Virtual Worlds News

Update to Second Life UI Gets Passing Grade

A pre-release build of the anticipated update to Second Life's user interface has surfaced, with two sites checking on appearance, functionality, and sizzle. "All in all, the new interface is useful, even enhancing, though the top bar is a bit of a space-hog," writes Massively. "It's useful, but it feels stale, a bit dry and utilitarian," the site continues. The Metaverse Journal checks in as well, focusing on changes in "the menu structure, menu titles, [and] three little widgets on the right-hand side (which slide out commonly used windows like Places)." And concludes: "Overall, the changes are very safe." Both net out their analysis with the sentiment that Linden Lab has done a decent job of "balancing the need for a more intuitive interface versus the risks of radical change frustrating current Second Life residents." [via Massively and The Metaverse Journal]

Blue Mars 2150 Moves Closer to Launch

Back in early 2008, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) held a two-day conference it titled Virtual Worlds and Immersive Environments. The agency then formalized its goal of engaging the public as "real-time participants" in NASA’s historic moments of exploration in the spirit of what it called "We all get to go."

One of the presenters in the conference was Virtual Space Entertainment, Inc. (VSE) which demoed its Blue Mars 2150 concept. Today, VSE and a handful of partners, including the Smithsonian Institution, The National Geographic Society, NOVA, and Big Stage Entertainment announced a number of milestones and dates attached to the release of both a Blue Mars online virtual world as well as a museum exhibit to be housed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Adobe Pre-Releases Flash 10, Brings the 3D

Today Adobe sent a pre-release version of Flash 10, codenamed "Astro," out into the public. With the host of youth worlds out there running in 2 or 2.5D, it's obvious that accessibility is a big boost in nabbing a share of the market. Still, many users would likely prefer a 3D environment. It looks like Flash 10 may be the ideal solution. Supporting native 3D transformation and animation, Adobe already has some developers excited about the potential.

MIT Tech Review on Peer-to-Peer Virtual Worlds

MIT's Technology Review has a good feature up on  peer-to-peer virtual worlds. It centers around the recent deal for VastPark to integrate a P2P service from NICTA--and offers a good explanation of the results--but  also cites Wu-chang Feng, a Portland State University researcher looking at the network architecture of virtual worlds, to explain that if Linden Lab allows users to host their own Second Life servers, it could present a rival to the cost-cutting P2P infrastructure. He sees Linden making moves to open up Second Life, though the company is keeping more control over its servers than clients. There a few other companies out there now looking at P2P networks for their platforms as well. Which would you rather see first, an open-source hosting solution for virtual worlds or a P2P network? And it's worth keeping in mind that, as VastPark CEO Bruce Joy and NICTA senior researcher Santosh Kulkarni pointed out to me, the two aren't mutually exclusive. [Via MIT Technology Review]

Blogging the SLCC: A Futurist's View of Second Life Education

“Today I’m going to tell you the future and show you how to tell the future,” said Sarah Robbins. Her methods have more to do with taxonomies than tea leaves, but in a very impassioned presentation, she outlined a method of thinking about changes in virtual worlds and their implications for education. “We’ve been in reaction mode,” she said. "And that’s natural. But we should be in a different mode, tea leaf reading mode. We are the ones who make the future of how this mode of education works.”

Kaneva Virtual Entertainment World Enters Into Open Beta

Kaneva, a virtual entertainment world that unifies the 2D Web with a 3D experience, today announced that visitors to the site (www.kaneva.com) can sign up and have immediate access into the 3D Virtual World of Kaneva. This transition to open beta status follows a successful private beta initiative that began in January 2007. The Kaneva 2D Web site has been live since June 2006. The full press release from the company is below the fold.

Multiverse Network Unveils Prototype Games and Virtual Worlds

The Multiverse Network, Inc., a company building the world's leading network of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) and 3D virtual worlds, at GDC last week demonstrated for the first time six prototype games and worlds built by independent development teams on the Multiverse Platform. Since December 2005, over 9,000 developers, ranging from garage teams to Fortune 100 companies to Hollywood legends, have registered to use the Multiverse Platform. In addition, more than one hundred pre-qualified customers have already begun building MMOGs and non-game virtual worlds with the Multiverse Platform. Presently in beta, Multiverse will release version 1.0 of its platform later this year. During the conference, Multiverse demonstrated the following projects currently in development by a range of unique teams, including university-led groups, a professional game development studio and small team efforts:

An introduction to Ogoglio and Ogoglio City

Ogoglio and Ogoglio City sound interesting. Transmutable Founder Trevor F. Smith talks about Ogoglio on his personal blog. The Ogoglio project will provide community workspaces with the planning and coordination tools which have proven to be effective in multiplayer online games.  Think of Second Life is a product, while Ogoglio is a project, he says. Think of the Ogoglio project in the same way that you think of the Apache project. They both produce technologies and have large scale goals beyond those technologies, but they're not terribly interesting until a person or company takes their output and creates a service on top.

The first service providing 3D workspaces will be Ogoglio City, an online business district for creative professionals who grew up with the Internet. Unlike existing platforms like Second Life or World of Warcraft, Ogoglio's platforms are open and "web native." They're designed to integrate with existing work practices, desktop applications, and web services. People will access Ogoglio workspaces through their web browsers, eliminating the need for the rollout and support of a proprietary client. The development page provides more detail about the current platform.

Sun Demos Virtual Worlds Tech based on Project Darkstar

Sun has developed a mini Virtual World - a Virtual Workplace really - designed for enterprise use as a collaborative environment.  It's based on it's Project Darkstar online game platform (which just went open source - see below). Jonathan Kaplan, member of the tech staff, and Jeff Kesselman, Darkstar Architect at Sun showed VirtualWorldsNews editor Christopher Sherman a demo of the Sun Virtual Workspace at the Game Developers Conference yesterday. The demo, which is considered an open source experiement, showcased three interesting elements 1) spacial audio, 2) a PC virtual desktop - actual PC applications (code, world docs, spreadsheets, etc) are displayed in real time on virtual world wall screens, creating a collaborative work environment allowing 1 or more individuals to in real time work on applications, 3) in world streaming live video.