Linden Lab Job Listing Sparks Questions of Possible Android/iPhone Device Viewer

On Linden Lab's list of job openings, one that appeared recently is getting some attention, one for a "Senior Mobile Engineer" for Second Life.

Linden Lab is looking for an innovative mobile app engineer to deliver a compelling, responsive mobile interface into Second Life. If you’re passionate about the latest cross platform mobile technologies and would be psyched to wake up every morning knowing that your efforts will enhance the largest, most successful virtual world on the Internet then we want to hear from you!

Among the knowledge and skills needed for the position is "Experience developing consumer-oriented mobile applications for Android and IOS." This would suggest that Linden Lab is getting back into making a viewer for mobile devices, possibly for Android phones and iPhones, but at least for Android-run tablets and iPads.

In March 2014, Linden Lab partnered with OnLive to produce SL Go for tablets. But after OnLive was bought by Sony a year later, this partnership and SL Go came to an end. Months later, Bright Canopy made it possible to play Second Life through a tablet again. But they haven't been without problems, such as a month-long service outage. What appears to be in development is a mobile viewer entirely in Linden Lab's hands and independent of anyone else whom could be bought up, go out of business, or otherwise run into problems.

Inara Pey reminded her readers that Ebbe Linden talked about the issue during the SL15B, saying the Lab was "seeking the right approach for investment in a mobile solution ... we're thinking hard about mobile." Oz and Grumpity Linden did as well, saying "The potential for some kind of mobile solution for Second Life is being discussed." Grumpity had also mentioned the cost to users was a concern, saying the Lab didn't want a moble viewer that would require charging it's viewers a lot. When New World Notes brought up the issue, Will Burns responded in the comments that he had asked Ebbe Linden in his visit to Linden Lab why they didn't buy up OnLive themselves, and stated the answer was that "At the time ... Linden Lab didn't get hands-on with the process. ...  it would seem at least *something* I said up there sunk in during my visit." New World Notes would also speculate, " If they're only hiring a Senior Mobile Engineer now, it's probably going to be at least 8-12 months before we see an Alpha version of a mobile viewer for SL."

There is an upcoming "Town Hall" event with Ebbe Altberg on Thursday September 13. So there might be some answers to this issue (and others) then.

Sources: Linden Lab, Modem World, New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan

Community of the Year

There were no shortage of people whom had an impact on Second Life in ways large and small in the past year. Project Sansar, earlier referred to as "SL 2.0" by residents, was seldom far from out collective minds, wondering how it's eventual release would affect the Grid we've gone about in and invested so much time and effort in for so long. But Sansar isn't here yet, not much is known about it, and residents have gone about their business.

In April, unknown griefers struck the SS Galaxy, and the lack of customer service from Linden Lab led the owners of the ship to retire the ship. It was arranged for the Lab to take ownership of the build, but it was a museum piece, no more would there be a crew and community behind it. These griefers, and the clumsiness of the Lab, caused no shortage of sad faces.

Linden Lab's clumsiness would continue, locking out Flea Bussy, the owner of the noted "Grendle's Children" mall, and bringing it in danger of shutting down as while offline he wouldn't be able to make the tier payments. Fortunately a number of residents stepped in, and helped the store in which Philip Linden allegedly stated, "As goes Grendle's, so goes the Grid."

With the end of SL GO this year, people wondered if this meant they could no longer access Second Life with tablets and older computers. Fortunately there was "Bright Canopy," created by Chaos Priestman and Bethsael Robbiani, which offered to do what it did. It wasn't as low priced, and there were some problems getting it up and running. But eventually they did. Chaos and Bethsael, for preserving access to Second Life via iPads and other tablets, are deserving of runner-up.

Also getting the lockout treatment was TotalLunar Eclipse, the owner to the Steelhead Estates. As he was already having a number of real-life issues, this was the last straw, and he made his decision to take an indefinite break from Second Life, and so his estates would be closing down. This would have killed off many other communities in this virtual world. But the Steelheader's held together. There were a number of offers to help out, and eventually one of the sims was saved., and a new location found for the other club. It was not a perfect ending as the rest of the sims went offline., and many of those in the group moved to other places in the Steamlands. But the community group is still together. Their Relay for Life team is still together. So there's hope that the antics the Steelhead community us note for will continue.

So the residents of Steelhead collectively are named Second Life Newser's "Man of the Year," or in this case, "Community of the Year."

Bixyl Shuftan

Bright Canopy Resumes Service

Earlier this month in an inworld conference, the Bright Canopy team explained their new viewer aimed at allowing Second Life to be accessed normally through tablets, as well as older computers, had been hit with technical difficulties. A few days ago, they announced they were back in business.

Bright Canopy has been down now for almost a month. We have done our best to be transparent and communicative during the downtime. ...
We have been working with Frame on a new pricing plan that will allow us to offer the service immediately. We will continue working on options that will improve our costs on the backend and allow more  flexibility in the future.

Their pricing plan is $17 a month for 20 hours of use, with additional time at two cents a minute with a "30 minute minimum for sessions," or 60 cents minimum. For those using "10 hours or more of additional minutes, that will be charged immediately, otherwise additional minutes are charged at the beginning of the next month."

So if you use 5 additional hours during the month, you would spend $6 more . This would mean your credit card would be charged $21 at the beginning of the next month.

If you use 10 additional hours, you would be charged $12 now and $17 for your monthly subscription at the beginning of the next month.

Bright Canopy calls this a "fresh start," so everyone has to re-register at brightcanopy.com , even if they already have.

One can read more at their blog here, or email then at support@brightcanopy.com .

Hat tip: Daniel Voyager 

Discussion About The Bright Canopy Viewer

On September 5, the Bright Canopy service, which offers a viewer designed to allow tablet users to go inworld and about in Second Life, held a conference inworld at their sim. They discussed some of the recent developments concerning their viewer, followed by a Q&A session.

Read about the conference in Design.

The Weekend in Brief

This weekend saw several events take place. One was the discussion about the new Bright Canopy tablet and PC viewer on Saturday (picture above). Also that day, noted SL artist Bryn Oh held a a music event on her Immersiva sim. That evening, Marianne McCann held the last of her firework shows for the year. Sunday saw the opening of the Sound Mind exhibit at LEA 26. Taking place before and after the weekend were the 10th Anniversary Story Hunt at Bare Rose, and the Fifth Annual Renaissance Fair.

"Bright Canopy," Sucessor to SL GO, "Go For Launch" on August 29

By Bixyl Shuftan

Second Life users with tablets remember SL GO, the application made by Onlive in cooperation with Linden Lab that allowed them to access Second Life and go about inworld normally without the need for a computer. But in April this year, Onlive announced the end of the service following Sony purchasing their company. It was the end of what one Second Life newsletter writer called, "one of the best things to happen to Second Life in a long time."Later this month, a successor to SL GO will finally be ready for people to download and use: "Bright Canopy."

Bill Glover, the founder of Bright Canopy, credited Inara Pey's post on her blog, about SL GO's shutdown and suggestion that someone else could provide it's service, for his decision to post a survey asking if anyone would be interested in helping him start such a streaming service. The response was the founder of a company handling streaming for some of the largest companies in the world, Nikola Bozinovic, offering to help him out, and "over one hundred SL and OpenSim residents ... offering to help with testing, docomentation, bug tracking, and even development. ... With a team like that, it's no wonder we had the core features, working in beta in less than seven days."

The monthly fee, at least for the first 90 days, will be $17 a month, "Our early bird price is going to be an experiment for 90 days. If you’ve been following the blog, you know we’ve seen price fluctuations on the back end, and we still need to watch actual usage of the service. $17 is a sustainable price if the instance costs return to their typical, historical values. It is not a sustainable price with the current spike in instance price. We may need to get creative with how we split instances, or we may need to raise prices. We intend to remain transparent as always and will keep you posted. Our goal is to continue to maintain a sustainable, affordable service."

While $17 a month is a little more expensive than the $9.95 a month SL GO was at for most of it's history, it is much cheaper than the $3 an hour it was when first released. 

The company plans to soon have an "East Coast Cloud" for faster ping rates for users on the eastern time zone of the US, and is offering free time for those whom have friends sign up. They are also planning a release party.

Like SL GO, the company says Bright Canopy will improve the Second Life experience on older computers.

For more information, check their website: http://www.brightcanopy.com/ or their blog:  http://www.brightcanopy.com/blog/

 Hat tip: Daniel Voyager

Bixyl Shuftan