China

The job market seems as hot as ever. As a result, I’ve had a few interesting free-to-play related jobs flitter through my inbox this week. David Perry, Chief Creative Officer of Acclaim (in that company’s new, F2P-only format) and Kyra Reppen, SVP of Nickelodeon, send word of very compelling vacancies in their respective companies. Nickelodeon’s posting is based in LA whereas Acclaim seems open to remote-work scenarios. Kudos to Acclaim! I promised I’d post their opps on freetoplay.biz. Click through for the full text of each posting. Company: ACCLAIM GAMES, Inc. Job…

Been very busy on the consulting front lately… apologies for the lack of content. But I promised Nicolo I would post this job for him, so here goes: At this year’s GDC, I met Michael Ivvora and Nicolo Laurent from GOA, the videogame subsidiary of France Telecom/Orange.Besides handling the European side of US online games – launch, localization, QA, support etc – for games like Warhammer Online and Dark Age of Camelot, Orange also runs a free to play portal at goa.com.They’ve recently launched localized free to play games in Europe like Gunbound and Pangya, and…

Warrior Epic is a new free to play online RPG being developed by Possibility Space, a company founded by Gage Galinger and Feng Zhu; a pair that share a wealth of experience between them, from Starcraft to Gears of War. As a free to play game it comes across as competent and quite polished, and it’s just leaving closed beta. Essentially a dungeon crawler, players own a great hall that stores their characters and serves as a meeting place for quests. There are a number of different warrior classes (and some that must be paid for), but the hook is a sort of metagame wherein players can choose…

Is there a season for conferences? If so, it feels like it’s upon us. GDC and SXSW went well. Here are some links to coverage of my talk at GDC and my panel at SXSW. GDC Kotaku Gamasutra Bret Terrill Coobico SXSW VentureBeat Virtual Worlds News Tony Walsh’s Liveblog New Media Buzz Random local press WestEnder magazine Next up for me is ICE 08 in Toronto. I’m on a panel there called “Worlds @ Play” moderated by Lucie Lalumière (VP Interactive, Earth Rangers) in discussion with Leigh Alexander (Editor, Worlds in Motion / Staff, Gamasutra.com), Matt Daly…

A few hundred people watched my Red Bull-fueled version of this presentation on Monday, February 18th at GDC. The narration included in this slidecast was done this weekend and is not nearly as energetic.

There are two new developments in the Hernandez v. IGE case in Florida. First, IGE has filed a declaration from CEO Brock Pierce stating that IGE merely holds stock in Affinity Media Inc. and doesn’t itself do anything or employ anyone. Second, Hernandez has moved to compel production of documents and interrogatory responses. Details follow. For the full background of this case, see VB’s complete coverage. In brief, plaintiff is suing IGE on behalf of essentially all World of Warcraft players on the grounds that IGE, by farming gold, spamming chat, camping spawns, and generally…

I periodically dig around a bit to see what’s new in the browser-based “3D internet” realm because I think that the evolution of the internet into a 3D space is the long-term reason it makes sense to be paying attention to virtual worlds now — and it is a reason that skeptical colleagues understand. Earlier this year, I came across Smallworlds, which integrates YouTube videos, Twitter feeds, and various social networking sites into a browser-based virtual world. Today, I found ExitReality (currently in beta) which raises the stakes. After signing up for…

This one may make your head hurt a little bit, but it highlights a problem that is coming faster than you might think. Three steps to the analysis… 1) 3D games like the upcoming Spore (and, of course, free-form social environments like Second Life) let users create some pretty cool stuff. For example, I created this little guy to the right in about five minutes using the trial of the Creature Creator tool for Spore. The ability to create cool 3D stuff is going to become more prevalent in games and virtual worlds because users now demand customization options. Even where you’d not…

I’m pleased to announce that starting Monday, I will be appearing periodically (in avatar form) as a legal correspondent for the second season of Cornell Professor Robert Bloomfield’s excellent virtual worlds interview show, Metanomics. My first appearance will be Monday, June 30th, at 12 noon Pacific time. I’ll be starting the hour with a brief segment on international jurisdiction, focusing particularly on the questions raised by open standards and open source platforms. The show’s featured guest will be Cisco’s Christian Renaud, who, I suspect, may also…

IGE has filed a brief (.pdf) in opposition to last month’s motion for class certification in Hernandez v. IGE. IGE also filed exhibits (.zip) which feature excerpts from the deposition (an out of court proceeding where someone has to answer questions under oath) of plaintiff Hernandez. IGE’s chief argument is that Hernandez does not have standing to sue because the World of Warcraft “End User License Agreement states that World of Warcraft players ‘have no interest, monetary or otherwise, in any feature or content contained in the Game.’” IGE argues: [T]he…

New research from Nielsen tracks the top ten sites in the UK in average monthly minutes. There aren't any virtual worlds on the list--MSN Search, eBay, and Facebook take the top slots--but Club Penguin and Second Life make the up-and-coming...

We've previously heard about A-SpaceX, a virtual world for intelligence agency collaboration and analysis that tracks that lets agents look at data from around the world and across different time frames, but it looks like the project is picking up...

Last month Nickelodeon announced the formation of a new division focused entirely on virtual worlds alongside one focused on casual games. With an announcement just over a year ago on plans to invest $100 million in virtual worlds and casual...

Playfish's portfolio so far only includes social/casual games, but it describes itself as "working on combining the best elements of casual games, social networks, MMOGs and virtual worlds to create entirely new, more social ways of enjoying great games together."...

Cartoon Network New Media announced today Mini Match, a Web-based kids virtual world with multiplayer games, battles, story lines, safe chatting, and customizable avatars. You can jump right in as a guest avatar or register to track your advancements, friends,...

[Each day, Worlds in Motion will be taking a closer look at individual virtual worlds. We'll start with a nuts-and-bolts overview, then move on to an in-depth tour, to be followed up with a conclusion-- all with the aim of bringing you all the essential info and details on each world in the rapidly-developing virtual landscape. You can view Part 1 of our investigation here, and Part 2 here.] Kingdom of Loathing is the latest online game we're looking at as part of our Online World Atlas, and it's pretty unusual, because most of the time is spent in a single player RPG. However, this…

Australia-based middleware developer BigWorld Technology has upgraded its MMO technology suite, which includes BigWorld Server Software, Content Creation Pipeline, 3D Client Engine Package, and Live Management Tools & Instrumentation, to version 1.9. The update contains new features such as an advanced terrain engine that enables support for unlimited texture layers, higher level of detail, and configurable height/shadow/normal/texture map resolution. In addition, the suite includes optimizations and improvements to patrol paths, web integration, skybox and weather systems, and its support…

Think tank Virtual Policy Network intends to hold a two-day event titled Virtual Policy ‘08: A conference on innovation and governance in virtual worlds. The conference aims to define the virtual policy agenda for UK and Europe. Scheduled for July 22-23 at the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform’s conference center in London, Virtual Policy ’08 will bring together industry veterans, policy makers, and academics to discuss the public policy implications of virtual worlds from a European perspective. Key themes which will be examined at the event include intellectual…

Hoping to separate its site from "virtual plush" communities, representatives for forthcoming street racing virtual Revnjenz have added a new twist for its registration requirements - kids will need to first purchase a "collectible" driver's license card from participating retailers to receive a code for registering a Revnjenz account. Once users enter their driver's license code, they'll create a virtual version of the vehicle pictured on the cars, enabling them to play games, chat with friends, participate in races, and earn BoostBucks, the virtual world's in-game currency. Revnjenz targets…

Celebrating the fifth anniversary of MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies, publishers Lucasarts and Sony Online Entertainment have announced the Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game. The first release for the online trading card game, Champions of the Force, is scheduled to debut late summer 2008. The game will be available exclusively to users with valid and active subscriptions to Star Wars Galaxies. Subscribers will receive five free booster packs per month and will be able to purchase starter decks and additional booster packs through Sony Online Entertainment's Station Store. The trading card game…

Virtual Environment performance has been a widely discussed topic when it comes to running security within virtual environments and there is this concept that I have had in my head for a while now that I thought I'd share with the public to get feedback on.  Its called the Virtual Security Nic and is intended to move security out of the shared computing layer (virtual environment) and into the physical layer with dedicated processors.  By doing this the performance challenge goes away and you are able to get security as close as possible to the VM's.  All traffic going from VM…

Is there security needed between virtual machines?  Some say no, some say yes.  I've been out talking to a number of virtualization users and non users on this topic and I'm finding that some say no and some say yes.  The users of virtualization technology tend to say yes while others looking at virtualization from the outside tend to say no.  Why is this? Well, I thought I'd blog on my thoughts on this! You see, in the physical datacenter there is no firewalling between servers plugged into the same switch and because of this some people think, well if its not done in the…

I've blogged on this topic of Netflow enabling visibility within virtual environments in the past but thought I'd discuss this topic once again as I feel visibility within virtual networks is VERY important. One of the big problems that comes along with virtualization is the inability to see "hidden" traffic flows within virtual networks created by VMWare, Citrix and others.  There are a number of companies off building "agents" or visibility products that can drop inside VMWare to bring back that visibility that was once had in the physical network and I think this…

This week has been an interesting week in the virtual security blog world!  Simon Crosby of Citrix/XenSource stated in his podcast that he felt the virtualization vendors like VMWare and Citrix didn't have the competence to address the security challenges of virtualization and Chris Hoff blogged about it saying that the statement is a cop-out and that they should do more in securing their platforms. Alan Shimel also blogged on the topic and agreed with Hoff and I blogged about it agreeing with both Simon and Hoff.  To restate my position on it; I think that Simon is correct in that…

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…

Avatar Dusan Writer finds an interesting snippet of HTML code on search.secondlife.com which reads: “placeholer page for XBOX, PS3, and iPhone versions of client when they launch next real soon now” Now, we’re not banking on a Linden Lab-supported rollout of Second Life to game consoles and cell phones just yet. Veteran Second Life watchers may recall numerous incidents in which junior executives at Linden implemented policies the company later backpedaled from. In June, someone deleted allegedly pirate content from Second Life. The company later said content was…

SECOND LIFE, July 1 (Reuters) - Premium Second Life accounts shrank in the year to May 2008, according to statistics released by Linden Lab, even as total user hours climbed by more than 50 percent. Second Life had 88,585 of the subscription-paying accounts at the end of May, down from 89,845 a year earlier. The overwhelming majority of avatars use basic accounts, which are free. Premium accounts, which cost US$10 a month, come with additional privileges including enhanced support and the right to own virtual property on Second Life’s mainland. Even as Linden Lab’s base of paying…

Average prices on Second Life’s volatile real estate market have fallen from L$11.5 per meter to under L$6 per meter in less than three months. To help shore up the market, Linden announced it was instituting a two-week freeze on additions to Second Life’s land supply. The drop in land prices should come as no surprise to virtual land speculators. In April, Linden announced its plans to deliberately depress the price of land by increasing supply. The latest tweak to the production schedule at Linden’s land factory suggests the company overshot the mark. While Second…

SECOND LIFE, Jun 19 (Reuters) - Linden Lab said on Thursday it briefly restricted access to Second Life to users with paid accounts, but it has no plans to do so again in the future. “On June 12th, we intentionally restricted logins for approximately seven minutes due to grid problems,” the company said in a statement to Reuters. “We have reviewed the use cases for this capability, and have determined that it no longer serves the purpose for which it was designed. As such, we do not intend to exercise this capability again in the foreseeable future,” the statement…

SECOND LIFE, Jun 17 (Reuters) - Linden Lab has deleted objects from the virtual world in response to DMCA complaints, according to resident reports. “Over the past few days a lot of content has been removed,” said Kevin Alderman (Second Life: Stroker Serpentine). “They did a sweeping takedown.” “I logged on today to find that the SexGen objects that I made using the free 62 SexGen object, have all been removed, as have there [sic] scripts,” said avatar Sgoobzy Sideways in the Second Life forum (Second Life login required). “I have just discovered the…

Sorry to post these so late, but it is a holiday after all! Hopefully, these freebies will still be there tomorrow.Nyla offers a free 4th of July t-shirt suitable for men or women.Juicy offers a pair of star spangled high heels...Cute!Everyday Girl is giving a darling dress, and a pair of jeans with tank top.ICED gives us a pair of platinum hoop earrings.GoodLook gives a tank top and shorts.Cosmic Connections has a free men's white suit (disco era), a couple of free gowns, a matching shirt and pants, and a pair of boots, and a really nice wall clock.OK, that's it for now! More tomorrow.

I love it when I'm wandering around looking for something, and stumble across freebies for you!Today I was house hunting, and came across Minke. Furniture, home decor and the cutest shoes I've bought this week! This is all really nice stuff and as I moved to get a closer look at the shoes, I noticed there are two bags containing freebies! Yay! One is a sculpty beach set (towel and umbrella), and the other is a set of meditation pillows. Stop by and gets yours!

Gav, my companion, said he had a couple of freebies for the blog, so I tagged along!At Naima's, you'll find men's sunglasses for $1.At the Beach Club, you'll find a box stuffed full of men's clothes by [insert cool name]Enjoy!

Just a quick one....At Flair! you will find a free basic black bikini, available on two layers, and a green thong. There are several other items here marked down to 1L and 5L, so take a look around.

At Rocker's Wear, there are a few freebies: A pair of Neko boots with fish in the bottom, a pair of boots, and two bags, one labeled Punk and the other labeled Emo bag. Not my style, but might be yours, and that's what this blog is about :)As you face the front of the store looking out, you'll see a footbridge, walk across it and you'll run into the women's store and out front, to the right, you'll find several nice items for $10 each.Across from there and up the hill (and yes, I'm making you walk because it's a nice sim and you should see it) are men's clothes for $10 - some camo shorts, a…

virtualworlds: Virtual Worlds is also in Plurk.com as @virtualworlds - Invite here http://is.gd/y3U if you need it. via @bloggersblog

virtualworlds: Movie studios expand into virtual worlds - they see opportunities for promotion. http://twurl.nl/nycw7t

virtualworlds: Reduce your carbon footprint using virtual worlds. http://twurl.nl/g1omup

virtualworlds: The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) launches IFAW Island in Second Life http://tinyurl.com/3xvhpj

virtualworlds: Cisco is hosting a live event called Quantum Shift in Second Life tomorrow, March 4th. Details here -> http://tinyurl.com/32wglt

Lots of events and stuff for Second Life fifth’s birthday (SL5B). Interesting enough, there will be a closing Keynote by Mitch Kapor, on Monday, July 7th, at 9am PST. Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend, but I really hope that somebody will be able to tell me everything about it! Mitch Kapor is a great man: he accomplished many things in his life, last but not least the Electronic Frontier Foundation. I’m curious to see what he thinks about Second Life, virtual worlds, and such. It will be tremendously interesting! Be there, if you can! In the meanwhile, if you are a man,…

Interesting comments on Second Life statistics by superb Wagner James Au. This is the economic stats page, if you want to check it out by yourself. Some considerations: 1) Premium accounts fell from 92,000 in January to 88,000 in may. 2) On the other hand, total users hours grew from 28,200,000 hours in January to almost 32,000,000 in May, which is interesting, and positive. 3) Monthly active users dropped from 543,000 in January to 532,000 in may. This is VERY bad. It means that there are less users (premium and monthly are down), but the ones using Second Life, use it more often (since…

[source] Yoowalk is a no-download virtual world which lets you browse the web, connect with friends, and design your own space in a live 3D environment. Yoowalk is a virtual representation of the world wide web. It is composed of categorized villages of 3D websites, called walksites, that you browse with a personalized avatar. Simply walk your avatar along the streets to explore the coolest versions of your favorite websites. Once in Yoowalk, you will not only see other avatars browsing the web, but will be able to interact with them in real-time. Feel free to follow a crowd, ask for shopping…

[source] Saint-Gobain, a mirror, glass, and high-performance material manufacturer, set up a presence in Second Life, thanks to Stonfield InWorld. Main reason is (bold is mine): “…to share ideas and invent their next generation of products with a great focus on sustainable development.” More informations here. Sustainable development, green initiatives, and such, have a great opportunity in Second Life: they can experiment, they can get feedback, they can do A LOT of stuff without building anything, thus reducing their environmental footprint, and giving users the…

[source] Cisco’s CEO John Chambers believes in Second Life: here’s a long interview. (Q&A on Cisco’s blog) Basically, he compares SL to the early internet, when Cisco’s predictions about the future were not taken for granted. After years, the power of Internet came along, and it changed the world forever. Now, in John Chambers’ words: “very often if there is one thing that I have learned in my thirty years in high tech is sometimes concepts are a little bit too early but when they do take off they take off with tremendous speed and efficiency.”…

Hello PenguinsThe new clothing catalog was added to the Gift Shop today and there's lots of new stuff to check out! Do you recognize any of it from the sneak peek earlier in the week?It's hard to decide what I like best, but the Sunburst Acoustic guitar is definitely at the top of my list. What about you? There's a couple new wigs too--I'm definitely a fan of The Messiness. As always we love to hear what you think! What's your favorite combination with the new catalogs?In other news: There's more than new catalogs to check out when you have a chance. There's a new pin to find and Rockhopper…

Hello Penguins!Thanks for all your awesome comments about the sneak peek!  We love hearing from you!!  Are you enjoying the fireworks?  They're in celebration of national holidays around the world!!  Grab some of your buddies and check them out. You can see them from the top of the Ski Hill and the Iceberg. They just started yesterday and will be around until the weekend.In other news:  Some of you might know about a special project that's been going on behind the scenes called the Club Penguin Improvement Project (CPIP).  It's a place where many of you have…

Hello Penguins!Last week, Club Penguin was a super busy place with Rockhopper's return, and I know a lot of you are still working hard to solve the Mysterious Tremors mission.  But things are never dull around here and on Friday a new clothing catalog will be released! I can't show you everything, but here's a sneak peek of one of the new outfits. What do you think? A lot of the new items in the catalog will be really handy at the upcoming July party--I'll have more about that at the end of the week.    Until then...waddle on!-The Club Penguin Team  

Hello Penguins!Our old friend Captain Rockhopper arrived today and from what I've heard, he's having a lot of fun hanging out with everyone.  If you see him, say "hi" to him for me and please help your friends find him if they're having a hard time.  For those of you who are wondering, Rockhopper is a very real penguin who loves to chat so be sure to look for him.In other news: The arrival of Rockhopper's ship also means the new multiplayer game is also back.  You can find it in the captains quarters of his ship below deck. Until then... Waddle On!- Club Penguin Team

Hello Penguins!The new mission--Mysterious Tremors--launched today! The team worked really hard to get it ready and had received a lot of great inspiration from many of you since the release of the last mission! So thanks for your great feedback!If you're a Secret Agent be sure to check in at the HQ to get your new assignment as soon as you can. I don't want to give it all away, but I will tell you this mission is connected to the last mission, Clockwork Repairs. There are a couple new areas you'll be able to explore and of course lots of puzzles to solve and highly confidential PSA…

A small group of Second Life residents have started a petition to include Arabic as one the supported fonts in the virtual world of Second Life. Here's the petition. This seems like a fairly straightforward addition for Linden Labs to incorporate into Second Life, especially because the software is now so integrated into the web. Might be a fun project for the folks at Meedan to explore. In addition, the number of Arabic speakers I've seen in Second Life has increased markedly in the past months.A cursory Google search turned up series of developer discussions on the Second Life support…

Machinima video by Draxtor Despres featuring Eureka Dejavu in discussion on June 27 on Ilha Bradesco (SLURL) with Simplesmentenuma Boa (Gilson Schwartz) about the Imagination Age, philosophy and cultural dialog in Second Life.Hamlet recently expressed interest in learning what was going on on the Brazilian sims in the virtual world of Second Life. The answer is...a lot! Coincidentally, Eureka and I were invited to speak last week at a regular event at Ilha Bradesco by my friend Gilson Schwartz. I've spoken at a few of his events over the past years. Gilson is one of the many Brazilians…

Ambasssador David M. Abshire.Many people know the work of Ambassador David Abshire. Nick Cull, the world's leading historian on public diplomacy and author of the forthcoming, "The Cold War and the United States Information Agency American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945–1989," describes Abshire's role in public diplomacy over the past 40 years in these words:"David Abshire is a unique figure in American public diplomacy. Look at the key turning points and he is there. In the early 1970s he was the critical figure in devising a parent structure to save Radio Free Europe and Radio…

Endless Raymaker, DIP House Artist, underwent a transformation to get ready for the first installation of the Endless Adventure. Click here for more information about the background of the project before reading Endless Raymaker's thoughts on why she chose to explore furry culture over granting wishes or virtually experiencing all twelve levels of Dante's Inferno. Choosing Luna by Endless RaymakerI could have gone any which way, but readers were just more interested in an exploration of furry culture to get to the heart of why people seem to loathe furries. Furries are animalistic avatars in…

Schmilsson Nilsson and Eureka Dejavu at Dancing Ink Productions' windmill headquarters in the virtual world of Second Life. Is it easier being green?My friend Larry Pintak who runs the Adham Center at the American University in Cairo has been running a fascinating project thanks to a grant from USAID and the Carnegie Corporation called the “AUC-QU Bootcamp.” 24 journalism students 12 each from the US and the Middle East are spending three weeks in the Egypt and Qatar looking at "comparative issues covering politics, religion, culture and journalism." The students are blogging about their…

Here is a quick press review of everything I could find for about the Rouge sim opening, press conference and upcoming event. Rouge on NPIRL (awesome article!) Harper Beresford on Rouge Analu on Rouge Bluebell Fashions Jessyka Richard Gabby Panacek on Rouge SLInworldToday Tina’s Universum (swedish) Crap Mariner on Rouge Nadine Nozaki on Rouge Eladrienne Laval on Rouge GoSpeed Racer on Rouge Jun Kuroda on Rouge Chestnut Rau on Rouge Dinee Ghia on Rouge Ryker Beck on Rouge Queen Coronet on Rouge Gabby Panacek on Rouge (dressing up) Zoe Connoly and Vidal Tripsa on Rouge (video) Others:…

As stated in the previous post, my new sim, Rouge, will open it’s doors with a smashing epic party this Saturday on the 5th of July 2008. Party starts at 2PM SLT and will end up late in the night. You are of course all invited, my dear friends. Let’s crash that sim repeatedly in the memory of good old times. Since this is heading to be huge, I may have to lock the sim to group only during the party. I strongly suggest to everyone to get a CodeRed VIP group membership by simply contacting me inworld. I will post the exact location on the day of the event. DJ Lineup (may change and…

CodeBastard “Codie” Redgrave, photography artist and content designer, has the immense pride and pleasure to announce that her brand new sim, Rouge, will open it’s doors to the public with a smashing huge party happening Saturday the 5th of July, starting at 2PM SLT. It will end up several hours later to accommodate friends from both the American and European timezones. A press conference will be held Friday the 4th at 6PM SLT for all bloggers and journalists interested to know more about Rouge and the opening event. I will also offer a guided tour preview of the sim after…

Now I can relax a bit. My exhibits are on place at SL5B and I’m glad it’s all done with the organizing. This year I’m blessed to have two exhibits, one for my Boudoir Rouge series, and one for my unreleased, exclusive Avatrait collection called China Red. Thanks to Greg from Avatrait to allow me to expose those exclusives again, since this is still one of my favorite series I did. You can visit the installations following those SLURLs: China Red: http://slurl.com/secondlife/SL5B%20Prim/167/53/22 Boudoir Rouge: http://slurl.com/secondlife/SL5B%20Render/7/227/24

Yes I know you the title, so sorry for baiting you with an ambiguous sex joke. You know, sometimes I almost believe karma exist. For some good time now I plan to buy my own sim to make a new headquarter for my activities. Well, sparing the details, my ex-GF Fallon popped into my IM with the big question: “Will you take my sim?”. Stunned I was especially after several months of no-talky. She made me an offer I just could not refuse, considering I was already intending to buy a sim at regular price. Basically I had to pay the transfer fees of 100$ and she gave me the sim, which has…

A lot of people try to figure out how HA calculates the failover level. I already did know that VC 2.0 use a slot size based on max cpu and memory for the “worst” VM,but this article by “Virtual Geek” explains everything into great detail. Very very good read !! http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2008/06/so-how-exactly.html

Ever wanted to know how often DRS is vmotioning your VMs? You can extract this info from the VC database by the following query: With the following SQL command, you can extract the info: SELECT vpx_event.event_type, vpx_event.vm_name, vpx_event.create_time from vpx_event where event_type like ‘%migrate%’ (Credits go to: Dave.Mishchenko http://communities.vmware.com/message/969563) Now if you filter on the event_type “vim.event.DrsVmMigratedEvent” you see all DRS Vmotions. Eventtype vim.event.VmMigratedEvent is for manual vmotions. Looking at the VI environment my…

I frequently read postings on different forums about what the best LUN size is and I thought I’d write a post about it on how I usually do it. First of all, there is no ideal LUN size that suites all environments. But I think there is a general calculation you can use to come to the LUN size suited for your environment. And second, there is no technical difference between small or large LUNs. For the read/write performance it doesn’t matter if your VMDK is on a 100Gb LUN or 2TB LUN, it’s the total load on the LUN that matters. The bases of my rule of thumb is that a LUN should hold no…

In VMware Workstation 6.5 beta 1, it is no longer possible to run ESX in a VM. This is because of some improvements that  have been made in the code that unfortunately also prevents ESX from running in a VM. I’ve been using this possibility in Workstation quite a lot for product testing and product demo’s and would love to get it back. I would even settle for less options in such a VM or for less performance. As long as its not gonna take an hour to start the VM, like it does without VT enabled. See this thread: http://communities.vmware.com/thread/117676?tstart=0 If you would…

On my Ubuntu laptop I’ve installed the new VMware Workstation 6.5 beta 1. I just had to try the new Unity feature. With a click on the unity button, all your guest windows are displayed on your hosts desktop as if they were part of this desktop. I create a little video with gtk-RecordMyDesktop to demo it to you. Unfortunately, when capturing the video from my desktop, the cpu spikes to 99% and the performance of the moving Windows is somewhat degraded. Also I’m not contect with the video quality after it is uploaded to YouTube.  Still I think its quite impressive to see what…

Hi all! The HyperVerse group would like to bring to your attention that there is a new version 1.2 of the topology generator and graph simulator TopGen. The most interesting new feature is that it now comes with integrated simulation support for distributed virtual environments. It can simulate user movements, download traffic, interest management, peer topologies and many more. We have used it within our project with quite good results, so just have a look at the following website and feel free to check it out. If you need help or have questions, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Velocity seems to be an interesting .NET library for developing scalable cooperative caching applications. See here http://blogs.msdn.com/velocity/

HTML 5 has some interesting components to it: 1. A focus on rich internet applications: client-side persistence, support for offline viewing 2. A 3D canvas (planned), based on OpenGL ES. Some details are here. Together, we have the potential for a basic 3D viewer in the web browser. Nothing as advanced as current clients by any means, but a potentially fertile starting point for people to explore what a 3D web could do. Some support for scenegraphs instead of direct-mode rendering (see X3D/Ajax3D for an example), a more suitable update protocol than XMLHTTPRequest, and the ability to talk to…

Some time ago at the very beginning of the HyperVerse project, we were discussing possible future technologies for MetaVerse like scenarios. We imagined a device which gives you an overlay view of a virtual representation of the world wherever you are and wherever you look at. Like e.g. a pair of glasses which will automatically highlight shops having certain goods you are searching for… Now this device is reality, Google has integrated an application into its Android phone which - based on GPS, network access and gyrosensors - will always display a virtual representation of your…

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

John Chambers, CEO, Cisco, is always the beloved keynote speaker at Cisco Live, formally Networkers. He really packs the house as he is dynamic and visionary so folks want to hear what he has to say, in person whenever possible. Now Chambers is going to pack the virtual house in Second Life. As mentioned in earlier blog posts he will be live in Second Life for a QA on collaboration after his Cisco Live keynote. We encourage you to join us in world at the Bandwidth Stage to ask questions and take part in this exciting event. Come early as spots will fill! And some folks said virtual worlds are…

Join us June 24, 2008, 12:00pm SLT (12:00pm PDT / 3:00pm EDT) at the Cisco Bandwidth Stage for this live event. Click play below to view the archive of the event. This TechChat features Erick Pong, Solutions Manager for the Enterprise Solutions Engineering (ESE) Branch/WAN Group, and Oscar Thomas, Solutions Manager for Advanced and Emerging Technologies, both from Cisco. During this TechChat, Pong and Thomas will discuss best practices and provide technical guidance on deploying unified communications on customers’ IP networks. Join this online discussion to hear: How to use your existing…

Join us June 25, 2008, 10:30am SLT (10:30am PDT / 1:30pm EDT) at the Cisco Bandwidth Stage for this live event. Click play below to view the archive of the event. This TechChat features Michael Weir, technical marketing engineers with Cisco’s Midrange Routing Business Unit (MRBU). During this TechChat Weir will discuss the new Cisco ASR 1000 Series Routers and how they transform and extend the network edge with scalable services intelligence. Join this online discussion to hear: How this new line of routers consolidates multiple functions and services into a single, compact, powerful router…

Join us June 26, 2008, 10:30am SLT (10:30am PDT / 1:30pm EDT) at the Cisco Bandwidth Stage for this live event. Click play below to view the archive of the event. This TechChat features Tom Wesselman. Senior Manager in the CTO office working on our long-term strategy for unified communications and collaboration. During this TechChat Wesselman will discuss layered architectures, security, on-premises versus hosted collaboration services, and operational tools. Join this online discussion to understand: Cisco’s vision for implementing next-generation collaboration How to balance collaboration…

The Cisco Live in Second Life collaboration hub is now LIVE. The hub features a collaborative ‘packet sort’ game, a video vault, the Cisco view-matic, Cisco Live Twitter wall and the Cisco Live chill zone with in world store. Join a couple of friends in world now and take the ‘packet sort’ challenge. All gamers can get a prize after playing at the Cisco Live in world store. The top scores as of June 28th will get special recognition on the wall of fame. Think you can be the top score? I challenge you to test your skills working as a team to sort threat from non-threat…

Economic pressures are taking their toll on surf sims in Second Life and it seems certain that more surf sims will close during the coming months, according to the Second Life surfing blog SurfWatch. Rezzable, one of Second Life’s leading sim owner/developers, announced the closing of Surfline Aloha and Surfline Epic sims at the end of June, just a couple of months after completely redesigning and relaunching the surf sims. “When the the bulk of the surfing community is spending time at only a couple of surf locations in Second Life, those locations that don’t see traffic…

Kelly Cuddihy is and have worked hard to build , decorate, and create a very special Club that will be opening soon. THE CLUB CIRO’s. Where LIVE ARTIST’s will give LIVE concert’sn gowing from romance music from the year 1950 till the music of today in 2008. Also the real Wall of fame will be standing proudly, dedicated to the best SL Artists. And in August 2008 THE CLUB CIRO’s have a special surprise, because Kelly Cuddihy have made a deal with an RL artist to perform Exclisive for THE CLUB CIRO’s. Because of contract reasons in real life the artist can only…

Who is the man behind the Avatar? It’s a mystery indeed. In fact the only way to catch Jax Live is in Second Life a virtual 3D online world of social and business networking or on his audio stream. Jax is currently on tour in SL:his “DosVidasTour” is stopping in all the best venues, gathering more and more fans.On June 26th he will do a stop at Milano Vera, using a stage built on 4 sims, able to host more than 100 avatars. Jax kindly answered to some questions about his all virtual SL career. First of all I asked him why did he choose to appear only in second life.

Second Life surfers Christine Daffodil and Craig Stallion have announced a cancer benefit surfing competition to be held in Second Life, called the Flynn Sheridan Invitational Surf Contest to benefit the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. The contest, named after Flynn Sheridan, founder and former director of the Second Life Surfing Association (SLSA), will take place at the Surfline Epic Rezzable sim on Saturday 21 June 2008 starting at 10am SLT. Full details on how you can help to fight cancer by participating in the event as a competitor or a spectator are available on the…

Holger Gilruth, a foto about the soccers middle of the earth, today in vienna the UEFA Euro 2008 here with a place with information of the games and of course free fan items http://slurl.com/secondlife/Wien/187/47/32 Visit Wien (186, 46, 32) Submitted by Holger Gilruth

In a world haunted by walled gardens and proprietary software and devices, the promise of open source and interoperability shines like a bright light (not the finest metaphor, but it serves it purpose). Adam Broitman (http://amediacirc.us/2007/12/13/and-the-openness-2008-award-goes-to/) “free” items seem to have a “final” and “consumerist” utility–its utility ends upon its “consumption;” whereas “open” items are constantly evolving–their usefulness transforms and adapts to new situations and scenarios. Eloh Eliot…

A year ago, I was introduced to Buddahead through the virtualive.tv project. I was impressed and moved by the bands onstage performance and emotionally charged music that combines powerful chords, and soft melodic guitar all under the voice of their lead singer Raman Kia. Their second album  “Ashes” is a very dynamic album that displays the bands range from the emotional rollercoaster of Ruin to the light and acoustic Rescue Us, ending with the country inspired Story of Our Lives. From beginning to end their music is a moving tale of life’s trials and tribulations, that fans of…

  The Feted Inner Core (or FIC) is the creation of the popular virtual world antagonist Prokofy Neva. FIC is akin to the virtual world illuminati, and best described as those people who are “deemed” as Second Life elite, cool kids, and popular figures. In one way, FIC is like the A list for celebrities, you do have a target on your back. Prokofy has begun a yearly tradition of naming people onto the FIC, adding and removing as necessary. While the FIC list is completely subjective, it has become one of the most talked about references of who’s who in Second Life. Historically, the…

The Second Life 5th Birthday has begun, and is going to feature a plethora of Second Life artists, musicians, and DJ’s.  Along with the panel “Second Life Artists making a RL Careers” (I’ll talk about it in a different post).  This week, I’ll be performing at Stage 3 at the SL5B on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 8am PDT (11am EDT) and Sunday, June 29th, 2008 at 12pm PDT (3pm EDT).  It’s going to be a real pleasure to DJ for the SL5B!  For more information on the festivities and links to the art exhibits, visit the SL5B Second Life Wiki…

It’s Tuesday, and there has been a LOT of activity in Second Life.  The SL5B (Second Life 5th Birthday) is underway, there’s lag all over the place, and things are just getting crazy.  The beginning of the week is a perfect time to take a breather and enjoy the relaxing, soulful beats of funk, soul, and downtempo at the high.  The event begins at 6pm PST.

Well, I’ve shown that my word can’t be trusted, now haven’t I?Last time I posted something on this blog, I said that things in RL had gotten busy, and that I was going to be traveling, and that I’d be back writing again in “about a week.” That was 28 days ago. Four weeks of not writing at all about Second Life, and not even really being in SL, for that matter.And, what’s worse... it’s taken a good bit of effort to make myself come back, both to SL and the blog.Don’t fret, it’s not that I don’t love y’all. In fact, it was your emails, your comments wondering where I…

I'm going to apologize in advance, this post isn't going to be "about" anything other than explaining where I've been, and where I'm going to be in the near future. Yes, I've been conspicuously absent from the blog for about a week now, and it will probably be another week or so until I'm back to blogging full strength. I hope everyone will hang in there with me during that time.In case anyone is worried, nothing is wrong, I've just hit a busy patch at my day job, and my baby brother is getting married next week and we've all been busy with that. Plus, the things I've been wanting to post…

Looks like our dearest Ruth - the default form for all of us, the way we were rezzed into the grid, the way we appear anytime Second Life can't figure out how it's supposed to make us look - is no more. At least for those of us using the Release Candidate viewer.Linden Lab announced tonight that as of the newest version (7 I believe? I've lost count, really) of the Release Candidate, Ruth will be no more. According to the release notes:Newly created avatars without a gender, or any avatar where “clothing is still downloading” are rendered as a cloud rather than naked/wrong body…

I’ve been wanting to share something with y’all for a while now, about a publication that I’ve been lucky enough to join recently. While I hinted at it a few weeks ago, I didn’t want to say anything until the first issue bearing my name came out, for fear of jinxing things. And now that it’s out, I still have hesitated to say anything here, for a reason I’ll get to below.But if you know me, you know I can’t keep my big yapper shut forever. So I’m happy to announce that as of the May issue, I have joined the staff of GLAM World Magazine. You can find the issue here, the article…

I wanted to give out a big Second Life, First Person welcome to all the folks coming over here from the Daily Kos. Since the article linked to me on the term "Rezbianism," but only pointed you to the main page of my blog, you might be searching for my old post entitled "My Rezbian Theory." Check it out, and I hope you'll be interested enough to explore the blog a bit further. Thanks for visiting!To my regular readers, just to explain: This morning I was linked to in an article on the Daily Kos website. I highly recommend it - a very interesting and deep exploration of what sexual orientation…

We just announced in-world the five finalists in the USC Network Culture Project's "Second Life and Public Good Community Challenge". They are: Ability Commons: Proposers Gentle Heron and Carolina Yeats Mauerkrankheit:  Proposers Ping Rau and Nonny Writer Native Lands Cultural Project: Proposer Boondoggle Gruppman Texas Obesity Research Center:  Proposer Sirena Felisimo Interactive Accessible Home:  Proposer Kathee Gibbs Congrats to all the finalists, and all those that participated! read more

You may have noticed that there is now an event calendar on the site.  There is a tab at the top of the site that will lead you to the calendar.  The idea is to provide a place where we can all see what events are happening in the sims and when.  With any luck, it will help the NPC managers book events in an intelligent way. If you want to make use of one of the public spaces or are going to have an event in your own space--please contact Penguin (Megan) to make arrangements for booking/listing. Thanks!Creech (Matthew)

Gene Koo of the Berkman Center at Harvard wanted me to pass around these job notices for an innovative project called "Hub2": "Hub2 seeks to enable local neighborhoods to participate more meaningfully in the design and development of their own public spaces. Residents engage in a process that employs 3D tools and  problem-solving techniques to articulate a common vision reflecting the participants’  values. Over the next 3 months, Hub2 will work with Allston residents and stakeholders, the Boston Redevelopment Authority, and Harvard’s Allston Development Group to…

UPDATE: SL is back up. I was able to get in about 9:10. If you missed the NPC meeting, never fear, you can catch transcript to be posted here As I'm sure some of you have encountered already today, Second Life is currently down for emergency maintenance. It's currently not allowing anyone to log in. Per their grid status page: "We have to close logins for a while to enable the database to process the overflow from earlier. The landstore is not accessible for the moment as well." read more

As many of you know SL is about to turn 5 years old... Yup, a whole handful! This is a great opportunity to bring some attention to the work your nonprofit is doing in SL and RL. As Linden Labs announced yesterday the party will be a two week event with the second week featuring exhibits from “business, education, health care and nonprofits”. Not only that but as they stated in their blog on Tuesday, June 3rd, “We’ll close with a ceremony including a special guest speaker with a very important announcement. “ The suspense is killing me! read more

Alas, I don’t have a video tip this week, and promise to have more usefun (useful + fun) knowhow in motion by next Saturday. I did want to bring greater attention to some useful wiki info-pages which may have answers to some of your questions, and bring together scattered resources at a single glance. If you don’t know what a “wiki” is, learn more. Wikis are awesome because in addition to browsing, anyone can contribute. These pages are pretty new and stand to be improved upon — so if you have something great to add, go ahead and edit! Accessibility - Second Life keeps evolving to…

How do I use the World Map? is our featured article this week. Learn about Map Legends, Navigation Beacons, Tracking Friends, Creating SLURLs and more! We’re on a roll this week and have an added special surprise! New and veteran map users alike, a bounty of bear goodness awaits you. Support teams have created Special Team Bears which are placed on I-World Island from now until Monday at 1 p.m. PDT. Here is a little help. I’ll give you various coordinates to land in and then the hunt is on! New to using coordinates? Check out our Article of the Week! Central Area: I-World Island…

Capping off SL5B, Linden Lab board member Mitch Kapor will deliver a keynote address about Second Life as a disruptive technology platform. In addition to SL as a creative, social space, he will discuss the emergence of SL for broader uses such as education, philanthropy, art, fashion, medical research, architecture and design, science, and entertainment. The speech will be held at the Main Stage We know there is a lot of speculation about Mitch’s announcement…some of it is good tongue-in-cheek, some of it raising expectations. To put to rest to some of that…

We will be deploying server version 1.23 to Second Life in a rolling restart next week, following the schedule: Tue, 07/08, 7:30PM : a pilot roll to ~300 regions Wed, 07/09, 5:00-9:00AM : a rolling restart of half the grid Thu, 07/10, 5:00-9:00AM : a rolling restart of the rest of the grid Each region will be down for about 10 minutes; regions will receive warnings starting 5 minutes before they are restarted. If your region stays down for more than 20 or 30 minutes, please contact support. There is no way to delay the restart of any given region. No client upgrades will be needed as a result…

As part of our festivities, I was just on a panel alongside Kate Linden (moderator), Jeremy Linden, and Dimitrio Lewis discussing with our appreciated audience. What about? One of my fave focuses in Second Life… Community Enlightenment — sharing and spreading knowledge to make your SL better! From the Knowledge Base to the Wiki to those Video Tutorials, it RULES when answers to your questions exist… but SUCKS when you can’t find them. That’s what we’re here for. Read the transcript, check out the links, and if you’re Stateside or honorarily so, have an independent weekend!

Special to the Herald by staff reporter Idoru Wellman The supersleuths at upstart interweb newspaper The Griefer Herald believe they have unlocked the secret identity of Second Life Herald managing editrix Pixeleen Mistral. She is... wait for it... none other than Herald founder Urizenus Sklar. Asked to comment on the story, Urizenus admitted that he was identical with himself, and Pixeleen concurred that Uri was indeed identical with himself. Meanwhile, further information has come forward suggesting that Urizenus, a.k.a. philosopher Peter Ludlow in real life, might also be identical to…

Why would we surrender, ol' bean? We're in your base, musketing your doods by Caine Constantine In June, the musket-wielding armies of British conquest fought a prolonged battle to claim Prize Delta and the Task Force Marines as the newest colony of the British Empire. The Marines, however, refused to be anyone’s subjects. And so, a day later, the British came back again to claim what they thought was theirs. This time, though, they planned to stay. More conflict seemed inevitable, despite the previous epic battle, in which the Marines were gunning down the British by the dozens using their…

by Kris Dibou, warrior poet/pirate My love is a little furry thing With whiskers long and paws so thin Her tail swishes as she sighs With lovelight pouring from her eyes Her pointed ears twitch to my touch As I scratch them oh so much And she lays on her back with paws curled up With 6 small breasts for all her pups I vacuum the hair when she sheds A problem with those multipeds But I love her anyway Let her purr the night away How good she'd be in a spicy stew Lots of meat for us to chew String her up and dress her out Gather the bones and haul them out copyright (c) 2008 - Kris Dibou - used…

Linden staffer discovers PG-Penis -- leading in-world economic indicators turn strongly positive by Kris Dibou & Pixeleen Mistral Marble PG-P OK, wooden boobs-- no way! Game gods roil virtual commodities markets The first signs of an economic turnaround in the mining industry were evident today, as the overseas futures market in marble textures went wild. The cause? A reliable source informed the Herald that Everett Linden was role-playing a game god when he accidentally gave the OK for David's wedding tackle to flap in the SL breeze- for him to disrobe his probe- for his banan-o to go…

SL5B naughty bits scandal expands to elbows by Kris Dibou Venus De Milo I received a tip, dear readers, that a short distance behind the Statue of David stood Aphrodite, nipples exposed.  To verify this sighting, the Herald was there in no time with experts who have allegedly seen nipples before.  To our dismay, we could not determine if we were looking at nipples or not.  Famous snail-detective Happy Trails offered this twist on the situation: "It would seem to me that the Lindens mistook this lady's arms for nipples, and removed the wrong items.  They must have used…

Well, I’ve shown that my word can’t be trusted, now haven’t I?Last time I posted something on this blog, I said that things in RL had gotten busy, and that I was going to be traveling, and that I’d be back writing again in “about a week.” That was 28 days ago. Four weeks of not writing at all about Second Life, and not even really being in SL, for that matter.And, what’s worse... it’s taken a good bit of effort to make myself come back, both to SL and the blog.Don’t fret, it’s not that I don’t love y’all. In fact, it was your emails, your comments wondering where I…

I'm going to apologize in advance, this post isn't going to be "about" anything other than explaining where I've been, and where I'm going to be in the near future. Yes, I've been conspicuously absent from the blog for about a week now, and it will probably be another week or so until I'm back to blogging full strength. I hope everyone will hang in there with me during that time.In case anyone is worried, nothing is wrong, I've just hit a busy patch at my day job, and my baby brother is getting married next week and we've all been busy with that. Plus, the things I've been wanting to post…

Looks like our dearest Ruth - the default form for all of us, the way we were rezzed into the grid, the way we appear anytime Second Life can't figure out how it's supposed to make us look - is no more. At least for those of us using the Release Candidate viewer.Linden Lab announced tonight that as of the newest version (7 I believe? I've lost count, really) of the Release Candidate, Ruth will be no more. According to the release notes:Newly created avatars without a gender, or any avatar where “clothing is still downloading” are rendered as a cloud rather than naked/wrong body…

I’ve been wanting to share something with y’all for a while now, about a publication that I’ve been lucky enough to join recently. While I hinted at it a few weeks ago, I didn’t want to say anything until the first issue bearing my name came out, for fear of jinxing things. And now that it’s out, I still have hesitated to say anything here, for a reason I’ll get to below.But if you know me, you know I can’t keep my big yapper shut forever. So I’m happy to announce that as of the May issue, I have joined the staff of GLAM World Magazine. You can find the issue here, the article…

I wanted to give out a big Second Life, First Person welcome to all the folks coming over here from the Daily Kos. Since the article linked to me on the term "Rezbianism," but only pointed you to the main page of my blog, you might be searching for my old post entitled "My Rezbian Theory." Check it out, and I hope you'll be interested enough to explore the blog a bit further. Thanks for visiting!To my regular readers, just to explain: This morning I was linked to in an article on the Daily Kos website. I highly recommend it - a very interesting and deep exploration of what sexual orientation…

In light of the recent budget cuts, High School Principal, Thelma Brown, and her students of CITY HONORS HIGH , are taking on the vision to raise the funds that they vitally need to sustaing their school's arts and educational programs in a unique and innovative way.

Picture this in your imagination, if you will: you're lounging on the deck of your 32 foot cruising yacht and it's a beautiful day – the sky is cobalt blue and the sun is sparkling. The surface of the water is topped with ripples of currents, and you can hear the gentle clap up against the sides of the boat. All of a sudden, the wind picks up and the waters become rocky, beginning to whitecap, but just enough to respect the power of nature. Suddenly, the sea changes again, the waters calm, and you are lulled by the gentle movements of the rocking waves. That is the sensation one…

Avatars United (www.avatarsunited <http://www.avatarsunited > – AU) launches a Facebook alternative for virtual world friendships. Simply put a service to keep track of your virtual world friends (old and new) over time. As such AU is a community for avatars of all online worlds.

The Virtual Worlds’ answer to My Space has been created to build on the progress made around the globe in machinima, original music, photography, the arts and the overall culture of the Metaverse. My Metaverse (www.mymetaverse.ning.com) was launched today with 52 foundation members from different virtual worlds such as Second Life, Kaneva, Entropia Universe, Open Life Grid and Twinity.

By Guardian Market, SLR CFO Does anyone here remember the WSE?  Remember LukeConnell Vandeverre, the self-assured CEO of that first multi-company stock exchange in Second Life?  It’ll strain your virtual memory to do so, since the WSE has all but disappeared in recent months and the metaverse has a short attention span. On January 6, 2008, the World Stock Exchange posted this announcement stating that it was going to upgrade to a new edition of their webpage – WSE 4.0.  The article reports, “…we expect the new website design, layout, functionality and…

Arts, culture, and the blues all came together for last week's edition of Tonight Live. It was an evening of entertainment with Paisley's guests Arnold Albert - Newseum Poobah, Von Johin - Blues Guitarist Singer, and Phorkyad Acropolis - Theatre Director/Performer. We had yet another full house, and we'd love for you to join us this week as part of our live audience. Doors open at 4:30 pm slt, and the show starts at 6 pm slt. We encourage you to come early to ensure that you get a great seat for this week's fabulous guests! In Kenzo - Producer and Director In Kenzo (the green fairy) curates…

Linda Kay Silva from last week's show made a great start to her fiction writing course on Tuesday. As an author of 8 novels she had plenty of tips and the audience interacted on the week's topic - how to write that opening line. 'Workshop' would be too serious a word to describe the course, although it's full of invaluable information for writers at all levels, because Linda is so much fun. In fact she's planning to do some standup comedy on SL next! Can't wait for that.... The course runs every Tuesday at 3pm SLT at the Written Word Waterstage http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cookie/32/124/21 See…

Perhaps it's his brilliance, wit and wisdom that makes us seek him out, but Troy McLuhan is one busy man. From his early work with the International SpaceFlight Museum to bringing the Naked Scientists into focus on Sunday Afternoons, he is endlessly busy creating a better life for us here. It is his restless search and great commitment to this outstanding Metaverse we inhabit that also makes it a better place. And we recognize this. The man I call The Titan was gracious enough to give me a few hours of his time (Yes he is busy, and we had to do the interview in 2 parts.) It was fitting that…

METANOMICS WITH CISCO'S CHRISTIAN RENAUD Note the new time ::: NOON MONDAYS ::: for our Second Season! Join host Robert Bloomfield on Monday, June 30, at Noon PST, when he interviews Christian Renaud, Chief Architect of Networked Virtual Environments for the Cisco Technology Center, after his recent announcement to leave Cisco. From the heart of Cisco's incubator for emerging virtual technologies, we'll explore Renaud's experience, and you'll find out why he believes that "Second Life and its walled/closed ilk will fade into the sunset in the next 24-36 months." In our new Metanomics format,…

Last week we had another full sim as we rocked away to Noma's blues, kain's opera and philosophica discussion and Anette & Bibo's talks about how to get t all out there! Come join us at the studio this Sunday for a show start time of 6pm SLT - or earlier to guarantee a seat! Arnold Albert - Newseum Poobah Arnold oversees the development of exhibits at the Newseum SL (a non-profit virtual museum funded by a RL museum in Washington DC) & also works with residents to build a community of virtual world journalists Business Website: newseum.org Von Johin - Blues Guitarist Singer Von Johin…

We're very pleased to announce that Bruce Damer, a well-known virtual world pioneer who has been a guest author here (twice) has accepted our invitation to join us as a regular author. Below is a short bio about Bruce's past work in virtual worlds, but there's much more to be found on his website.Twelve years ago, Bruce founded two organizations, the Contact Consortium and DigitalSpace Corporation. The Contact Consortium was the first nonprofit organization supporting the virtual worlds/avatar industry in its early adopter phase. The Consortium held a dozen conferences on the medium and its…

So Age of Conan seems to have opened strong, and I'm eager to play it, I guess. I'm not a big fan of the Conan series, but I really miss gritty realism after so long in cartoony WoW, and everything I've heard about the class design has piqued my interest. I even got it for Father's Day. But that was, what, three weeks ago? Why haven't I gotten in touch with my inner barbarian? In short, it's because there's no Mac client, and that leads me to ask a question of the wiser industry-savvy types around here. In the current moment, is not designing your big budget MMO for easy Mac use a Grade A…

With grateful thanks to John Hengeveld of Intel and others for many concepts and wording Heady Times for Early Adopters The early years of a technology is frequently characterized by a boisterous cacophony of players. Each player has a dream, but to realize that dream, they have to build everything from the ground up and develop their own platforms. Early consumers of technologies are limited to a small group blessed with the patience, wealth or time (or all of the above) to deal with the gaps in these home grown gadgets to get something to work. Automobiles went through this phase as did…

As many TN readers know I’ve recently formed a think tank to look at public policy issues and virtual worlds, it’s called the Virtual Policy Network (tVPN). The point of it is to bring together academics, industry and policy makers in local, regional and global dialog. As part of the usual thinky tanky things tVPN is creating and supporting a range of conferences and is kicking of a number of research projects. And so to the point of this post: I wanted to make TN readers aware of a possibly the first UK based conference focused purely on public policy and virtual worlds. Snappily titled…

This month, a number of my colleagues in VW research have disappeared from WoW in favor of the shiny-new Age of Conan game, and I'd heard a lot of rave reviews from them. I'd also been encouraged before the release by one of their trailers, which showed a kick-ass female toon. Yesterday, however, I received this email from my RIT colleague Jessica Bayliss: As some of you are aware, I've been playing Age of Conan for the past few weeks. It's an interesting MMO with some different things from the standard WoW. Apparently, they have also gender biased their MMO against female characters and…