The Story of My “Second Life”

Good morning all, When I saw the OCZ Neural Impulse Actuator (NIA) advertised in an email flyer from Mwave.com, one of my favorite technology stores, I thought, no way … this can’t be real. A brain control interface (BCI), as a CONSUMER PRODUCT, available RIGHT NOW for $99.99 (after rebate)?!?! Oh yes, it’s real. Check [...]

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This is really exciting news, folks … in case you missed the IBM and Linden Lab Interoperability Announcement, a team of IBM and LL researchers have successfully teleported from Second Life to an OpenSim virtual world. Let’s go to the video: Though talked about for a while, this truly significant development underscores the technical prowess, [...]

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How cool is this … and perfect timing, too! Back in September 2007 I noticed an article about Second Life in the New Jersey Association for Educational Technology’s online journal. It was a stock piece from ISTE, and it was good, but I figured the talented crew of New Jersey-based ISTE Docents here could put [...]

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Bernajean Porter kindly forwarded me this link today, and after reading the article and watching the video below, I have renewed optimism about the future of virtual worlds, particularly in education. Not because I think a Segway-style interface for Second Life will transform teaching and learning in virtual space, but because really, really smart people [...]

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Hi everyone, Last week, Philip Linden was part of a panel that testified before a U.S. Congressional subcommittee meeting chaired by representative John D. Dingle (D-MI) entitled: “Online Virtual Worlds: Applications and Avatars in a User-Generated Medium.” Philip was joined by: Ms. Susan Tenby, Senior Manager of Community Development at TechSoup; Dr. Larry Johnson, Chief [...]

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Technology Review, my new favorite magazine, has a very interesting article about emerging M.U.V.E. interoperability standards that is worth reading. Twenty companies including Linden Lab, IBM and others have begun working on common standards that might ultimately allow avatars to move freely between worlds, like the article says, just as we do now with websites. [...]

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Got a link to this article in MIT’s November/December 2007 Technology Review (free registration required) questioning the monetary policies in effect within Second Life amid the collapse of Ginko Financial, a Second Life only bank, whose demise has been linked to the removal of gambling from the metaverse. Ginko’s problems were pointed out early (file [...]

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I heard that a recent Law & Order: SVU featured a virtual environment called Another YOUniverse, loosely patterned after Second Life. I don’t watch TV, but the good folks over on the SLED listserv have the skinny about the episode. Apparently not to be outdone, CSI: New York is actually basing an episode in Second [...]

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For those of us trying to help our organizations, colleagues and communities get their heads around Second Life, articles in the mainstream media about SL and it’s potential are often a good place to start. While you can watch blogs and other websites for these tidbits yourself, or wait for friends to email you URLs, [...]

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The Grid Live offers this well-researched post detailing what appears to be preparations by Google to enter the virtual world space. In short: a virtual world pilot project getting underway at Arizona State University seems to have a hint of Googly goodness (and the university has a long-standing and documented working relationship with Mother Google). [...]

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