China

Three Chinese men have been jailed for operating pirate servers of Giant Interactive’s MMORPG ZT Online, according to Pacific Epoch. The men are ordered to pay a total of RMB 60,000 (USD $8,586) in compensation to Giant for the servers that are said to have cost Giant a minimum of RMB 59,000 (USD $8,443…the cost must be tied to lost subscriber fees). Chen Jian was sentenced to one year in prison for building the servers while his accomplices, Shi Zunkai and Sun Jun, were sentenced to 10 months and nine months, respectively. Pirate servers (actually, server emulators) are…

I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be discussing virtual law (and Virtual Law) with the always-engaged and always-engaging crowd at Sophrosyne’s Salon this Saturday, May 10 from 1:00-3:00 Second Life time (Pacific). This is usually a fairly free-form event, and I am looking forward to an active discussion covering many aspects of virtual law from both a practical and philosophical perspective. Hope to see you there! Posts and comments by VB editors and writers on this site, on other sites, and in virtual worlds are not offered as legal advice and no attorney-client…

Pacific Epoch reports that two Chinese virtual item and currency traders were recently arrested.  The pair had been plying their trade within Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, operated in China by The9 Limited. Chinese police arrested them after one partner reported the other for unfair revenue distribution. In business since last August, the gold farming operation had 20 employees and generated nearly RMB 1.6 million (US $228,915) in only nine months of dealing. What happens next is up to the Chinese authorities, but we can bet the pair are hoping for just a game ban. Hopefully their…

Digital rights advocacy group Public Knowledge (”PK”) recently filed an Amicus Curiae (”friend of the court”) brief regarding Blizzard’s copyright claim (.pdf) against MDY Industries, maker of the popular World of Warcarft bot “WoW Glider” (now “MMO Glider”). Although the brief ostensibly supports neither side and is filed “in the interests of preserving the balance between buyer and seller; reader and author,” the core of PK’s argument is that Blizzard’s copyright counterclaim is not justified. Public Knowledge…

Kristan J. Wheaton, an assistant professor of intelligence studies at Mercyhurst College, recently published a note regarding original research into potential Jihadist use of virtual worlds at Sources and Methods. The findings are far less hyperbolic than the usual coverage of this subject, and seem sound. From Wheaton’s post: A group of five students in my winter Strategic Intelligence class were asked to take a look at “the nature, volume, and likely current use of YouTube, other hosted video sites and Second Life by jihadist networks and individuals, and what will the likely…

Overstock.com has opened Club O in Second Life to promote brand awareness and distribute information about the day's deals. There's no actual e-commerce there, yet. More info. The University of the Pacific has opened a virtual campus in Second Life....

Foldit asks players to rotate proteins in three dimensions, assemble side chains, shape the backbone, and generate stabilizing hydrogen bonds--all essential tasks as the players contribute towards University of Washington protein scientist David Baker's goals of curing HIV, developing various...

Kevin Alderman, better known as Stroker Serpentine in Second Life, is a strong case for pointing out success of virtual entrepreneurs. He's successfully navigated several lawsuits regarding his virtual world IP, the products of Strokerz Toyz, and now he's bringing...

BreakAway Ltd. announced today that it had been selected by the Medical College of Georgia to develop an immersive, virtual environment to train dental students. The students will guide avatars through the process of assessing patients' physical and emotional readiness...

In an interview wrapping up GameIndustry.biz's MMO Week, Club Penguin Co-Founder and General Manager Lane Merrifield talked about whether the kids' virtual world would integrate with other Disney properties since it was acquired last summer. The virtual world itself will...

Berlin-based startup Metaversum is planning to recreate Singapore as an Asian hub in its forthcoming 3D virtual world, Twinity, according to a report from Asia-Pacific news site Today Online. From there, the company hopes to expand its virtual presence to other countries in the region. Currently running as a closed beta with 2,000 users, Twinity invites its users to create realistic avatars and spaces mirroring real life as opposed to fantasy environments. Users can decorate their apartments, chat with friends, watch videos, and participate in other activities that "represent their real…

Sunnyvale-based Gala, Inc. subsidiary Gala-Net has announced a partnership with Target to offer its gPotato Game Cards exclusively through the retail chain. The prepaid game cards allow users to purchase in-game items and accessories for games hosted on gPotato, Gala-Net's online portal. Users with the gPotato Game Cards will be able to log into and buy goods from any of the portal's titles, including Flyff, Rappelz, Corum Online, Shot Online, and Upshift StrikeRacer. The cards will be available at Target locations in denominations of $15 and $30, displayed in the stores' Entertainment…

Publisher and Gala, Inc.'s European subsidiary Gala Networks Europe has announced its plans to release its third MMORPG, Street Gears, a free-to-play online game set in a persistent manga-style universe in which players challenge each other in races or trick contests. Street Gears uses cell-shading graphics to emphasize the game's manga and arcade-like atmosphere. The game provides a mix of "avatar evolution" and extreme sports, offering a "colorful and competitive roller game " experience for both hardcore and casual gamers. The "massively multiplayer roller game" will be exclusive to Gala's…

In its first-ever quarterly online game subscription tracking report - covering October 2007 to March 2008 - the NPD Group has gathered data claiming that online subscriptions, including MMO, casual, and console titles, represent over $1 billion annually to the U.S. gaming industry. The NPD Group calculated these results by taking the monthly averages it had estimated from a newly compiled gamer panel for Q4 2007 and Q1 2008, respectively $94.3 million and $80.1 million, and multiplying the average of those two by 12 to get the annualized equivalent. Said NPD spokeswoman Anita Frazier: "Now…

Mammoth Brand, a marketing initiative managed by toy maker NSI International, has teamed up with toy-store chain Toys"R" Us for the launch of Doko, a new "global trading game" targeted at boys and girls aged 6 to 13. Starting this weekend Toys"R" Us will be the first retailer to sell Doko discs, collectible items which children can register online to trade and receive points. The points can then be used to unlock features on the Doko site and redeem real world goods or services from Mammoth's redemption partners, including Toys"R"Us, etoys.com, and DK Publishing. The discs are 40mm game…

Simon Crosby, CTO of Citrix/XenSource made a pretty bold statement yesterday that has some people agreeing with his position and others disagreeing.  In an interview with searchsecurity.com he publicy stated that virtualization vendors are not competent to try and secure virtual environments and therefore looks to 3rd party security companies to solve these concerns.  Listen to the podcast here Who are these 3rd party security companies?  Well, there are a number of startup companies such as Montego Networks, Blue Lane, Catbird, Altor Networks as well as some of the big guys…

I blogged on this topic a few weeks ago but given the huge interest in this topic I’ve decided to blog on it again. One of the major concerns in virtualized environments is the lack of visibility of the communication between virtual machines. With this lack of visibility a number of challenges start to appear such as security, monitoring and capacity planning.  It’s hard to secure what you can’t see or don’t know about and it’s hard to determine when you need to add more resources when you don’t have a clear picture into what applications are consuming them. This problem is…

I’m back from the RSA 2008 Security Show in San Francisco and it was another great year of business development activity for security vendors. It felt like there was a decent amount of end user customers at the show but a lot more vendors touting their wares and looking to do work with each other. I sat and listened to many vendors complain about this and listened to them complain about how they spend money year after year for these shows and rarely get to talk to customers. It felt to them that they hear more from other vendors that come up to their booth asking about partnering or…

With so much talk about securing communications within the virtual environment and potential hypervisor based attacks, we sometimes forget about the visibility problem within the virtual environment. Today's blog is about just that. Visibility! We've all probably heard the saying, its hard to secure what you can't see and that understanding your environment is the first step to security.  Well, with virtualization, understanding whats going on in your virtual environment is even a challenge.  Because virtual switches are not as feature rich as physical switches we are left unable to…

  Montego Networks has been flying under radar for the past year and this week increased its elevation just enough to be seen on the virtualization industries radar detector. Montego Network’s announcement of securing virtual network communications between VM’s has everyone buzzing but what has caught most people’s attention is Montego Network’s technology that enables 3rd party security vendors to do the same thing (VM to VM). Now, I’m the CTO of Montego Networks, so my comments here are a bit biased but also first hand. So, when I tell you that it’s been a…

It can be difficult for the most well-meaning of virtual worlds companies to understand what their customers want. But CCP, the company behind the sci-fi world of EVE Online, thinks they've solved the riddle: have users elect their own representatives.

Metaverse development company Rivers Run Red won a Webby award for Branded Content for their work promoting Coca-Cola in Second Life.

As Western governments search the world for terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda henchmen, a new report suggests that wherever he's hiding, it's probably not in Second Life.

Photographer Marco Manray, musician Noma Falta, and more.

Millions of children pick up Lego bricks each year to spend hours -- 5 billion, in fact -- creating their own imaginary worlds. Now the manufacturer of the little plastic playing blocks wants to take them online to "Lego Universe," a virtual world for fans of the ubiquitous toy.

I'm standing at Magika, who is closing out her discount hair section, so the pieces are selling for only $20!! She's closing it later today, so hurry and get them while you can! Look at her new hairs too while you're there, they're only $179 and *really* nice!

Icey is giving away three boxes (this week anyway) with clothing items in them. They're inside the door, to the left. But, don't stop at the door...there are really cute clothes here, and the discounted items are very affordable!Seldom Blue is offering a delightful pink beaded gown, that also has a short option. I don't know how long this item will be out, so hurry! Really cute shorts here too :)Things are going to be feast or famine with the blog for the next few days. My internet service provider is giving me fits and I can't stay online very long.

A color changing purse and shoes can be found at VR Designs. If the link doesn't take you directly there, look for the pink box on the catwalk at the back of the store.OK, now, for you pose-aholics...A new store called Striking Poses. Really, REALLY nice poses, for an inexpensive price! And yes, there's a box by the front door with two free poses in it! Be sure to check out the poses, they're awesome.

Occasionally, I like just a plain old t-shirt and jeans. Today I hit the motherlode :)At The Tee Megastore, they offer a lot of plain t-shirts in different colors, both for men and for women, along with free jeans, shorts and a jeans jacket.Free Puzzle! At Procyon Games, you can get a free picture puzzle for adding them to your Picks. I checked this puzzle out...pretty cool!At The Twisted Rose, you can find a very pretty twisted rose tattoo and three pairs in a pack of diamond earrings.More as I find them!

A couple of freebies for today :)At Bixby & Baroque, they are offering a free dress in your choice of red, green or blue. Very cute shoes at this store!At 1/4 Life Crisis, they're offering a free multicolored scarf pack.L&D Designs is a special store for me. It is owned by two of my favorite people in SL™. They are just starting to design and, at my urging, are offering a nearly-free shirts for the ladies and boxers for the men, and the most darling paw print pajamas for free. Please stop in to pick up your pajamas and consider looking around at the rest of their offerings!

BreakAway Ltd. bought the license for a project, funded by Federal government in Texas and developed by Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, regarding a virtual learning platform for medical training: Pulse!! This is what Dr. Claudia L. McDonald has to say: “Through our collaboration with TAMU-CC to develop a platform solution for teaching and training medical professionals, we realize the urgent need for medical organizations to augment their traditional training methods with game-based technology such as Pulse!!,” BreakAway CEO Doug Whatley said in a statement. “We are…

Great news from the official Linden Lab blog: the new virtual land store is open (in beta). You can find all the informations to register and use the beta version on the blog post. I think that the land store needed a refresh, and a better usability; I played around a little bit with this new one, and I can say it seems quite good! Thanks Lindens! [image source Tags: linden lab, second lifeShare This

What Second Life is missing is a real “virtual” democracy, in which residents can vote and be elected. It’s something that you can see on Erepublik.com, a quite new web-based game in which you, as a virtual citizen, engage in economy, politics and war. Now EVE Online, another huge virtual world, is opening up for democracy: according to Reuters: “Sixty-one candidates are vying for nine spots in open voting on EVE’s website. The top vote getters will become the official representatives of EVE’s player community, and flown to Reykjavik, Iceland to share their…

Torley Linden did what I’ve been waiting for: he better organized the video tutorials wiki page, making easier to find the video you need. “One of the new features is that when you view the lists for “Tip of the Week” (30+ of ‘em) and “Quicktips” (75+!), columns can be sorted by category! Also, I’ll be updating the main page regularly to show highlights from my most recent videos.” Check it out! Tags: second life, video-tutorialShare This

UgoTrade has a new great interview with Mitch Kapor (yes, THAT Mitch Kapor) about 3D interfaces for Second Life! This is exciting, and Mitch says we’re gonna have them by Christmas 2009! Great! Tags: 3D interfaces, mitch-kapor, second lifeShare This

Hello Penguins! Every month there's a party in Club Penguin--this month the team has been working really hard on something we've never done before and it's almost finished! I got a glimpse of the upcoming party (it's medieval theme!) and I'm really excited!! I've never seen Club Penguin look so different! I posted something that the team has been working on so you could have a glimpse too.The party starts next Friday May 16! I hope you can all join in! In other news: The Stage was updated today with the 12th Fish play. I totally forgot how much fun it was to dress up as a fish!! What is your…

Hello Penguins! We've already rolled right into May and I wanted to let everyone know about a few very exciting things happening this month. I can't give it all away of course, but here are a few things you definitely don't want to miss out on! -       A MASSIVE party!!! (more info later this week) -       New furniture catalog (I heard it will be related to the upcoming party this month!) -       Igloo contest! -       New puffle furniture!

Hi everyone, it's Screenhog!Last week we launched the Treasure Hunt game in the Captain's Quarters of Rockhopper's ship and from what we heard, a lot of you enjoyed it! Rockhopper is gone from Club Penguin now, and that means the game is gone too. But don't worry, you'll be able to play Treasure Hunt again when Rockhopper returns. Treasure Hunt, as you all probably know, is Club Penguin's first ever cooperative game, where you and a friend can earn coins together. Here's some behind-the-scenes art from the game:   Those are most of the dirt…

Hello Penguins! It's hard to believe the month of April has already passed--there sure was a lot going on in Club Penguin. If you weren't around, don't worry, there's plenty to look forward to coming up in May!!! To kick it off, a new wig catalog was added today, along with another clothing catalog update. As always, let us know what you like and even what you don't! In other news: Thanks for all your feedback about 'Big Screen' mode since it launched earlier this week! We heard from a lot of you  that you would like the option to view the game in the original mode. If you want to view…

Hello Penguins!The Book Room story contest starts tomorrow! We know that a lot of you have great imaginations and love to write and many of you have suggested that we run another writing contest!  I can't wait to see who wins!Here are the contest details:Starting Thursday, May 1 go to the Club Penguin Times and find the contest pagePick a themeWrite your story (up to 500 words)Submit it (you can copy and paste into the contest form in the newspaper)Submissions will be accepted until May 73 winners will be chosen and their stories added to the Book Room on May 30! In other…

Eureka Dejavu reflects on the idea of taking a virtual Hajj to Mecca.Dancing Ink Productions is on a global quest to explore how virtual worlds might provide insight and a cultural bridge into one of the most misunderstood communities in the world: Islam. In the past five months we've spoken on this topic at places ranging from the Global Knowledge Summit in Kuala Lumpur to the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar.Today we are delighted to announce that the Richard Lounsbery Foundation has funded a collaboration between the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and Dancing…

Alem Theas (aka Grady Booch), one of the world's greatest tech visionaries, is an IBMer. I met him while working on "From the Fire Pit to the Forbidden City: An Outsider's Inside Look at the Evolution of IBM's Virtual Universe Community." Sometime last year, I was invited to a "secret" meeting on virtual worlds in a beautiful location in the United States. It was so secret, in fact, that over breakfast, people winkingly warned one another not to attempt to join a small group in an offset breakfast nook, where a "secret, secret" meeting was apparently underway. The meeting itself (presided…

Thanks Sweet Second Life for ranking The Lost Tribe of Dejavu one of the top recent SL blog posts. Sure, there are less than 2,500 registered Dejavus in Second Life. But what does the name Dejavu really mean? And what about Eureka Dejavu?Eureka: Used to express triumph upon finding or discovering something. I have found (it) supposedly exclaimed by Archimedes...Dejavu: The experience of déjà vu is usually accompanied by a compelling sense of familiarity...I have long been interested in what names mean. My mother told me that Rita (she was named for Rita Hayworth and passed it on to me)…

Today we present the below item direct from Dancing Ink's Mail Bag. Since we've neither heard of nor met any one purporting to represent anything as fantastically outrageous as the Interplanetary Cultural Exchange Consortium, we felt obliged to contribute.To: All Artists and Video Remixers of the Planet EarthFrom: Interplanetary Cultural Exchange ConsortiumCC: Minister of Culture Rt. Hon. Lukash L. BabelSubject: ART WITHOUT BORDERS: THE BABEL REMIX ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN A RESIDENT OF PLANET EARTH?If “yes” the Interplanetary Cultural Exchange Consortium invites you to…

Charlie Firestone pointed me to an article in Reuters today in which author Jack Shaheen in his book, "Guilty -- Hollywood's Verdict on Arabs after 9/11" argues that Arabs and Muslims are "increasingly being portrayed as fanatics and villains, ingraining harmful stereotypes." He sites the TV drama "24" as an example."Sometimes it's a process of evolution from cliche to meaningful dialogue," as Eureka told me tonight. "Not that stereotypes are ever acceptable." In at least one example in our work, we've found that discussion of these topics has resulted in substantive efforts toward…

Unfortunately due to a schedule conflict (RL and TZ are bitches!) I cannot attend to the Koinup Machinima Contest ceremony at Orange Island. But the winners are already announced on Koinup. Myself and Tao Takashi each chose a winner and the community chose their own favourite, which was also my first choice. Here are the top winners: The Little Newbie by Alienhearts (community winning machinima) “The Cats Will Play” Grindhouse Tribute by Bkiddo ChouChou by ChouChou They will receive a cash prize from Koinup, and a license for MachinimaCam HUD Pro as soon as I can go inworld to…

This is a really interesting concept. Simple, clean, efficient way to read all your favorite news in a single mouseover. Alltop aggregates the last 5 entries of all interesting blogs/news outlets for a single subject. In the case that is of interest to me it’s called http://virtual.alltop.com. A few things makes it different. It comes with all interesting feeds, mostly selected by AllTop.Com staff themselves. Then you can remove the feeds that are no interest to you. With what remains, a simple mouseover lets you overview the news quite nicely. Click it and you get the news directly…

Hairspray is having a special blowout sale to help sweet Sinnocent Mirabeau to raise funds for an emergency operation on her puppy. Just go there and buy stuff, she promises 2 for 1 on everything. Also, donate a few lindens for her to rise it quickly, since the fees are hefty. A few people blogged it but I’m just spreading the word a bit more. You can go to her store direct here: Hairspray SLURL Here is a copy pasta of a notecard that was passed to me (removed image and landmark, use SLURL up here).

One thing I didn’t expect at all was that some designers would actually start spending their time designing me stuff. Well, I got served pretty good. Not only one, but two designers delivered me a very special gift in the same week. I mentioned them before but I thought it deserved a post on their own, just to state on how much I felt honored by the gesture. Those lovelies actually spent HOURS of their precious time making this for lil old me? OK girls. You got me. I’m falling on my ass. Beware, you peepz know I certainly don’t pretend to be anything like a fashionista or…

Yes, bloggers won round one. Not a huge victory but we got the much needed clarifications. As someone with a lifelong tradition of activism, having gone on several strikes (especially student ones), small victories are big victories when it comes to support our troops. Yes, we may not be happy about the content of those clarifications, but that’s what we asked for, and we got it. We can only congratulate ourselves, we did the impossible: make the Lindens listen to us. Now, forward to the next step in the battle. As much as I’m a Linden fangirl, I’m also a very active SL…

As promised some time ago, the tutorial on how to use TopGen is now available online here.

NASA has launched a CFP for developing an MMOfor learning purposes … Just look here

A small step (mind the ambiguity ) towards the Holo deck. BBC News

This is an interesting article about Ray Kurzweil’s keynote talk at the GDC 08. BBC News

TopGen as well as SimCon are now available for download. You can checkout both projects from the following SVN repositories: https://syssoft.uni-trier.de/svn/glove/tags/topgen-00-01-00 https://talisker.uni-trier.de/svn/glove/SimCon TopGen as well as SimCon are Visual Studio 2008 projects. Please take care that you checkout both projects to the same folder, since SimCon relies on TopGen and needs some of the TopGen assemblies. For the same reason you first have to build TopGen before you can build SimCon. The version references above is a branched Topgen version which ensures compatibility…

There was an excellent article out this week in BusinessWeek on "The [Virtual] Global Office" that touched on many subjects discussed by the various writers on this blog. The article reinforces how a virtual workspace creates an environment for workers to engage with their global peer network using personalization, immersion and collaboration. This is powerful and something business is keen to explore. For example, the Cisco Sales Associate Program (CSAP) at Cisco is using Second Life as a meeting place for their globally dispersed team. The CSAP folks get together in this virtual environment…

The Cisco virtual environment team gets asked to mix reality with virtual all the time. We also get asked to make it easier to participate and view the events we hold in virtual environments. So (drum roll please ;-) this month we are trying an experiment using the Second Life Cable Network to syndicate our TechChat on sensor networks taking place at 1200 PDT on Tuesday, April 22nd. What does this mean? It means for all of you who can't join us in Second Life at the Cisco Bandwidth Stage you will be able to come to this blog entry and watch the virtual event streaming live via an embedded web…

Jean Philippe Vasseur, a Distinguished Engineer with the NSSTG Systems and Technology Architecture team, has a passion—something he refers to as "The Internet of things." The concept of a world where inanimate objects communicate with us and one another over the network via tiny intelligent object fascinates Vasseur. While sensor technology such as motion detecting lights have been around for quite some time now, not much has been done to enable your door to tell your light to turn on via a hand on the doorknob. Vasseur’s efforts could be a catalyst to change this, and rapidly so if he…

While there are daily virtual conferences in the various metaversal platforms, there are infrequent 'live' meetings of people in the virtual world business. A top show in this space is the Virtual Worlds conference, arranged by Chris Sherman. I was a speaker at the 2007 event, and they are holding their 2008 New York VW show today and tomorrow at the Javitz center in Manhattan. Although many have been concerned about the industry after the standard hype/backlash cycle that has been applied to virtual worlds over the last year, the attendance at the show is a record 1200 people (which,…

For those of you who missed Harvard Business Review's 'Breakthrough Ideas for 2008' in February, they managed to aggregate four very salient articles around the 'gamer disposition', Alternate Reality games (ARGs)in the workplace, the emerging 'metaverse', and the future of emoting avatars. Here is the link. Combined, they present an excellent leading-indicator of the future of the virtual workspace. Be sure to check it out.

Caption: Playboy Managers Kimberly Laughton and Kattatonic Yates discuss how to handle the latest violation. At Belle Belle Furniture and More (171, 126, 21), customers can pick up a free animated sunbathing towel with the Playboy logo. But is it legal? Not this time. On May 2, two managers from the officially-licensed sim teleported to the Belle Belle store to investigate the free towel display. Trademark infringement is still a major problem in Second Life, especially for real life companies that don’t have an in-world presence to police the situation. Many RL businesses are fed up…

Second Life is becoming more and more a virtual stage that fits for promotion and diffusing on the web of music in all its aspects, but :it’s quite unespected that an RL production starts debuting in SL prior to RL. That’s the case of the musical “Odissea”a work by Marco e Massimo Grieco;whose debut will happen before inworld ( May 9th at 12:30 slt, in the land Italia Vera (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Italia%2010%20Milano/19/23/86) followed by the Real Life debut in the summer 2008 . The aim of this performance inworld is to take advantage of SL potential in order to…

In the Town of Haven, in the land of Sterling Grove, “The Great Exhiition of 1851 is being recreated “SL Style”. Kiosks tell of the history of the 1851 Great Exhibition of the works of the Industry of all Nations and then explain that an SL-er by the name of Mako Magellan is in the process of recreating the Crystal Palace that held the exhibition and will be filling it thematically with creations by Second Life Designers to showcase the Best of Second Life. I have been observing the progress and the structure and collections are quite impressive. Visit Sterling Grove (73,…

TheSLAgency launches an innovative job recruitment program for a government client in Second Life. Job hunters will interact with a unique career recruitment experience in Second Life as potential firefighters, medical technicians and others can virtually hone their skills before interviewing for Public Service jobs. Have you ever wanted to fight a fire, though you weren’t so sure how you’d do with the 70 pounds of protective gear, oxygen mask and fire axe? Is your dream to help cure disease, but perhaps you’re not so comfortable with beakers and lab coats? Via a new innovate program…

Princeton University in Second Life announces “Diversity”on the Princeton Groups sim Scope Cleaver- Architect Poid Mahovlich - Terraform Artist The “Diversity” building on Princeton Groups island is intended as a social gathering place for Princeton University student groups and organizations. The commission stipulated a warm and friendly location where students could meet, chat, and organize events in Second Life. The resulting sim is a thoughtful contrast of Second Life resources with real world concerns. The stark, evocative landscape provides a foil for the elegance of the…

The Thursday Night Dance Party became a tradition from the Thursday Night parties at CSI:NY.  The Thursday Night Dance Party are wild, fun, electric and exotic, featuring music of all sorts and shall continue @ the high.  Your requests, the roll call, and even the half-time song will happen as TNDP continues at it’s regular time of 7pm PST (that’s 10pm EST) at the high.

Dear Congressmen, Politicians, Law Makers, and the Popular Press, and affiliated people, groups and organizations. Before wasting my time and insulting my intelligence, please get your facts straight! I’m particularly talking to Representative Mark Kirk with his recent call for a consumer-alert warning about Second Life. He claims Second Life is a risk for children and they could be sexually exploited. In the same allegation he states he is unaware of any cases in which children are targeted by sexual predators on Second Life. Rarely have I had my intelligence insulted and my time wasted by…

I saw Iron Man on Monday and it is a great movie!  What I was unaware of was that Iron Man is also in Second Life and doing something pretty cool.  Annie Ok worked on the machinima film (see above) and informed me of an Iron Man in Second Life Contest with the chance of winning $L 100,000 (or roughly $400 USD).  To enter you grab the Iron Man avatar, take pictures in Second Life, join the Iron Man in Second Life Flickr group and upload your pictures to Flickr.  There isn’t much time left as the contest end this Friday, May 9th, at 10 AM PST (1pm EST).  You can…

Today, we’re Chillaxin’, the combination of chillin’ and realxin’.  The new Tuesday weekly event is a combination of downtempo, trip-hop, funk, soul, slasa, latin, and music from the 70’s - 90’s that are silky smooth and deliciously sweet.  Things start at 6pm (9pm EST) at the high.  Come, get your Chillaxin’!

FINALLY!  For the past month I’ve been working on getting registration up and running for the 2008 SLCC.  Today Registration for the 2008 Second Life Community Convention is now open but only to those who attended last year’s SLCC!  Last year we promised that SLCC 2007 attendees will receive tickets, for a limited time, for this year’s convention.  Until May 20th, 2008, any person who has registered for the 2007 SLCC may register for the 2008 SLCC at last year’s ticket price of $185.00 (or $L 52000).  In order to secure this ticket price, you must register with the same name…

Two quick blog-related notes. First, my post yesterday about Googling your Second Life name and comparing to your legal name (or, as Vidal Tripsa fetchingly put it, the “Kit Meredith Challenge”) was SLFP’s 100th post! I know it’s not that big a deal, and surely there are blogs that update way more frequently that have reached 100 posts a lot sooner than I did. But still, it’s nice to note, it helps me feel just a little more established in the blogosphere. Special thanks to Hamlet Au for linking to the post from NWN, it adds to the happy happy joy joy.Second, for those of you who…

I know it’s an incredibly vain exercise, but do you ever Google yourself? I don’t mean searching for your legal, real life name - that’s been part of the pop culture for years now. I mean Googling your Second Life avatar's name. I had the strangest experience the other day when I Googled “Kit Meredith” and shockingly found that my SL identity returns more results than my RL one.I guess I shouldn’t be terribly surprised by this - after all, our SL identities only exist in the virtual, online sense. And unless we use Skype or have RL contact with other Residents, the only way for us…

Though I’d never tried out blogging before I became active in Second Life, I always had the hunch that I’d enjoy it. After all, writing is the basis for my day job (television portrayals aside, most attorneys spend more time writing than they do on their feet in court), and it just seemed logical that I’d enjoy writing on a blog. What I never expected was that I’d spend nearly as much time on the visual side of blogging as I do actually writing.While you can certainly publish a blog that has little to no visual content, I believe that a key to having a successful site is presenting…

Well, the day I was dreading has finally come. As of last night, at 7:12 PM SLT, my inventory went over 15,000 items. I’d been playing chicken with this milepost for days now - clearing out my trash a couple of times to keep me under the limit - but I have to face it now, I’ve officially reached crazy inventory land.Why is this such a big deal? For starters, it’s just become a massive PITA to find anything in my inventory anymore. Yes, I can find things through search, but that means that I need to know the name of whatever it is I’m looking for, and my memory just isn’t what it…

Time for me to eat some crow, because it’s official. I’ve completely given up on Sweet Second Life. Yes, it’s the same blog aggregator I noted months ago for being a good way to discover new and interesting Second Life blogs. But I’m done with it. I’ve even removed the little widget from my sidebar that tells you what my rank on their website is. So, there you have it, mmmmmmmmmmm crow.I’ll vent about all the little issues I’ve had with the site after the jump, but the fact of the matter is that I think it had sort of outlived its usefulness for me. When I was new to the Second…

The Knight Drupal Initiative is a grant program designed to foster development in the Drupal project. Knight Foundation is a Miami-based non-profit grant making organization. Since 1950, the foundation has invested more than $300 million to advance quality journalism and freedom of expression worldwide. read more...

Courtesy of Bernhard Drax, we now have a wonderful new Nonprofit Commons Video. Draxtor did a fantastic job putting this together. If you like what you see, be sure to check out more of our Nonprofits and Second Life videos and Draxtor's weekly Life4U show "The Drax Files".

Tomorrow, April 28th at 11 A.M. PST/SL, Robert Bloomfield and Metanomics hosts Susan Tenby (aka Glitteractica Cookie) of TechSoup, and the American Cancer Society's Randal Moss, Director of the Futuring and Innovation Center. read more

At approximately 9:30am MT our Web host's entire communications network (Internet, cell and phone) was taken off-line by a massive fiber cut that affected much of much of Taos. This is the largest communication outage Brownrice has seen in six years. Brownrice Internet utilizes triple-redundant internet connections to ensure reliabilty in the event that an upstream provider fails. However, these connections share one local fiber optic cable -- which was cut this morning. read more

Three ways to be a hero. One event to launch them. The Second Life Event April 26th will celebrate the launch of: Windows Server 2008 Visual Studio 2008 SQL Server 2008 Register in Second Life to ensure you have a seat or visit the Face Book Event Page. read more

I show you how to play parcel music in Second Life — including Internet radio stations — in less than 10 minutes! Yes, it’s really that simple, and along the way, I highlight good things to know. DOWNLOAD HIGH-QUALITY VERSION 00:17 - Setup Second Life for playing music01:49 - Get a music URL from your web browser02:44 - Play a music URL in Second Life03:38 - Find Internet radio stations to play in SL05:19 - View a playlist file to get the music URL (in iTunes)06:29 - Get the music URL (in Winamp)06:59 - Get the music URL (in a text editor) 07:29 - More radio stations to get music…

We’ve just updated the Quality Metrics page, and the numbers show what you already know: April was not a good month for Second Life Grid availability. Our internal outage tracking tool estimates that about 630,000 usage hours were lost to global system failures over the course of the month, which is about 1.9% of the total (up from 0.06% in February and 0.22% in March), and resident surveys clearly indicate great unhappiness coinciding with these failures. (We define lost usage as how much time Residents would have spent logged in but did not, due to Grid failures; it is meant as a…

Hello everybody! This week on KBAotW, I’d like to introduce you to a little feature called Media On A Parcel. With Parcel Media, you can share your movies, music, images, and even webpages with other Residents on your land. Movie night, anyone? As always, if you have questions about Second Life, and you think the answer should be in the Knowledge Base, please stop by Documentation Office Hours today at 2pm PDT. We love to hear from you! You’ll find our valiant and scholarly Documentation team lounging on couches at our usual pier-shaped office in Beaumont. See you there! Jeremy…

Now open for Resident inspection — Bay City! Regions intended for a vibrant urban experience, double primmed for your pleasure. Roads, parks, a movie theater and city services are already in place, maintained by Linden Lab. Close to the offices and shops of Nova Albion, with broad canals usable for travel and tourism — but with broad, clean beaches and plentiful vegetation. Rail and water trolleys carry the Residents of Bay City about; a balloon tour provides dazzling aerial views of the city. Connections to the world at large by ship, seaplane, dirigible, road and rail are…

Friendly greetings! Torley, enthusiastic teacher of Second Life skills here. For your ease-of-use, I’ve reorganized the big page o’ Video Tutorials so you can faster find what you want to learn. One of the new features is that when you view the lists for “Tip of the Week” (30+ of ‘em) and “Quicktips” (75+!), columns can be sorted by category! Also, I’ll be updating the main page regularly to show highlights from my most recent videos. Experience for yourself. In addition, I’m continually working on longer-term plans for easier searching of…

How It Began by Iona Nikolaidis Hello, dear reader. My name is Iona Nikolaidis. I am an avatar in Second Life, and this is the story of how I came to meet a fellow avatar named Alexandra Shu. This blog is an effort to get her out of my head. This is not my choice, but if I don't take some action I feel like I will drown. Because although Iona is not real, the person behind the curtain is, and that person is suffering. How's that for foreshadowing? The idea for this blog was forged over drinks at the Yellow Dog Tavern in Baltimore, Maryland, where I (the operator of Iona) live with my partner…

[I have very mixed emotions about this particular feature - it marks the end of an era. One of the all-time sexiest avatars in SL, a great friend, and an amazing photographer is posing as a Post 6 Grrrrl - the Herald's highest honor for avatar art. Sadly, this is also Justine's retirement :-(. Despite my pleas, the incredible Ms. Babii is stepping aside to spend more time enjoying RL. While this is a bittersweet time for all of the staff at the Herald, it is also a special treat for our readers. Justine - its been a great run and I wish you all the best! - the Editrix] This week I had two…

Metaverse shocker -- pirated skins being sold in SL!!! by Tenshi Vielle, fabulous fashionista - courtesy of shoppingcartdisco Do you remember a while back, when we were talking about "what ifs" regarding stolen content across virtual worlds? I think the best case has to be Renderosity.com artists' work being bought then redistributed without their permission (and against their own TOS) within Second Life. And of course, the general community in Second Life is mostly ignorant about what goes on at art sites like Renderosity - or, at least, doesn't think to check there first to see if the…

Interview with a new and upcoming artist by Kris Dibou When I saw the pics for Jenn Villota’s gallery opening, I could not turn my head, nor scroll away. The thought passed through my head that I was in Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, X-rated editor’s cut. Indeed, it appeared that there were demons here, now released to be diluted into the psyches of the metaversal residents. So when Pix said “Why don’t you interview her?” I took the assignment. Jenn Villota outside her gallery, "Miso Horny" I soon found myself in Devil’s Pocket, a fascinating group of sims reflecting the parts of…

Two quick blog-related notes. First, my post yesterday about Googling your Second Life name and comparing to your legal name (or, as Vidal Tripsa fetchingly put it, the “Kit Meredith Challenge”) was SLFP’s 100th post! I know it’s not that big a deal, and surely there are blogs that update way more frequently that have reached 100 posts a lot sooner than I did. But still, it’s nice to note, it helps me feel just a little more established in the blogosphere. Special thanks to Hamlet Au for linking to the post from NWN, it adds to the happy happy joy joy.Second, for those of you who…

I know it’s an incredibly vain exercise, but do you ever Google yourself? I don’t mean searching for your legal, real life name - that’s been part of the pop culture for years now. I mean Googling your Second Life avatar's name. I had the strangest experience the other day when I Googled “Kit Meredith” and shockingly found that my SL identity returns more results than my RL one.I guess I shouldn’t be terribly surprised by this - after all, our SL identities only exist in the virtual, online sense. And unless we use Skype or have RL contact with other Residents, the only way for us…

Though I’d never tried out blogging before I became active in Second Life, I always had the hunch that I’d enjoy it. After all, writing is the basis for my day job (television portrayals aside, most attorneys spend more time writing than they do on their feet in court), and it just seemed logical that I’d enjoy writing on a blog. What I never expected was that I’d spend nearly as much time on the visual side of blogging as I do actually writing.While you can certainly publish a blog that has little to no visual content, I believe that a key to having a successful site is presenting…

Well, the day I was dreading has finally come. As of last night, at 7:12 PM SLT, my inventory went over 15,000 items. I’d been playing chicken with this milepost for days now - clearing out my trash a couple of times to keep me under the limit - but I have to face it now, I’ve officially reached crazy inventory land.Why is this such a big deal? For starters, it’s just become a massive PITA to find anything in my inventory anymore. Yes, I can find things through search, but that means that I need to know the name of whatever it is I’m looking for, and my memory just isn’t what it…

Time for me to eat some crow, because it’s official. I’ve completely given up on Sweet Second Life. Yes, it’s the same blog aggregator I noted months ago for being a good way to discover new and interesting Second Life blogs. But I’m done with it. I’ve even removed the little widget from my sidebar that tells you what my rank on their website is. So, there you have it, mmmmmmmmmmm crow.I’ll vent about all the little issues I’ve had with the site after the jump, but the fact of the matter is that I think it had sort of outlived its usefulness for me. When I was new to the Second…

VTSEX Update 26th April - 11th May 2008 www.vstex.net By SL Hak Crystal Springs Land & Loan (CSL), CEO Skip Oceanlane appears delighted that the LL Land Store has reopened, this means that CSL is now back in business and has reportedly attracted 3 new customers purchasing a sim. Skip Oceanlane reports that the Land Store is better than ever with the sim being delivered in a matter of minutes rather than weeks as was the previous norm. CSL are in essence offering loans to clients wishing to purchase sims, a 10% deposit is all that is required and the loan can be financed over 4 – 30…

ACE Update 26th April 2008 - 10th May 2008 www.ace-exchange.com By SL Hak ACE has announced that their attempt at recovering lost data is floundering and that the SL International Business (SLIB) shareholders list appears unrecoverable. ACE has announced that a number of options are being implemented in order to compile an accurate list. This includes using the last dividend payment as a barometer, it is unfortunate that this list is almost 4 weeks out of date. ACE has been able to reconcile accurately 95 accounts due to no trading activity since the last dividend payment. The remaining 83…

PRESS RELEASE For more information: btripp@simuality.com 847-213-9433 Evanston, IL – 05/09/2008 – Metaverse developer Simuality LLC has joined the effort to help relieve the unspeakable human suffering in Myanmar in the wake of Cyclone Nargis.  Special donation kiosks have been developed and are being placed in high-traffic locations in the virtual world of Second Life, with coordination being arranged via the Simuality welcome center on their main island (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Simuality/106/83/41). In addition, links to the donation centers are being featured on the…

WSE Update 26th April 2008 - 9th May 2008 www.wselive.com By SL Hak Well not much activity to report on the World Stock Exchange, a theme that seems to be repeating week in week out, there are a small number WSE listed companies that are trying their best and to keep their shareholders informed of developments. Many however are very silent. Flying Kite Holdings (FKH) reported that their profit for April was L$12k, with revenue at L$1.2 Million. On the face of it the reported profit is a little disappointing, but considering FKH's recent acquisitions and declared expansion policy this is…

  www.intlstockexchange.com By SL Hak Congratulations and a belated happy birthday to all at ISE. There is no doubt that Cocky has a loyal following on ISE, but Cocky isn't resting on his laurels as he embarks on adding a series of new features to the ISE platform. With further competition from the new and improved WSE 4.0 on the way, it will be interesting to see what improvements Cocky will introduce to entice and retain traders. Stetson Rail has announced that Land Investment Income Fund (LIF) has issued a March dividend payment of 0.025, which makes the annual yield on an…

In a recent release by Frolic Mills, CEO of Best of SL Magazine, and Chair of the Best of SL Awards, Beyers Sellers, host of the Metanomics series featured on SLCN was nominated for Avatar of the Year. We congratulate Beyers Sellers (also know in real life as Cornell University Professer of Economics Robert Bloomfield) on the nomination and wish him the very best. Be sure to tune your SLCN viewers in on Saturday, June 7, 2008 for the Best of SL Awards to be broadcast exclusively on SLCN. See you in-world... Maggie :)

Last week pink abounded as the Flamingos took over the "Tonight Live with Paisley Beebe" studio! There were lots of laughs and lots of people on stage & in the audience as we filled the sim! So to make sure you don't miss out being in our live audience this week join us at our SLCN studio earlier than a start time of 6pmSLT Sunday. Titan Thorne - London School of Journalism (LSJ) Titan is the Head of Operations for the LSJ in SL & creates & manages their events. Their sim will have a grand opening soon & LSJ offers weekly free lectures with the possibility of doing RL long…

To help you recover from a week without Paisley we have made sure that this show is TWICE AS BIG! We are going to literally be a full couch and pack out the stage with our guests & their helpers and the audience is going pink ... with gamingos! So don your best pink or flamingo outfit & join us for this fun show so make sure you're at our SLCN studio earlier than a start time of 6pmSLT Sunday. Patty Streeter - Motorability Island Patty is the Business Manager of UnitedSpinal.org, President of AskPatty.com & Chair of the UNitedSpinal.org MOtorsports Program. Find out how this busy…

The 2008 Merovingi Fashion Awards geared up this week with their week-long fashion showcase as a prelude to the fashion awards gala on Saturday, April 26, 2008, which will be broadcast live on SLCN.TV from 4 pm to 7 pm SLT. MFA2008 is hosted by the Merovingi Group, which was established to increase awareness of international humanitarian efforts within the virtual world of Second Life. The Merovingi Group is proudly sponsoring the National Breast Cancer Foundation and Doctors Without Borders during this year's Fashion Awards and have set a goal to raise $15,000 dollars for the selected…

In her latest, most soulful and side-splitting send-up of church life yet, Pat G'Orge-Walker's hilarious cast of parishioners battle their worst vices, the funny and serious sides of aging, and each other. Come join the fun as we discuss this book with author and comedienne Pat G'Orge-Walker! I would also like to encourge the female members of our audience to wear their best 'church hat". Authors In Your Pocket on SL is "taking it" to church this Sunday @ 2PM. This event will be televised LIVE on SLCN.TV Hosted at The sLiterary Events Center http://slurl.com/secondlife/sLiterary/137/137

We've been talking about TOS/EULAs for quite a long time here at Terra Nova.  Here's a fairly obvious theory about these agreements, borrowed from Jeremy Bentham's felicfic calculus: 1) If TOS/EULA provisions make both the designers and participants in virtual worlds on the whole better off (while making third parties no worse off), they're generally good, and we should support them. 2) If TOS/EULA terms make all collective interests generally worse off, they're bad, and we should oppose them. So, here are the thoughts of Public Knowledge and the EFF on the copyright claims in the MDY…

Computer games are a catalyst for a generational change in self-identification. I believe that the notion of being a ‘gamer’ is not merely growing but becoming mainstream. Gamer is no longer a excuse for having bad personal hygiene and no social skills but simply something one is.Of course as practices norm the category is being rendered as un-remarkable. In my personal experience Wii’ers, for instance, do no self identify as gamers; but I wonder what the trend is, where users of highly social Wii games will remain in that category or start to encompass thing that they more readily…

Truly a herculean effort has been undertaken!  The Association of Virtual Worlds has compiled 'The Blue Book: A Consumer Guide to Virtual Worlds", an index to 250 virtual worlds from all over our physical world, all neatly meta-tagged and linked.  Oh, and there's a glossary...  So who are these people, I ask myself?  Turns out it's an assortment of international figures in the virtual worlds industry, including a former Linden... From their site (someone loves themselves some iphones!): The Association of Virtual Worlds believes that virtual worlds represent a major…

Recently, I happened to catch a segment of Sesame Street that my daughter was watching. In it, Cookie Monster was trying to hire a human assistant to help him sell six cookies. Cookie Monster explained helpfully, “Cookie Monster sell cookies in order to have money to buy cookies”. Virtual world exchange can feel like a Cookie Monster economy sometimes, but never more so than in Flying Lab Software’s Pirates of the Burning Sea. It’s been an interesting economy to watch as the live game has taken shape. Not so much because it is innovative or provides a fun game mechanic. Even by the…

Last Monday capped off the first season of interview series, Metanomics:  Business and Policy in the Metaverse.   Over the course of the season (35 shows in 35 weeks), we refined our focus to the following four target audiences: representatives of real-world enterprises using virtual worlds to achieve their goals virtual world entrepreneurs meeting the needs of those enterprises or their fellow residents developers,  policy-makers and analysts who will shape the future of the metaverse; and academics who are studying and educating these groups, or using virtual worlds as…

1. The Chicago Tribune - Virtual dinner and a movie? Simulated dating ranks grow. “Paula Weisz’s favorite place to take her dates is the Millennium bar, where she can sip a glass of red wine and have a good conversation. She typically goes on one date per week with men she meets online at OmniDate.com.” 2. [...]

Nurses are one of the most active groups of health professionals in Second Life and I regularly get asked by health professionals what use a virtual world like Second Life is in regard to training. The video below answers that question beautifully: If you’re a nurse in Second Life, tell us what the experience has [...]

1. Iron Man in Second Life 2. Henry Jenkins in Second Life Talks about Potter Fandom (this one runs for 51 minutes) 3. Tiny Anatine’s “A day in Second Life” Related storiesMay 2, 2008 -- Weekend WhimsyApril 25, 2008 -- Weekend WhimsyApril 18, 2008 -- Weekend WhimsyApril 13, 2008 -- Weekend WhimsyApril 5, 2008 -- Weekend WhimsyMarch 29, 2008 [...]

The mainstream media cops fairly regular criticism for its sensationalistic coverage of virtual worlds and rightly so in some cases. A very impressive exception to this rule is an article published this week by the Harvard Business Review. It’s a detailed look at the role gaming worlds like World of Warcraft and Lord of the [...]

Linden Lab are being quicker off the mark with their metrics, already releasing the Second Life population statistics for April. They show the Aussie active user populations at 12,788, up from last month’s 12,245, with Australia cemented in 11th place worldwide. We spent 571,042 hours in Second Life, making up 1.97% of the overall hours [...]

SoftLayer will provide web infrastructure services for MMO Guildsites, a Toronto company providing feature-rich sites for massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) guilds. Founded in 2006, MMO Guildsites has grown to host more than 700 sites for guilds participating in games including World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy, and EverQuest. ‘’We’re excited to be MMO Guildsites’ solution of choice,” said George Karidis, Chief Strategy Officer for SoftLayer. “They have an exceptional offering, and we’re proud of our role in the online gaming…

Virtual trading startup Live Gamer has raised $24 million in venture capital funding from Charles River Ventures, Kodiak Venture Partners, and Pequot Ventures, the company announced today. The company’s model differs from most existing marketplaces in that it is partnering with top MMO publishers (including Funcom GMBH, Sony Online Entertainment, 10TACLE STUDIOS, Acclaim, GoPets LTD, and Ping0 Interactive Limited) in an effort to “legitimize the existing virtual economy.” The funding and launch was covered today in the Wall Street Journal. “Virtual item trading is…

This panel from the recent Virtual Goods Summit examines the business model around virtual goods. This panel features venture capitalists Kevin Efrusy of Accel Partners and Susan Wu of Charles River Ventures, Tim Stevens of Doppelganger, Min Kim from Nexon America and Dan Kelly of Sparter. The video runs 52 minutes.

This panel from the recent Virtual Goods Summit (June 22 at Stanford) examines whether virtual goods are mainstream or not. Participants included Robert Scoble, James Hong, Jia Shen, John Vars, and J.T. Stephens. The video runs 43 minutes.

Has real money trading (RMT) market leader IGE been sold? This became a hot topic with the news that World of Warcraft database Wowhead had been sold for a reported $1 million to Affinity Media (the ZAM Network), which already owns two other major WoW databases, Thottbot and Allakhazam. In early 2006, much was made of the fact that Allakhazam was being bought by Affinity, which owns IGE (note: the buyer was originally reported as RPG Holdings, but acknowledged to be IGE). Similar objections to RMT-friendly ownership were immediately raised by Wowhead users. But Affinity president John Maffei…

Filed under: Priest, Tips, Walkthroughs, Raiding, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance, (Raiding) Ready Check, (Raiding) Raiding 101 Our Priest column is back! Every Sunday, Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is now Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus, and this week he's written different "If" statements to follow. Summer is almost upon us and I hear Mount Hyjal is lovely this time of year! Honestly, I believe everyone playing right now needs to go in at least once and just experience the place. It is essentially the successor…

Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Cheats, Blizzard, News items, PvP, Alts, Arena We already know that Blizzard is tweaking arena rules to make it much tougher to artificially inflate your rating by win trading or buying high ranked teams in Season 4, but it looks like they're starting to take it one step further, by cracking down on people who indulge in it. Reports are coming in from the official forums and from other spots around the web of people getting bans or suspensions (generally 72 hours in length) and having their Season 3 arena gear stripped. The bans are even permanent in…

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Tips, AddOns, AddOn Spotlight Sean is diving, sunning himself and trying to drink all the cervezas in Cozumel this week, so don't feel bad if he doesn't respond to emails and comments. He'll be back in action next week, fresh and ready to re-join the Addon Army's battle for the perfect User Interface!Welcome to this installment of Addon Spotlight! Today, we're going to take a look at another of Tekkub's addons. I've being singing his praises for weeks now, but don't worry, he's not paying me to do this. I enjoy his addons as they are simple, sleek and highly…

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, RP, (Roleplaying) All the World's a Stage All the World's a Stage is a source for roleplaying ideas, commentary, and discussions. It is published every Sunday evening. Except for this week, when it is more like the early afternoon.Your usual AtWaS columnist, David Bowers, has found himself a tad busy this weekend. Due to this, I'll be nosing in on his territory for a day. Don't worry ladies and gentlemen, I'll take good care of you. Just yesterday we discussed a little about RP descriptions. That is, the physical descriptions you can give your character via…

Filed under: Paladin, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Expansions, NPCs, Wrath of the Lich KingAs was pointed out yesterday, quite a few old faces are returning in Wrath of the Lich King. The Scarlet Crusade, The Venture Company, Arugal, etc. Most of them make sense in the context of the events in Northrend, but on the other hand, a couple of them might be inspired by pure fan service. That's totally okay, don't get me wrong. I loves me some fan service. If simple worgen love is what brought back Arugal, I most certainly will not complain.Let's pretend for a moment that we could bring back…

It never happened. Or did it? Androids used for slave labor have issues. Real animals make us feel better about ourselves. It's easier to believe a lie than dismiss the truth. When in Rome… well, we're all living in Rome. You, too, can change your personality like clothing. Horselover Fat is not a porn star's name. Superior mutants are sexy. Nazis are always evil, no matter what universe you're in. Telepaths are a complicated lot. Paranoia is ideal for for the adventurous. Sometimes, it's OK to go insane. Some memories are best left repressed. Words control…

Over the last few weeks, I've received mixed correspondence which expressed appreciation for my Second Life video tutorials oriented at beginners, but sounded rather concerned/alarmed about the more advanced content creation vidtuts I'm doing, such as "Editing & uploading sounds" and "Sculpted prims made simple". The general point which I've heard in various forms dating back to 2004 in SL is: Leave it to the experts to do professional work! which really isn't a point at all, because "professional" and "expert" are both overused…

Gmail doesn't yet allow you to set a customizable view for how you want to see your inbox as it's first presented to you when you login, but you can easily get around this with a bookmark in Gmail "2.0". You'll know you're on it if you see "Older Version" in the upper-right, and if you see "Newer Version", click that to change. The newer Gmail interface dynamically changes its address in the location/navigation bar of your web browser (I use Firefox), allowing you to easily copy specific searches for later use. For instance, I use this as the…

Part of my lecture/presentation/motivational speech at Campus Hamburg is up thanx to Ole Etzel! Led by Xon Emoto (Hanno Tietgens) and presenting alongside Susi Spicoli and Fabrice Collette, I spoke about video tutorials making it easier for people to learn Second Life, machinima, WindLight, and inspiring. I appreciate Ole recording this, and altho it may be hard to hear me at times, after the clip is a mostly-accurate text transcription for your perusal. It prematurely fades out at the end before I got really excited, but this should give you a good idea of what happened. If you couldn't…