EOTB: Linden Lab Holding SL Halloween Video Contest

 

 

 For those in Second Life who like Halloween and filming videos, Linden Lab has a contest just for you. Earlier this week, they announced they were holding a Halloween video contest, inviting residents to do spooky shows.

Are you feeling spooky and scary? The Halloween season is upon us and this year, we have a special treat (no tricks) in store for all you ghouls and goblins out there.

Do you have a knack for creating captivating videos? Do you love the spookiness that Halloween brings? We invite you to show off your creativity in our Halloween Video Contest!

To take part, one needs to do a Halloween-themed video in Second Life, then post it to either Youtube, Tik-Tok, or Instagram. The Lab asks that you "Tag the Second Life account and use the hashtag #SLHalloweenContest2023 so we can find your entry." 

 

There's a 25,000 Linden dollar prize for the video with the most views on each platform. If the same video makes it to the top of all three, not only will the maker get the 75,000 Lindens for each, but a 25,000 Linden dollar bonus, for a total of 100,000 Lindens. 

 

The contest goes on until Monday October 30. The winner will be announced on Halloween, Tuesday October 31. Multiple entries are allowed, but the contest is open only to residents of Second Life, and can only be filmed in Second Life. The videos must be new, done on or after October 9, and any obscene or otherwise offensive material, or using material protected by someone else's copyright, will disqualify the video.

Remember, the more captivating and Halloween-y your video is, the more views it'll likely get. So get your thinking (witch) hats on and start plotting! This is a wonderful opportunity for our community to come together, showcase their talents, and share in the Halloween spirit.

To read the blog post in full, Click Here. 

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

A Bad Week For Facebook and Twitch, Windows 11 Launched

It was not the best week for Facebook last week.  On Tuesday October 5, Frances Haugen, a former Facebook manager turned whistleblower, testified before Congress. She stated the company knew it's app Instagram could be hazardous to the mental health of teenage girls, and knew it was not doing enough to combat disinformation on it's social media website that contributed to the worsening political divide in the United States and led to the January 6 riot. While it could have taken measures to protect girls on Instagram and done more about misinformation on Facebook, it had not done so as the company didn't want to cut into it's profits, putting money over the safety of it's customers. Company CEO Mark Zuckerberg would respond with a statement denying her accusations.

But then came more bad news in the form of a six hour outage of both Facebook and Instagram. While for most it was an annoyance, some small businesses have come to rely on Facebook for communication with their customers. Also affected were sets of Oculus VR headgear. The company would eventually offer an apology.  It's estimated that the company lost billions from this outage. Then on Friday, the company suffered another outage and once again Facebook and Instagram were down once more, another blow to it's reputation.

Facebook wasn't the only social media platform to face big trouble. On Wed Oct 6, there was a massive data leak targeting Twitch. Over 100 gigabytes of data was posted online on Wednesday October 6. This includes operational details that the company "fiercely guards," such as how many millions the top streamers made in revenue from broadcasting. "Aside from the salary details, the documents seems to contain the site's source code and even technical details for yet to be released products and platforms," Joe Tidy in an article on BBC News would say, adding if everything was confirmed it would be, "the biggest leak I have ever seen - an entire company's most valuable data cleaned out in one fell swoop." ThreatModeler founder and CEO Archie Agarwal would say of the data breach,"This is as bad as it could possibly be."

While there didn't seem to be any passwords included in the leaked data, it was listed as "part one," hinting there was more to come. Still, it is reccomended that Twitch users change their passwords anyway.

Tuesday October 5 was the release date of Windows 11. Six years ago, Microsoft was saying there would be only new installments of Windows 10. That has changed, and the company has launched a new version that promises to be "clean and fresh and simpler." If you're reluctant to change over to the new system, you'll have plenty of company. The list of machines the company says this version of Windows needs has been described as "ridiculously strict." In a review on PC Gamer, the writers thought Windows 11 had a few nice improvements, but nothing worth upgrading to the new system, and a number of reasons to wait. Officially, PC users have until October 2025 to wait. After that, Microsoft plans no more technical or security updates.

Sources: BBC News, PC Gamer, The Verge   

Bixyl Shuftan
  

EOTB: Linden Lab Asking For Content For Tik Tok, Instagram

 

For those using social media and making videos, Linden Lab is asking residents to get on a couple of their pages. A few days ago, the Lab posted an announcement requesting content for their Tik Tok and Instagram pages. 

There were two forms to fill out, one for the Second Life Tik Tok page, the other for it's Instagram. There is no contest or reward, other than to "your chance to show off and shine."

To see the blog post in full, Click Here. 

Second Life Tik Tok page: https://www.tiktok.com/@secondlife? 

Second Life Instagram; https://www.instagram.com/secondlife/