Week In Review 28.12.08

More of a "Year In Review" this week as we take a look back whilst awaiting 2009.



Part One. Tara and I present our own highlights of the year. Plus snowball fights with the Lindens, "Tinies" go carolling, non-news from MBC and more.



Part Two. A demonstration of Emotiv System's new brain-sensor headsets. Tara takes a peek at Oddfellow's balls and we take a tour of the acclaimed "Macbeth" sim in Second Life.

Party Day

... and inworld HERE. Happy Day all!

MBC Weekly News 12-21-2008

All the latest from Dousa Dragonah and recka Wuyts at MBC news.

more about "MBC Weekly News 12-21-2008", posted with vodpod

Week In Review: Solstice Day Edition

How lucky for us - today was a day we could safely celebrate worldwide without bias. The usual news and serious stuff got mixed in with some frivolity.



Part one, in which this presenter takes his avatar form for a tour of our new inworld offices. Plus Tara's footage from Vast Park and a look back on the week past.



Part two, in which we play more clips and announce what's coming up. Plus some out-of-character tomfoolary for the sake of it!

MBC Weekly News 12-16-2008

Today's news from Recka, Dousa and company at MBC.

more about "MBC Weekly News 12-16-2008", posted with vodpod

Metaverse Week In Review - 14 Dec

Feature packed again this week.



Part one with guests Kwame Oh and Debs Regent from SL London, plus news and reflections on the week.



Part two with more chat, clips and a look back at the metaverse of 20 years ago through a Lucasfilm promo for "Habitat".

Out and About with Dousa Dragonash

MBC always seem to publish just after we go off air. No weekly news yet but here's a great episode of Dousa's location programme with Phaylin of "Divas" fame.

more about "Out and About with Dousa Dragonash", posted with vodpod

Metaverse Week In Review - 7th Dec

Packed show again today. So busy we had to hold back some content for next week. JoJa also joined us from Holland to report on next year's SLCC Europe.



Part One



Part Two.

For lively audience backchat and more see our main show site.

Rosedale at Ted

Recorded in May this year, this interview with Second Life founder Philip Rosedale was released today by Ted. Choose one of the two options to play.

Role Magazine

Debut issue for a new inworld magazine.

This week's show had to run from Mogulus whilst the regular studio was being repaired. Enjoy.

Part 2: Introduction to Second Life for Businesses

Continuation of Peter Dunkley film.

Part 1: Introduction to Second Life for Businesses

From Peter Dunkley.

Metaverse week In review (23/11)

A belated posting of last week's show. I normally cue this with MBC news so it got forgotten earlier. We will be live again tonight (UK 8pm) (noon SLT) at MWIR so come check us out and chat with the studio.



Part One.



Part Two.

Lively Re-invented?

Get your free Meetsee virtual office at: http://www.meetsee.com.

Finding out.

Week In Review - 16th Nov

Here are both parts of yesterday's show with Mal Burns and Tara Yeats. The live version is now based at MWIR where we have managed to use the "Cover It Live" blogging service to replace the borked chat at Blogstar.



Part One.



Part Two.

MBC Weekly News 11-16-08

This week's inworld bulletin from Dousa and Recka at MBC.

more about "MBC Weekly News 11-16-08", posted with vodpod

News Diabetes UK in Second Life

The clip is in French but you get the jist. A location well worth checking out, especially if you are in the UK and especially too today of course.

Future Retail In SecondLife

How will retail stores do business in the future? In the Swiss town of Regensdorf, SAP Research, together with partners, is testing the supermarket of the future. RFID technology and SAP know-how make it happen.

The Revolution will be Syndicated

A session from the recent "Rock The Academy" event held by the New Media Consortium.

The coming revolution will be syndicated through a web of feeds making ideas ever easier to find. Sharing will no longer be the exception, but the rule. Enduring these hard, transitional times takes not only a revolutionary mindset, but the resourcefulness of a survivalist, therefore the methods we will examine are not only mind altering, but they are also very cheap, flexible, and open.

This presentation will involve some performance art in an effort to "revolutionize" how we imagine web-based publishing in higher education. Be ready to doff the chains of LMS slavery and join the brave new world of web-publishing in the Age of Syndication.

more about "The Revolution will be Syndicated", posted with vodpod

Symposium 3 with Philip Rosedale

We ran this live at the time, but this is the former Linden Lab CEO delivering a 52 minute address in Amsterdam recently. Well worth revisiting although it pre-dated more recent announcements by Mark Kingdon, the current CEO.

more about "Symposium 3 with Philip Rosedale", posted with vodpod

Second Life 2.0

Don't ask! This video appeared today on YouTube - click through for more information in what is probably German language copy.

Metaverse Week In Review - 9th November

Once again we found ourselves without a live chatroom, but it was a full show regardless.



In part one we had our general news roundup and heard from Crap Mariner and Clubside in the studio.



In part two - some more chat and the chance to catch up with clips.

Metaverse Week In Review

A bit late posting last Sunday's show here. We were plagued by problems reminiscent of the old Operator11 site - mostly the lack of audience chat.



Part one. Latest topics, discussion and clips.



Part two. More clips and live chat.

Open Space Sim Discussion

A special debate from MBC news. As we post this, M Linden has just issued a blog statement on the launch of "Homesteads" and certain amount of back down on the announced policy discussed here. Nonetheless, this is an interesting debate and worthy of watching.

more about "Open Space Sim Discussion", posted with vodpod

MBC Weekly News 11-3-08

The latest weekly inworld bulletin from Dousa and Recka at MBC.

more about "MBC Weekly News 11-3-08", posted with vodpod

Week In Review - 26th Oct

A packed show again today.



In Part One we look back at Virtual Worlds London and other events in and around the conference.



In Part Two we continue with more reviews of the week, some forthcoming events and a clip from Keystone Bouchard.

Mark Kingdon in Paris

Shortly after last weekend's Virtual Worlds London, Linden lab's CEO headed over to France en route to Germany. He gave this chat to selected press at a luncheon.

more about "Mark Kingdon in Paris", posted with vodpod

Out and About with Dousa Dragonash

Latest from inworld broadcaster MBC, a new roaming exploration hosted by the delightful Dousa Dragonash.

more about "Out and About with Dousa Dragonash", posted with vodpod

Rowan Barnett - What is Second Life?

For the archive really. An interesting recent clip featuring the editor of the now sadly refunct Avastar. That said, it's still online feauring a selection of their past stories.

Reports from Virtual World London

From the conference strand on Seesmic...

Re: Virtual Words LondonMatt Furman http://www.northropgrumman.com

For more see our backchannel at http://www.mogulus.com/metaworld2

MBC Weekly News 10/17/08

Dousa and Recka return with this week's news from MBC - one of the best inworld television channels. Highlights of current affairs in both RL and SL.

more about "MBC Weekly News 10/17/08", posted with vodpod

MBC Weekly News 10-14-2008

The latest inworld new bulletin with Dousa and Recka at MBC.

more about "MBC Weekly News 10-14-2008", posted with vodpod

Roseale: Better than the real world?

Yet another interview with Philip Rosedale at Picnic has surfaced. Enjoy.

more about "Roseale: Better than the real world?", posted with vodpod

Metaverse Week In Review: 12th October

As time goes by it seems harder and harder to fit everything we want into 90 minutes. But we try.



Part one featured the usual roundup, reports on the refugees at VWE and also a guest slot in the form of surprise arrival, musician Cylindrian Rutabaga.



Part two was largely devoted to an interview with Mark Kingdon plus some other short items.

Look out for an extra edition with some catch-up clips and advance news sometime this week.

Metaverse Week In Review

A bit late posting this. It was a busy show on Sunday and news was breaking that the Virtual Worlds Forum here in London had been postponed. As it turned out some informal unplugged events were hastily scheduled and the last two days have been a flurry of activity.



The first part of Sunday's show with the usual roundup.



Part two, with more people coming into the studio as they heard our discussion in progress.

MBC Weekly News 10-7-08

The latest news bulletin from inworld station MBC with Recka and Dousa.

more about "MBC Weekly News 10-7-08", posted with vodpod

MBC Weekly News 9/29/2008

The latest MBC Weekly News with Dousa Dragonash and Recka Wuyts. The team looks at web in 3d Exit Reality, the Financial Crisis, SLART vs Linden Lab and more.

more about "MBC Weekly News 9/29/2008", posted with vodpod

Metaverse Week In Review - 28th Sept

A packed show this week.



In Part One we look at Roland Legrand's interview with Philip Rosedale at Picnic last week, plus a look at the preview at Eduverse and the regular guest slot from Crap Mariner. Also, some news from Nortel.



In Part Two, Dizzy Banjo reports from inworld at the Burning Life builds, we welcome Clubside in a guest spot and take a look back at the Virtual Worlds Expo.

Election 2008

A bit of light relief (or wishful thinking) while we do our best to ignor the farce in the organic sim.

"Swift Kick Moms for Truth" is a one-minute “machinima” video featuring virtual versions of Obama’s grandma and McCain’s mother scolding the candidates for their deceptive ads. Lead-in by virtual Tom Brokaw. Created in the Second Life® virtual world by Machinima by Silver and Goldie, with voice artist Mark Winston.

more about "Election 2008", posted with vodpod

Second Life Book Display

Second Life Book Display
Originally uploaded by Librarian Avenger.

In case you were in any doubt, people do seem to be writing a lot about Second Life these days.

Now there's also "Second Life For Dummies" and ... etc!

Good to see a library or bookshop display like this though - maybe the skeptics will see the interest and think twice.

MBC Weekly News 9-22-08

The latest news from inworld TV channel MBC.

more about "MBC Weekly News 9-22-08", posted with vodpod

Philip Rosedale @ Picnic

A video interview with Philip Rosedale, Chairman of Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life.

This interview by Roland Legrand and Sarah Godard, journalists working for Mediafin, the publisher of the Belgian business newspapers De Tijd and L'Echo.

more about "Philip Rosedale @ Picnic", posted with vodpod

Our Hangout in Hangout

Our new web based meeting room. Only on Windows right now and best in Firefox or 3B browsers. It's fast and furious running under Flash instead of VRML or Java. Voice and video enabled. It does need a small extension download, but is painless we think.

View Mal's MetaHub in 3B!

Even better, this is the MetaHub on the web using 3B. 3B is a combination of virtual spaces viewer and a customised Firefox browser. Mode toggle is simple and easy based on the portals displayed as walls. You can jump into our "Hangout" from here (see above) or view websites. I have put experimental screens for inDuality, Ajax Life and other metaverse portals in place and they seem to work fine too.

Who needs Lively? (It won't even install for me anyway!)

The nice thing about these two is that they provide an interactive destination we can give to regular web users (via standard Urls) and that graphical screens will provide access to other fully-fledged metaverses like Second Life through SLurls etc.

I will be running a session at the start of Orange's "Innovations" week in Second Life starting immediately after Monday's Metanomics show.

MarkTwain White's Journal #2

The second installment of the MTW Video Journal takes us to Virtual Worlds Expo in Los Angeles where MarkTwain was joined by ZATZAi Asturias. ZAT's great commentary and video footage are featured.

Week In Review - 21st Sept

Yet another full show this week as we switched to Blogstar - loads of back-chat and hitch-free broadcast.



Part one with news resume and current clips.



Part two - more clips and discussion, plus a short feline tribute and yet another experimental viewer.

Week in Review Re-Run

We returned to our old home Operator11 for Sunday's show only to find glitches in their studio system still remain.



We actually got a fair way into part one before losing sound, discussing the week and showing a few clips. You'll need to excuse the mess at the end though.



A few minutes later we were back with part two with a quick switch to Blogstar's studio. A look back and SLCC and other goodies. We will almost certainly do next week's show at Blogstar until Op11 gets it's act together again. If!

MBC Weekly News 9-14-08

The latest bulletin from the inworld news programme.

more about "MBC Weekly News 9-14-08", posted with vodpod

Second Life: A Virtual Frontier

Drew Carey takes us on a guided tour of Second Life, a virtual world.

Metaverse Week In Review

It being the midst of SLCC and our problems with Operator11, we didn't expect much of a turnout for this week's show. We were wrong. A hasty switch-over to the Blogstar site and things were up and running without a hitch.



Part One with news updates, Slim Warrior's new video and a look at "Spore" with Dizzy Banjo.



Part Two with more chat, clips and a whole lot of back-chat with the studio audience.

SLCC Feed

Scott Merrick is providing one of the most reliable audio/video feeds from the convention. May be live above right now.

In Here

The video for "In Here", the latest single by British musician Slim Warrior, filmed inside Second Life by Angelico Babii. Sublime!

VastPark announces becoming an open source platform with the release of Immersion, a web-based virtual worlds’ player.

Los Angeles (September 3rd, 2008) – VastPark, a white label virtual world platform company, announced their new generation web-based virtual worlds’ player called Immersion today.

VastPark announced that the Immersion player will be open source from its first release.

The Immersion player will enable virtual worlds created using VastPark's open specifications to be embedded into websites and explored, using one of the major web browsers. Web-based virtual worlds have gained a lot of interest with the recent release of Google's Lively and other platforms.
"We think that virtual worlds will start to become more utilitarian: you can create a room in minutes and decide to have a VoIP based meeting in there. This will lead to many businesses wanting to host their own micro worlds just as they host their website. We want to make that easy, low cost and provide an open source and a commercial white label software choice." says Bruce Joy, CEO and founder of VastPark.

VastPark's current Browser and Viewer technology will be merged into the Immersion player.  The first release will be a desktop version with the following release being a web-browser plug-in that is aimed at all major browsers.

"It will feature the scriptable PowerPoint-style controls that made the Viewer's 3D presentations work so well" says Craig Presti, Lead Developer.
"This is an exciting step towards VastPark becoming a true open source alternative. We have previously announced that the core of our server code would become open source. Today we've finally put the VastServer Core source code online for anyone to download and use. Now we're announcing that our new client software code named the Immersion Player will be open source as well." explains Bruce Joy. "It was always my hope to have a mix of open source and commercially licensed tools that use the best available open royalty free specifications and the best proprietary middleware."

The source code developed by VastPark will be released under multiple licenses. "Our intention is to release under both the GPL 2 and the GPL 3 as well as under a simple commercial license. This means we hope to satisfy both the needs of open source and commercial developers." says Bruce Joy.
Steve Eagle, VP of Strategy and an investor in VastPark explains, 'I'm excited about this, because, for the immersive Web to become mainstream, we need to strike that balance: specifications and code should be open source and the end user software must include the best games technology. It must keep pace with top quality games and work on a wider array of computers and devices without great rendering technology. Lastly we need to really enable the developer community to sell proprietary 3rd party add-ons in a truly open eco-system. Otherwise we're still talking about a controlled garden like CompuServe or today's Apple AppStore. The Web must be open!"
“VastPark is built for developers, by developers”, explains Craig Presti. "The whole system is easily extended by developers creating plugins that can remain proprietary or be open sourced at the discretion of the developer. We’ll continue to release binaries under an entrepreneur friendly end user license. That's much better than being essentially forced to open source your widget or your plug-in by the GNU GPL. We think there's a middle way."

The outcome will ensure that there will be more companies able to run their own immersive online meeting, training and demonstration spaces and embed them right into their websites. The immersive Web is one step closer.

VastPark is presenting its software at the Virtual Worlds Expo in Los Angeles and can be seen at booth #317.

The Late Show with Angelico Babii

Today's edition of Angelico's "Late Show" from MBC, with guests Space Junky, Michael Buckley, Natasja Schumann, and Ransome Ansome.

more about "The Late Show with Angelico Babii", posted with vodpod

Second Life competing with Cisco Telepresence? | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

Joe Miller of Linden Labs talking to CNET today.

more about "Second Life competing with Cisco Tele...", posted with vodpod

Hurricane Watch

Dedicated to the weather watchers who monitor and warn us of approaching storms.

Filmed in Second Life at NOAA's site Meteora.

MBC Weekly News 8/29/08

Today's news from MBC.

more about "MBC Weekly News 8/29/08", posted with vodpod

I Dig Tanzania Virtual Summer Camp

In July 2008, Global Kids, the Field Museum and the Biodiversity Synthesis Center collaborated on an innovative project to teach kids in Chicago and New York about paleontology, scientific field research, and Tanzania culture using the virtual world of Teen Second Life. For more information, contact shawna-at-globalkids.org.

Metaverse Week In Review - 24th August

Two parts again today. We got the broadcasting of clips fixed just in time for Firefox to do a dirty at startup, but think we prevailed.



Part one features a bit of chat plus a 30 minute replay of an excellent "Viewpoint" programme from earlier this week.



Part two with some art installation clips, more that with Mal and Tara, plus Dizzy Banjo live inworld from Artropolis.

Nurien Software's Nurien Demo

More "wow" factor?

Nurien Software have made an amazing social networking world like Second Life. It is much more graphically detailed because they used physx technology from Nvidia.

Awesome Photosynth Demo

Nuff said.

more about "Awesome Photosynth Demo", posted with vodpod

Week In Review - 17th August

Well, this evening's show is over and there was more chaos with the Operator11 site malfunctioning. As a result, part one here only lasted 20 minutes before the reboot.



After the reboot, things went smoother with the latest MBC news, an Australian TV feature on Second Life and more. Enjoy.

Joseph Jaffe Video Interview

Joseph Jaffe arrives in Australia for a whirlwind speaking tour on 19th August. In the run-up to Joseph's arrival, Marketingmag.com.au is posting parts of a long interview conducted with Joseph using the online video conferencing software ooVoo.

In this clip, Connie Reece, communications consultant and social media maven asks Joseph "Does having a presence in Second Life remain important for Crayon [Joseph's company] and for what type of business would Second Life be effective outreach?"

Second Life and Public Health

The University of Michigan's Health Sciences Libraries have produced a video highlighting Second Life and Public Health. Second Life is a virtual world through which an active public health community is simulating disaster scenarios, creating interactive health games, offering people with disabilities a place for support and social networking, and providing a space for professionals to view presentations and attend international conferences. This video showcases the potential of this new media.

SECOND LIFE -Best Multi-Modal Production Thursday's Fictions

This multi-modal production has been put into the Atom finals awards 2008.

Award Recipients‚- Names: Richard James Allen, Gary Hayes, and Karen Pearlman

Award Recipients‚- Organisations: The Physical TV Company, AFTRS LAMP (The Australian Film Television and Radio School - The Laboratory for Advanced Media Production), The Literature Board of the Australia Council ‚- The Story of the Future, and The Project Factory

This documentary devised and edited by Gary Hayes and co-produced with Physical TV.

Voice-overs captured and reassembled from a LAMP Virtual Story seminar in May 2007. http://lamp.edu.au/podcasts/

Thursday's Fictions is a fantastical parable about reincarnation by Australian writer Richard James Allen which has evolved over almost twenty years to become a cross media work for the stage, the page, the screen and most recently the new media creative platforms of Second Life (a 3D online immersive interactive story world) and machinima (cinema made inside a games engine).

NCR / Second Life

Financial primer on business and transactional models characteristic of the Second Life virtual world. Created for National Cash Register (NCR).

Note: 'Room 504' is NCR's internal name for it's research division.

Being Virtual

OK - It's an advert, but we like it. "Being Virtual" is a new book about the social metaverse.

2008 METAVERSE TOUR - THE SOCIAL VIRTUAL WORLD'S A STAGE

The 'Social Virtual' World's A Stage
A Film by Gary Hayes © Personalizemedia 2008
http://www.personalizemedia.com

"This is not a Game"

Over 50 virtual worlds featured including:
Second Life, HiPiHi, Kaneva, Twinity, ActiveWorlds, LagunaBeach vMTV. There.com, Habbo, Google Lively, FootballSuperstars, Weblin, AmazingWorlds, CyWorld, Whyville, Gaia Online, RocketOn, Club Penguin, YoVille, Webkinz, BarbieGirls, Prototerra, IMVU, Spore, vSide, Tale in the Desert, SpineWorld, Stardoll, The Manor, There.com, ExitReality, Vastpark, Qwaq, PS3Home, GoSupermodel, Grockit, Croquet, Metaplace, Coke Studios, Dreamville, Dubit, Mokitown, Moove, Muse, The Palace, Playdo, Sora City, Voodoo Chat, TowerChat, Traveler, Virtual Ibiza.

An Invitation to Collaborate on Understanding Islam

An on-going and worthwhile project from Dancing Ink. This clip is largely aimed at the YouTube audience and their own text is below.

Dancing Ink Productions invites you to collaborate with us on the Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds project. This project is led by Dancing Ink Productions for the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. It is funded by the Richard Lounsbery Foundation.

We seek mixed media (and mixed reality infused with a healthy dose of accountability and thoughtfulness).

This project seeks global collaboration with those who wish to contribute to a deeper understanding of Islam through internet participation and collaboration. We invite you to respond to this message with a video of your own that might illuminate your own experiences and thoughts whether you are Muslim, or whether your belief system fully differs. This project endeavors to include as many thoughtful contributions as the global community offers through internet collaboration. Be creative. Be passionate. Be candid. Be honest.

September 5, 2008 is the submission deadline for response videos that hope to be included in the collaborative body of work comprising the project.

Please get the word out in any way you can through all of your social networks. And check back frequently for messages from Dancing Ink Productions.

Visit us on the web:
www.dancinginkproductions.com
www.eurekadejavu.com

Join the DIP global network:
www.dancingink.ning.com

Being A Gridnaut

A short trip into the other grids using the new OpenGrid viewer from Linden Labs. Yes - I am a "Gridnaut".

This clip as also in today's "Metaverse Week In Review" programme earlier but got cut short due to technical glitches. See http://www.metaverseweekinreview.com for the full show.

Being A Gridnaut

Well we just finished recording this week's "Metaverse Week In Review" which you can find over at http://www.metaverseweekinreview.com

Sadly, things went a bit awry at the start so the above clip didn't get aired in its entirety. NP. I'm sticking it here.

It's all about my trip from the Second Life beta grid into some of the new Open Sim worlds located on non-Linden servers. Limited as yet, it was a fascinating experience.

Second Life Augmented Reality in Physical Space

An installation at the John Curtin Art Gallery at Curting University in Western Australia by Julian Stadon.

The installation involves the user wearing a headset with a webcam, looking through goggles and using a paddle to "liberate" a 3D avatar from within Second Life.

Collaborative Browsing in SL

Week In Review - 10th August

A bit late, here is Sunday's programme. Only one part this week due to problems with broadcasting clips. An update programme should be up later today.

LivePlace/CitySpace?

A promotional film for what appears to be a new photo-modelled virtual world which runs in a web browser and allows users to customise as many rooms as they want. Unless this is an elaborate hoax, the work done here is extraordinary and could represent a major leap in metaverse quality.

In the absence of further information we are both apprehensive and awestruck.

more about "LivePlace/CitySpace?", posted with vodpod

A degree in SL?

World2Worlds just finished an interesting session with the first organisation in the states to offer a fully accredited degree course within the virtual world of Second Life. This is a recording of it with questions from the moderator, Rissa Maidstone and the audience.

Flying Pigs

floating pig
Originally uploaded by oxoc

Clearly the folks at Rezzable share my enthusiasm for the Pink Floyd. I presume it's a tribute to the "Animals" album from way back when - the location below is the old Battersea Power Station here in London.

Now - can they TP the build over to the actual London sims please? lol.

The Future of the Internet - Lawrence Lessig, Joichi Ito and Phil Rosedale

The best panel (by far) at Fortune Brainstorm was "2018: Life on the Net." It was moderated extremely well by Quincy Smith, CEO of CBS Interactive. On the podium was Lawrence Lessig, professor of Law at Stanford Law School, Joichi Ito, CEO of Creative Commons and Chairman of Six Apart Japan, and Philip Rosedale, founder and chairman of Linden Lab, (Second Life.)

Metaverse Week In Review & Metaweek Roundup

What a day! What a week! What a weekend!

It has been one of the busiest weeks inworld I can remember and today's shows reflected it. We went live with 90 minutes of "Metaverse Week In Review" on Operator11 at 6pm SLT and then came back for another 90 minutes of "Metaweek Roundup" at 9pm SLT. Since the shows now have a dedicated website HERE for all our archives, I am no longer embedding them here too, so just hop over and watch.

This week Tara and I brought you the usual newsroundup and we were joined live in the studio by Stuart Warf of SLPN (Podcast Network), GoSpeed Racer and the ever-amazing Slim Warrior talking music and more. Plus regular news clips and arts features.

The distinction between the two programmes was originally news at Op11 and arts and culture at Blogstar. However, Blogstar offers chat and new studio registrations which Op11 has seemingly lost, so there is enough overlap that they have become almost the same show.

Notwithstanding, there will probably be one or two mid-week episodes at Blogstar from now on, enabling us to bring you news and discussion closer to the time events occur.

Meanwhile, watch this space for longer programmes and embeds from elsewhere as usual.

News Hour feature on virtual television

This news story produced for the Asia Pacific market by Sonia Lear features SLCN's Paisley Beebe and Starr Sonic. Neat stuff.

Just Leap In

There's been a heck of a lot of fuss about Google's Lively, Vivavity and the still forthcoming Rocketon (plus many more) but this is what we consider closest to an actual metaverse "inside" the web. Although we believe the web will ultimately be viewed from "inside" a metaverse on your desktop, "Just leap In" displays the graphic wealth of places like Second Life even at this alpha stage.

We're still waiting to get in on the full testing but you can all check out the demonstration room. There's a one-off plug-in to download but (thankfully) it's fully cross-platform for Windows and Macintosh.

Now back to Eselle! I am on this month's panel at Nokia Island at noon (SLT) today so we'd better brush the virtual hair. Do drop in.

SL5B: Dizzy Scenes

No, we're not referring to the camerawork - MWIR regular Dizzy Banjo is the cameraman.

In this new clip Dizzy looks back on his favourite scenes from the myriad choices on offer during the recent two-week long 5th Birthday celebrations inworld. Enjoy.

more about "SL5B: Dizzy Scenes", posted with vodpod

Gibson Island

Today Gibson announced the launch of the official Gibson Island on Second Life.com. The first major music manufacturer to establish an official island in Second Life, Gibson encourages consumers to participate in this new and exciting virtual world, complete with digital luthiers, instruments, and guest stars. The Gibson Island will officially launch at 8 a.m. SL Time on Wednesday, July 16, 2008 with an exclusive live music performance at 6 p.m. SL Time.

In tribute to the legendary Gibson Les Paul guitar and to Les Paul himself, the Gibson Island is in the shape of the famous guitar body and rises up from the ocean in Second Life. The "island" features humbucker mountains, full theatres, mini-theatres, and other areas resembling pick ups and other aspects of a Gibson guitar.

A Lively Night in Second Life

The arrival of Google's "Lively" browser plug-in caused a bit of a stir in the virtual worlds, even though it hardly qualifies as such. Not only did we attend a 3 hour inworld discussion on Friday, but on Saturday were treated to this presentation by World2Worlds.

Moderated by John Jainschigg, Director, Internet and Community Laboratory, Ziff Davis Enterprise, Inc., this lively discussion with panelists Rhonda Lowry, VP Emerging Social Media Technologies, Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.; Eric Reuters, Special Correspondent, Second Life, Reuters, Inc.; and Mitch Wagner, Executive Editor, InformationWeek, UBM TechWeb looks at Google's quiet introduction of the Lively virtual world platform that may mark the beginning of a new era for the exploding virtual worlds industry. The locus of greatest attention in that industry — and the domain of greatest innovation — has long been Second Life, which just celebrated its fifth birthday. What do Second Life residents, stakeholders and media think of Lively? Does Lively represent a challenge to Second Life's vision, or a powerful endorsement? Will communities of residents and business stakeholders on these platforms remain separate, or mingle? What does the near-term future hold for both platforms? In this informal panel, hosted by multi-platform metaverse developer World2Worlds in Lively, Second Life, and on the web, you'll hear first thoughts from major media minds on the Second Life/Virtual Worlds scene.

more about "A Lively Night in Second Life", posted with vodpod

Metaverse Week In Review - 13th July

The first part of today's show with extended "lively" discussion, including guests Dizzy Banjo, Crap Mariner and Yogi Fish joining Mal and Tara in the studio.



Part two of the show. Dizzy returns with an extra report and we discuss other news.

Tube2SL TV's in Second Life

Liberate the media! Ur ...

Get FREE TV's that broadcast user uploaded videos throughout Second Life on our network of publicly owned TV sets. Just like real life TV, Tube2SL TV's show programmes to a daily schedule. Our website has a built in TV guide, machinima forums and more.

Lively by Google

Lively by Google is a new product available in Google Labs. Create an avatar and chat with your friends in rooms you design.

www.lively.com

SL5B: Mitch's Closing Keynote

Today marked the end of the Second Life birthday celebrations and the party was closed with an address by Mitch Kapor. Robin Linden also gives us a short introduction to the man himself.

In particular, Mitch discussed emerging technologies of import to avatar interaction and announced a Linden Lab annual award for the best use of Second life as disruptive technology in the human interest.

Jonathan Kazan

In-life.dk presents Digital Art in Second life, with the artist Jonathan Kazan.

Traditional artist has thrown over the virtual world of Second Life and the have seen the possibilities to promote there art to a broader audients. Following is the emergence of new forms of digital art as more uses the interactive and visual opportunities in Second Life.

Pilot Theatre

A walkthrough demo of Pilot Theatre's Second Life Hub. With streaming video plus live web links and RSS feeds plus the 3-D set design elements solution.

Metaverse Timeline

An interesting history project for virtual worlds created by Annie Ok. She is encouraging contributors so follow the link to Dipity and sign up if you have anything to add.

Metaverse Week In Review

Part one of today's show as we catch up on the week and Dizzy Banjo joins us live from his "Message In A Bottle" exhibit at the SL5B sims.



Part two of the show with more clips and the latest MBC news. We had an extra clip from Dizzy and some others spare so we ran a third part as a special that the new "Metaweek" channel.



The special extra programme at Blogstar with a guest visit from an old friend, JoiKoi.

CRY in Second Life

CRY (Child Rights and You) is the first Indian nonprofit organization to create a presence in Second Life thanks to the office space and construction by IndusGeeks on the Bombay Island.

Wimbledon 2008

A little experiment by ePredator Potato (aka. Ian Hughes from IBM) showcasing their annual build for Wimbledon Tennis inworld. By all accounts turnout as been good, despite the fact that the RL Sim seemed to have it's weather systems in unusually good order this year too.

Wimbledon is a good example of a new breed of virtual installation that pulls in real-time active data from the "outside" world to create a compelling and pretty much immediate experience. If only we had time to sit and watch it all day!

The finals are on this weekend.

World2Worlds Session

Urbanism, Architecture, Planning: How Second Life Can Help Build the Urban Landscape of the Physical World--and Vice Versa.

Quite a handful, but the title of a great session yesterday at SL5B. Here is the recording.

more about "World2Worlds Session", posted with vodpod

"M" visits the kids!

Linden Lab's new CEO entered the teen grid today to visit the Global Kids' Digital Media Initiative. Teens in both New York and Chicago were in TSL learning about the history, culture, and paleontology of Tanzania while working with each other and with an international team of scientists collecting fossils in Tanzania.

more about ""M" visits the kids!", posted with vodpod

Rosedale at The Tech

A couple of week's back, Philip Rosedale (aka Philip Linden) appeared at "The Tech" innovation awards in both real life and second life. We only had a short extract filmed inworld at the time, but now here is the full hour-long session.

Rosedale was clearly at home at the venue, addressed audience questions and even hung around for a fair while afterwards. This was possibly his last engagement as active CEO of Linden Labs. He has now become chairman of the lab's board whilst Mark Kingdon (aka M Linden) has taken over his role at the helm for everyday business.

An enjoyable and interesting session.

Metaverse Week In Review - 29th June

The first part of today's show - it was restarted after a glitch so no title sequence.



Part two of today's show.

Gardens Of Bliss

A nice little slideshow of a pretty sim in Second Life.

Carbon Goggles

An intruiging inworld exhibit with virtual simulations of real life objects. Nothing new there, but waeing the carbon goggles you get real-life information about the carbon cost of those objects. Great education much needed in this age of environmental crisis.

Happy Fifth Birthday, My Friend

The big day has come and, despite the fact that most of the world will be falling asleep before the Lindens open it, the multi-sim virtual world's fair (aka, birthday party) is upon us.

Roving reporter Draxtor Despres takes a short break to wish the celebrations all the best. We have to concur and hope the next two weeks will show the best of this brave new world.

Metaverse Week In Review - 22nd June

The first part of today's show. Continues below ...



The second part.

Immediately after the show both Tara & I were summoned over the BlogStar to join in the "Internet Celebrities" show so it was a busy day all round.

Mary's Life

Trailer film from Second Life in honour of the American Cancer Society. Remember that Relay-For-Life events are continuing inworld right now and are worthy of your support.

DMGT Offices

Kensington, London in Second Life. The writer is here in RL too.

Meta-Week Premiere

Hot on the heels of today's epic shows we stumbled upon a sister channel to Operator11 which actually works! Well - nearly. The chat is back if not the RSS feed.

Since both Tara and I were both online we decided to run this dummy show which includes a couple of items that didn't make to it the main one. So here it is as an added bonus.

Metaverse Week In Review - 15th June (3)

The third and final part of the show which fortunately went without any more hitches.

For those that missed us last week, the show can be found at our METAWORLD channel using the play "On Demand" button.

Metaverse Week In Review - 15th June (2)

Part two of today's show. This part only lasts about 15 minutes since the show got cut-off somehow. We were pleased to be back on Operator11, but the bugs had sadly returned with the site.

Metaverse Week In Review - 15th June (1)

The first part of today's show - it was actually a restart following some sound problems.

Working at NASA JPL

An insider's look. Charles works on Second Life at JPL and tells of his work in this short interview.

Sgt. Peppers SL Band

I mentioned The Beatles in the last post and couldn't resist - here is another sequence from their virtual reincarnations. Not sure how legal it all was - but the sound is magic!

Pink Floyd

Eselle is full of tribute bans who "vitually" mime to the likes of U2 and The Beatles - not to mention the Pink Floyd. Here is a medly video of the latter with songs from "The Wall" album - not to be confused with the recent collaborative interpretation of the same alnum inworld recently. Enjoy.

SpaceJunky on CNN

SpaceJunky interview on CNN with Miles O'Brien from a few months back. Worthy of a revisit.

Dizzy wants your messages for SL5B

Video tutorial explaining how to record and upload a message to Second Life on its 5th birthday so it can be used in the exhibit "A Message to Second Life" by Dizzy Banjo and Lillie Yifu.

PBS covers the government's intrusion into online worlds

Clip from the USA broadcaster.

more about "PBS covers the government's intrusion...", posted with vodpod

Virtual environments and social justice

Jonathan Cabiria talks about relationships in virtual environments and social justice. He explores how platforms such as Second Life can be a recommended activity for marginalized people, especially if they suffer from issues such as loneliness, depression, isolation, pessimism and/or low self-esteem.

more about "Virtual environments and social justice", posted with vodpod

Virtual 3D Town of Edo

Second Coa, which supports 3D virtual space businesses, exhibited EDO in Second Life, a 3D virtual world, at Virtual World Conference 2008, held in Tokyo in late May.

Second Coa holds events for both domestic and overseas users in the virtual town of Edo. Based on the results, the company suggests how corporate users can utilize its virtual town EDO in their sales promotions.
Second Coa plans to propose effective uses for 3D virtual space in tourism PR, marketing data collection, the real estate rental business, advertising, and education.

more about "Virtual 3D Town of Edo", posted with vodpod

Moebius Surfing TV

From a new SL TV channel, if you are into nice visuals and dance DJ mixes this is for you. Heck, you can watch with the sound off too.

more about "Moebius Surfing TV", posted with vodpod

CHAMELEON

Chameleon is a 4min 30sec music video (machinima), filmed entirely in the virtual world of Second Life. It is a ground breaking film that uses techniques never before used in Second Life. Shot entirely in HD and edited on FinalCut Pro, the film uses the real life music of Canadian rapper Vandal, who is now based in Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia. Credits: directed, filmed & edited by Brigitte Kungler, music by Vandal, chameleon: Brigitte Kungler, cyclist: Alas Zerbino, crow: JeanBaptiste Eilde, filmed at: Silvanus Forest (formerly Chakryn Forest), The Far Away, David Rumsey Maps, Amaterasu Omikami, PecLach, Charlie Cinema and WallflowerCatWall by: four Yip, Chameleon Letters by: JeanBaptiste Eilde, Dance Animations by: SineWave.

more about "CHAMELEON", posted with vodpod

Metaverse Week In Review - 1st June (2)

Continuing today's show with Mal Burns and Tara Yeats looking back on the last few days inworld. Also with Crap Mariner.

Metaverse Week In Review - 1st June (1)

The first part of today's show with a general news summary and a look at censorship of attendence at the forthcoming 5th anniversary celebrations in Eselle.

MBC Weekly News 5-27-08

Today's bulletin from MBC.

more about "MBC Weekly News 5-27-08", posted with vodpod

Week In Review Holiday Special (2)

Part two of today's special edition.

Week In Review Holiday Special (1)

The first part of today's special unscheduled catch-up edition of the show.

Rezzable

A newly posted look aroun the Rezable sims in Second Life and set, appropriately, to music by the Pink Floyd. Relish.

A Virtual Recession?

A clip from Current.

more about "A Virtual Recession?", posted with vodpod

Metaverse Week In Review - 25th May (2)

The second half of today's programme with a special look at music in music events and a guest report from Dizzy Banjo.

Metaverse Week In review - 25th May (1)

The first part of our look back on the last week in Eselle and elsewhere.

Virtual Music Awards 2008 Movie

This is the highlights clip of the 1st Virtual Music Award 2008 in Second Life organised by Mediaculture. For more music clips inworld see the Arts Bog at http://malburns.wordpress.com

God's Away on Business

Song by Tom Waits filmed in the Second Life location of the Chtulha Shrine, which is a tribute to HP Lovecraft. An extrememly interesting place indeed.

Second Life Musicians Event

Just over a month ago a group of Second Life musicians performed together live at the Rockit Room in San Francisco. We completely missed this clip where Philip Rosedale turned up in the audience and spoke to one of the performer, Keiko, about socialising inworld, matriarchy and why his avatar looks so ... um! You know!

Flying phallus

And you thought SL had it bad. A political conference in Russia yesterday came under attack from a familiar virus.

Metaverse Week In Review - 18th May (2)

The show from today continued.

Metaverse Week In Review - 18th May (1)

The first part of today's programme with news, views and weblins in tow.