In busier times ... The Australia Day celebrations on BigPond's Second Life island. Telstra has decided to close its doors on Second Life, evicting the residents of its virtual BigPond Island and revoking their unmetered usage, in a move that has infuriated some subscribers.

BigPond's islands will cease to exist on December 16, signalling an end to its two-year “experiment” with Second Life, and residents of the swanky virtual Pond Estate have been given a month to relocate elsewhere. Second Life is a virtual world that enables members to build or trade in-world objects and interact through their "avatars". According to a Second Life enthusiast, as many as 1600 users could be affected by BigPond's closure, many of whom are socially isolated or disabled and unable to afford to continue maintaining their presence on the virtual world without unmetered usage. Advertisement Telstra spokesman Craig Middleton confirmed today that the company was abandoning its presence on Second Life.

Dragonfish breaks new ground with Second Life retail game tie | Why Second Life needs OpenSim. As the number of virtual worlds proliferates, Second Life is beset on all sides — niche worlds, big social worlds, high-end worlds, inexpensive worlds, browser-based worlds, kid worlds, business worlds and many more. Today, Second Life has the clear first-mover advantage when it comes to mixed-use social worlds, but consumer tastes change quickly. Just as Facebook has eclipsed MySpace, so some newer, flashier, richer world might come to eclipse Second Life. What sets Second Life apart from all these potential competitors is that Second Life is only virtual world which is a part of a larger ecosystem, a hypergrid where goods and services can be shared between different worlds. Let’s say you’re a school or a museum that can’t afford $55,000 to put up a private grid with Second Life Enterprise or $295 a month per region plus a $1,000 setup fee to be on the public Second Life grid.

That’s like being able to host your website with Windows Server or with the open source Apache server. Alan Reiter - Online 'Love Machine' Propose. 'Virtual graduation' for students. A university is to hold a "virtual graduation ceremony" for students on a distance learning course. Edinburgh University will broadcast the ceremony at its McEwan Hall on to the Second Life web community. The move will ensure students on its E-Learning course who are unable to travel to Edinburgh do not miss out on the graduation celebrations. They will be able to download robes for their online avatars, and gather in a virtual bar after the ceremony. Second Life is an online 3D world where users can interact with each other through their avatars - graphic representations of themselves. The masters programme - aimed mainly at professionals working in higher and further education - has already broken new ground with Twitter tutorials, online learning and new forms of digitally-enabled assessment.

Course leaders said the new idea for a graduation ceremony was a model that could work well for other distance learning programmes. Does anyone still use Second Life? : Christopher Null : Yahoo! T. Linden Lab swats down BBC report on Second Life, says consumer m. Five Facts About Second Life the BBC Doesn't Un. The BBC's recent magazine article, "What Happened to Second Life? ", written by Lauren Hansen and edited by Jonathan Duffy, is so incandescently bad, to read it is to feel the entire institution's credibility undermined. After all, if the BBC can get one relatively simple technology story so patently, thoroughly wrong, you have to wonder: What other news items are they bunging up as badly?

Some 800 words long, it boasts at least five significant errors which erode its thesis almost wholly: 1. The BBC Misreported Second Life's User Numbers "The number of people joining the site jumped from 450,000 to four million in 2007. " Hansen offers no citation for these figures, and they're contrary to all known data. 2. "But just as quickly as it had flared, media interest ebbed away. While it's true media coverage of Second Life has fallen from its nosebleed peaks of 2007, it does not follow that media interest has "ebbed away". 3. 4. This is wrong in at least two ways. 5. Linden Lab to BBC: consumer market is 'primary focus' ( - Intern. When it comes to Second Life, some people just can't forget the bursting of the hype bubble following the first early wave of excitement. I harped on the reality check for in-world corporate activities too, but that was years ago.

For some strange reason, the BBC still thinks it's news, judging by Lauren Hansen's "What happened to Second Life? " article posted last week on the BBC News Magazine. Second Life's parent company, Linden Lab, clearly felt misled. An official Second Life blog post republished the BBC's original pitch ("[Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon] was recently interviewed via email by a reporter for the BBC who was working on a story that would be "a look at Second Life today - what's it up to, where's it going, why so quiet in the media after such great press a few years ago, etc.

") and implied that the reporter hadn't really experienced Second Life ("we'd love to bring her inworld so she can see firsthand that there's much more to the virtual world"). This is important. Second annual Linden Prize announced - Massively. Memorable, Unique Experiences in Asia Just For You. New life for Second Life. Second Life’s Virtual Naval Undersea Warfare Center | VizWorld.c. It’s no secret that the US Government and Military have been investigating virtual environments for some time, and Second Life has been a popular playground for both simulation research and recruiting. In an interview on Second Life’s blog, Douglas Maxwell from the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) talks about how they’ve integrated Second Life into their environment.

Amanda: How does NUWC use Second Life? Doug: We use Second Life and the Second Life Enterprise in a number of ways. The virtual NUWC campus in Second Life is composed of 13 sims, all named for classes of submarine. The easternmost sims are dedicated to public outreach and recruiting of scientists and engineers. Our visitor’s center has representative information from all of our various divisions, including Combat Systems, Sonar, Ranges, Unmanned Vehicles, and more. Via Second Life Blogs: Working Inworld: Three questions for Douglas Maxwell on Virtual NUWC: Second Life and Undersea Warfare. Share. Review: The Second Death of Caspar Helendale. Any computer gamer, even the most casual, has stared death in the face; on a bad day or a difficult level, I can confront my mortality maybe a dozen times in as many minutes.

Generally, though, death in video games is a minor issue – the screen goes black and you return to the last time you saved the game. When death and rebirth happen so quickly, why fear the reaper? Massively multiplayer online role-playing games and shared universes are a little different. Death isn't just a gameplay question but a business decision: if a player has to restart at level one after years of patient skill development, the game has very possibly lost that player, and his or her monthly subscription payment.So the penalties for being eaten by a troll in World of Warcraft are fairly trivial, at least relative to those for being eaten by a troll in real life. But behind every one of your fellow adventurers is a frail, vulnerable human being. Preneur Magazine» Second Life Machinima: SL Super Bowl Doritos M. Machinima by Silver and Goldie entered the 2010 Doritos® Crash the Super Bowl contest with a :30 commercial spot filmed entirely within the Second Life® virtual world.

“This is one more example of how enterprises can use Second Life,” said producer Beverly Lang, known in Second Life as Goldie Goodman. The challenge for contestants is to produce a Doritos brand Super Bowl XLVI commercial that’s action-packed or funny. The contest’s judges will choose six finalists to be awarded $25,000 and a trip to Florida, then the public will vote for the top three spots to air during the big game. “We definitely believe that machinima is ready for prime time, and a Super Bowl ad competition is a unique opportunity to bring Second Life machinima to a much larger audience than ever before,” said director/editor David Lang, who is Silver Goodman in Second Life. The Langs are the co-owners of the virtual world filmmaking firm, Machinima by Silver and Goldie. 9 Ways To Make Second Life™ Run Faster On Your Low Performance C. Joel Foner 2009-12-06 * Added the “How To Make Your Viewer Run Even Faster (when you really need the most you can get!)” Section Joel Foner 2009-12-08 * Added “Stay Plugged In” (thanks to Ignatius Onomatopoea for this tip) Joel Foner 2010-03-25 * Added “Remember to re-check all of these settings after any viewer updates, uninstall and reinstall or installation of an alternative viewer version!”

Joel Foner 2010-03-26 * Added Understanding the Maximum Bandwidth Option in the Second Life Viewer * Added “If you’re Not Using Voice, Turn it Off!” Introduction Second Life™ provides a 3D visualization of virtual environments, dynamically rendered so that you can make changes and any other avatar within sight sees those changes in almost real time. The good news is that all of this is possible. This article shows how to improve the operating speed of the viewer on low performance computer hardware. But I Just Bought A Machine. Will These Changes Make Everything Faster On Every Machine? The Caveats. Blue Mars Developer Partners with the Smithsonian Institution - Second Life demonstrates mingling of real and virtual worlds --

Virtual Wreaths now on Sale in Second Life to benefit Kiva.org - Is Linden Lab wasting its time on the existing Second Life popul. Live Stream from Copenhagen Climate Change Talks into Second Lif. Second Life Gets A Life 2.0 At Sundance. Second Life Documentary Selected To Premiere At. Virtual world to offer chiropractic students unique patient expe.

Second Life demonstrates mingling of real and virtual worlds -- Second Life's Path to Mainstream Adoption: Becoming a Friendlier. There’s nothing to do in Second Life « Dwell On It. Will Virtual Worlds Make a Comeback? Property, Second Life, backups and you - Massively. Businesses get a Second Life : News : Internet - ZDNet Asia.