Cartoon of the Day: Cloudy Name

 

From the SL19B entry area. For those who wonder where I get my ideas, sometimes they just appear in front of me. 

By Bixyl Shuftan

 

Reader Submitted: "Raccoon Riding an Orange Cloud"

 *

From Alden Cortes, whom saw someone doing this year's Fairelands Quest, though with only Cheeky having rezzed while the rest of the avatar still cloudy, it looked like the raccoon was flying due to some kind of magic instead of  being on someone's shoulder. It got more amusing when questers were in groups, "Just saw about 6 in a bunch (laughter)."
 

News and Commentary: Looking Back At Ebbe Altberg

 

When Ebbe Altberg was made CEO of Linden Lab in February 2014, the reception overall seemed to be cautious optimism. Under the direction of Rod Humble, the Lab had gotten itself out of financial difficulties. But not all was well. The events in which Lindens and Residents met up were gone and there was talk of a "no fratenization" policy. With the Terms of Service controversy, some content creators were worried the vauge language in one part of the ToS gave the Lab the right to claim their content to claim and sell as their own. A few were leaving to the Opensim grids, notably InWorldz. While Linden Lab had made or bought a number or spinoff products, only one was making much money. Ebbe Linden, as he was soon known, would later say, "when I came here, the users were a little bit angry (and) there was a disconnect between the Lab and ... the residents," and that some of the Lab's policies "didn't make much sense."

But in April, he got attention and praise for speaking plainly about the Terms of Service issue, and in months the controversial wording was changed to the satisfaction of most residents. Communication between the Residents and the Lindens improved greatly under him, with "Meet the Lindens" events at the Second Life Birthday, and also the Best Practices in Education event, as well as occasional Town Hall meetings. He was a believer in making an effort for transparency and openness.

Under Ebbe Altberg, Second Life's long slow decline in terms of both sims and active users would halt, and eventually began to grow again. While practically everyone appreciated that, some weren't so sure about another move of the Lab's under Ebbe Linden's watch: the way residents in Second Life paid money to them. Sim tiers were reduced, as well as set-up fees, making land cheaper to get and more importantly cheaper to keep. But Linden Lab had to make up the money somewhere, and did so by increasing the fees to buy Linden dollars. This was the equivalent of reducing real-estate taxes but raising sales taxes. Some residents complained. Others had mixed feelings as even if they didn't own a sim, their favorite places were more likely to last. Under his watch, the Tila company was created. Eventually, it would not only handle Second Life's money transactions, but also Sansar's and a third virtual world: Upland.

Under Ebbe Linden, the Lindens were able to accomplish what under his prececessor they couldn't: bring back last names for accounts; or rather, make last names an option by allowing residents to change them. Some resident's had mixed opinions due to the high fee, and to a lesser extent the choices available (which in my opinion were reasonble ones, given the Lab's options). But overall the residents were happy.

When he was interviewed by Hamlet Au in 2019, at times Ebbe Altberg seemed to have an understanding of Second Life that previous CEOs Mark Kingdom and Rod Humble lacked, at one point commenting it was his opinion "Adult" marked sims didn't always mean X-rated activities, but that the users valued their privacy. He also expressed an enthusiam for it at times, supposedly saying "We are still the s**t when it comes to virtual worlds."

Not everything went well under Ebbe Altberg. It was under his watch that a customer service mishap caused the end of the SS Galaxy as an active area. While preserved by the Lab, it would never be the active resident-run place it was. A similar mishap caused the first Steelhead community to fold. Another customer service mishap almost caused the end of the noted Grendles mall, but the actions of residents saved it. One controversial move was the banning of Linden resellers, making resident-run Linden exchange services no longer permitted. While the idea for Sansar came about under the previous CEO, it was under Ebbe Altberg in which it came about. But Second Life residents were unimpressed and only a handful of people were spending much time there. While a few felt it was an idea worth trying, most residents saw Sansar as a mistake, and the reaction to it's sale was along the lines of "It's about time." Linden Lab would also see a couple rounds of layoffs, related to Sansar's lack of success.

Two moves later in Ebbe Altberg's term also got some controversy from the residents. One was the move of Second Life's data to Amazon Cloud servers. Altberg's Lab stated that it would eventually improve performance and allow for a reduction in fees. But as the move was being done, there were a number of bugs and glitches that the residents openly complained about, and the Lab had to acknowledge and ask for patience. Today, while some residents say there's been some improvement, notably with sim crossings, others say they've only noticed continued glitches such as inventory issues.

And then there was the sale of Linden Lab to a team of investors. Under the terms, Linden Lab would retain a good deal of autonomy and continue to make just about all of it's decisions on it's own. And no doubt this meant more money for the Lab to continue to improve and develop Second Life. But naturally many residents were very worried, some fearing the new owners were only out for a quick buck and jack up tier and fees while cutting development and customer service, or worse. But a year later, the virtual world continues to run smoothly.

There have been numerous comments on the SL forums. Among them: Prokofy Neva, "I remember my main impression was that he was normal. Normal! That may seem funny, but we have had some rather eccentric leaders, who could get pretty wild, and while that is good in the early start-up stages, at some point the grown-up has to come along." ArgontheDevil Ormega, "He understood that SL was unlike any other business in that the relationship between the Lab and the Residents was not purely business.  That is why we mourn his passing.  He was not just the CEO of the company.  He was, in a very real sense, one of us." Trinity Yazimoto, " Ebbe arrived with a positive and friendly attitude (at the opposite of his predecessor). He was humble and open mind. Ebbe gave back SL its stability. Ebbe made SL a better place and i will remember him for this."

While the cause of Ebbe's passing has not been officially released, it has been made known he was sick for two years. But instead of stepping down, he continued to run the company. Inara Pey would write, "It is clear that illness did not in any way blunt his determination." Hamlet Au would comment, "One insider told me that his illness didn't undo him, but rather, gave him a serene confidence in his mission and his life course." Eventually, he would make fewer appearances inworld, his last one being at Oz Linden's retirement party in February 2021. And his last comment on his Twitter was in November last year. He would not speak at the Education conference in March, Patch Linden taking the lead instead.

Linden Lab founder Philip Rosedale was quoted by Hamlet Au as saying, "I can't say enough about Ebbe. He was such a warm, smart, optimistic person who was loved by everyone he came into contact with. I will miss him a lot, and we were so lucky to have him."

So in conclusion, Ebbe Altberg made a good CEO of Linden Lab. Not everything under him went perfectly, but under his leadership Second Life bounced back from it's slow decline and went on the upswing. The virtual world is doing better and it's future is looking better than in over a decade. Second Life still faces some challenges, such as the question of will those who returned during the Pandemic stay and the increasing popularity of VRChat among younger users of virtual worlds. But Ebbe Altberg's time at the helm of the Lab can only be considered a success.

"Sleep well Ebbe, thank you for everything."

Other tributes: Daniel Voyager, Moden World, New World Notes

SL Forums: RIP Mr. Altberg

Bixyl Shuftan
 

Cartoon of the Day: Cloud Nine

 

 Taken at Sunweaver Space

By Bixyl Shuftan

 

"We Are Now In The Cloud"

 
It's been about a month since April Linden announced that the data from all the sims (aside from a few Linden ones) had been moved to Cloud servers. But there was still some work to be done. This week, there was some more news about the last stages of the move. On Tuesday, it was announced that "as part of our overall migration to the cloud, some of our web publishing tools ... may be unavailable for our internal editorial team." And so the Second Life Destination Guide was getting a temporary freeze on updates. Also on Tuesday, according to Inara Pey, at the Simulator User Group meeting April and Oz Linden had stated all Second Life systems and service were now running on Amazon Cloud Servers. So the Lab was clearing all of it's equipment from it's "former co-location facility in Arizona."

At the Wednesday Third Party Viewer Meeting, supposedly Oz Linden was more direct, "Actually, we disconnected the datacenter last night ... everything is now running in AWS."

It's not an announcement that's being celebrated by all. There's been a number of glitches on the Grid lately, and Inara Pey stated in the same article that the Lab was working to fix an issue on the map. While the move to the Cloud may be done, the job of taking care of the bugs and glitches as a result of the move remains.

Source: Modem World , SL forums 

Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of the Day: In The Cloud

 

Taken at Sunweaver Bay. It was a couple weeks ago that all sims were finally moved to cloud servers. But given this chair, it had to be done.

By Bixyl Shuftan

 

April Linden Announces All Sims Moved To The Cloud

 

It was just about a week ago in which it was announced half the sims had their data moved to the Cloud. So with all the time that had been done before, one would probably expect quite a bit of time before the other half were moved. Well, that's not quite what happened. Yesterday, Thursday November 19, April announced that all of the sims now had their data moved to Cloud servers.

The team just finished up moving all of the regions to the cloud! We did it, before our goal of Thanksgiving!!! Uplift isn't done, we still have things to move, but getting the regions done FEELS SO GOOD!

As April stated, this isn't the end of the work on the Cloud move. And there's still glitching going on. For instance, there were issues with group chat, teleporting, and reading the world map. But it is a notable milestone that hopefully will lead to an improved Second Life.

Bixyl Shuftan

Number of Sims Moved to The Cloud Passes 50%

 

Of the move of sim data to Cloud servers, a noteable milestone was achieved a few days ago, at least according to Daniel Voyager. In his blog, he reported that Stawberry Linden had told him that April Linden had told her that half the sims now had their data in The Cloud.

Hi Daniel, this is Strawberry. I have confirmed with our Sr. Engineering Manager, April Linden, that over half the regions in Second Life are now running in the cloud.

Since this was a few days ago, The Lab has no doubt continued it's work. How long will it take until the move is complete? Daniel Voyager himmself thought it would be "six weeks or so."

Source: Daniel Voyager's Blog
Image Source: Linden Lab

EOTB : Linden Lab Announces New Private Sims Available "In Limited Quantity"

 

In May, Linden Lab announced that it could no longer guarantee that anyone whom was interested in getting a new sim would be able to. This was due to the increased demand for them while they were in the middle of the transition of their data to cloud servers. On Tuesday November 3, there was an announcement from the Lab that with their progress on the cloud move, they were "ready to begin offering new private region purchases," though still in "limited quantities."

In light of more regions being moved to the cloud, we are pleased to announce that we are ready to begin offering new private region purchases in limited quantities. As we continue to uplift more of the grid, more regions will become available over time, eventually leading to the Land Store being reopened.  

Those wanting a sim are asked to send a ticket through the Lab's Support Portal, "The ticket can be submitted under the Land & Region > Order Private Region category." After the ticket is sent, it will either be handled or added to a waiting list "which will be handled in the order the submission is received." The Lab reminded the sim's name had to conform to naming guidelines, new sims are charged setup fees, and those wanting sims where "skill gaming" could be run would be paying much more.

For more information, check the Linden blog entry here.

Bixyl Shuftan

Linden Lab Asks For Patience For The Next Few Weeks With Cloud Migration

 

It's no secret things have been more glitchy in Second Life than usual. Last Friday, Linden Lab through Oz Linden came out and apologized for the various glitches, crashes, and bugs recently, saying they were from it's moving things to cloud servers. Yesterday, Wednesday October 21, in the "Tools and Technology" blog, it was April Linden's turn. She gave an update on how much has been done so far.

We’re in a really exciting time in the history of Second Life. We’re in the home stretch on moving the grid to the cloud. We hit a fun milestone a few days ago, and now there’s over 1,000 regions running in the cloud!

Everyone in the Lab is working hard on this project, and we’re moving very quickly. I just got out of a leadership meeting where we went over what’s currently in flight, and there’s so many things moving that I lost track of them all. It’s amazing!

However, not everything was good news. She asked residents to be patient.

I’ve come to ask for a favor.  ... I’ve come to ask you for is your patience. 

We’re doing our very best to fix things that come up as we go. This means that we might need to restart regions more often than you’re used to, and things may break just a little more often than we’ve all been accustomed to.

In order to get this project done as fast as possible and minimize the time (and resulting bugs) we have to spend with one foot in our datacenter and the other in the cloud, we don’t want to limit ourselves to restarting regions just once a week. We’re ready to get this project done! We’ve seen how much better Second Life runs in the cloud, and we’re ready to have everyone on the grid experience it.

I’m sorry that things might be a little rough over the next few weeks. It’s our goal to finish the cloud migration by the holidays, so that everyone, Resident and Linden alike, can have a nice quiet holiday with our friends and families.

 We can’t promise we’ll make it by then, but we’re sure giving it all we’ve got. The mood around the Lab is really positive right now, and we’re all working hard together to make it happen. I’m really proud to be a part of the team that’s transforming Second Life as we know it.

Thanks so much for hanging in there with us. We know it’s frustrating at times, but it won’t last for too long, and there’s a better future on the other side of this. We truly appreciate your understanding and patience as we finish up this project.

So it appears in addition to the glitches we've been seeing, we're very likely to have to deal with sim restarts as well. Perhaps the Lab may slow things down a bit next week interfere with Halloween less. If not, residents may have to contend with having to suddenly leave sims in a hurry in addition to the ghosts and goblins.

To read the Linden blog post in full, Click Here.

Bixyl Shuftan

EOTB: Linden Lab Asking For Help Testing Linden Realms in Beta Grid Cloud Servers

In the official blog, Linden Lab was asking for volunteers to test out it's Cloud servers in the Beta Grid. The testing would be done in the Linden Realms game area there.

As you may know, we are in the process of moving Second Life to the cloud! Our first ever cloud simulators, on the beta grid, have been uplifted, and we can use your assistance. Here’s your opportunity to be among the first Residents to test the performance of uplift.
 
Log in to the beta grid (click here for instructions) and start at the Aditi Portal Park to try out Linden Realms in the cloud. Bring your friends and spend some time engaging in the virtual experience produced and provided by Linden Lab. You may even run into the often unseen technical Lindens working away. Don’t forget to ask them for their Linden bear, and beware of the rock monster!
 
If you find any issues with Linden Realms on the beta grid, please file a BUG jira at https://jira.secondlife.com, and make sure to include the time, date, region you were in when you found the issue, and a description of what happened, as well as what you would expect to happen in a similar situation on the Main Grid today.

Linden Lab is in the process of moving data from existing servers to Cloud-based servers.

Source: Linden blog

Reader Submitted: The Cloud Move

Kἶէმƈεlἶმ Lմἶղƈօɾἶმlօէε Kεlνმɾl (Kitacelia Resident) recently sent a reader submitted commentary about what she feels has become quite an aggravating problem: increasing lag along with bugs and glitches due to Linden Lab moving data from it's current servers to cloud-based ones. The Lab's "good idea," from her point of view, is causing a lot of problems. So she took the time to explain the problem as she sees it.

Read Kitacelia's reader submission in Extra.

"Premium Plus" Accounts Delayed

Last November, among an announcement on the upcoming option to change account names, Linden Lab also stated that there would soon be an option to upgrade their accounts to a level above Premium, called Premium Plus.

Changes are underway for Premium Membership. In 2020, you’ll see a new membership level, Premium Plus. This new option will join our classic Premium tier as an additional choice for Residents who want to get even more value from their Second Life.

According to an article written by Inara Pey, it seems the Linden Lab has delayed the rollout of Premium Plus. Grumpity Linden stated the two main reasons were wanting to focus more on the transition to the cloud servers, and with many residents hit hard financially by the Coronavirus crisis it was believed it wasn't a good time to roll out the feature.

We have made the decision to delay the deployment of Premium Plus based on two key factors:

1. We want to be focused on our Uplift project (move to the cloud) and to minimize distraction for our development, QA, and Ops teams. While we’ve laid a lot of groundwork, quite a bit more still remains to finish Premium Plus.
2. The pandemic has brought a lot of financial uncertainty to people all around the world and we know many of our Residents have been hit hard.

We are very happy that SL has provided an outlet for people where they can connect, escape, engage safely, and earn a living or supplement their income as well. But we also realise that introducing a higher-priced service level in this time would be really ham-handed.

It should be noted that a few days ago, Linden Lab stated earlier that there was a "Limited Availability" of new private sims due in part to their transitioning to cloud servers not complete yet. So that would be another reason to devote more time and resources to that effort. When the option of changing one's account surname was finally made available, one of the complaints was that due to the Coronavirus crisis, many wouldn't be able to afford it due to loss of income.

When asked when Premium Plus might be available, Grumpty answered that there were no guarantees, "but early 2021 is reasonable to expect."

Source: Modem World

Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of the Day: The Cloud

By Bixyl Shuftan

Oz And April Linden Summary, Last Names And Other Questions

Of the "Meet the Lindens" events last week at the Second Life Birthday, perhaps the most anticipated aside from the one where Linden Lab's CEO spoke was the one featuring Oz and April Linden. As they cover the more technical aspects of how the virtual world works, they would know the most about certain issues such as the moving of Second Life's data to "The Cloud" and when might new last names once again be an option for those with the surname Resident. They had much to say about those issues, such as the plan being to allow residents to have the option to change first names as well, and more.

Read the summary in Design.

Patch and Grumpity Linden at The VWBPE

Last week on April 4, Patch and Grumpity Linden spoke at the VWBPE. Then answered some questions from the event host, Phelan Corrimal, as well as a few from the audience. Grumpity was in her stick-figure avatar. Patch had on mouse ears and a tail.

Of summarizing what Linden Lab has accomplished  in the past twelve months, Grumpity commented there has "so much going on, it's hard to think back a full year." She touted general improvement in Second Life's infstructure, a fair amount of content and feature development, the introduction of animesh, the new Linden homes, new estate tools (still ongoing), parcel and estate management, and helping educators with their courses. Patch brought up Linden Lab's involvement in SL15B, "lots of gift stuff happening," and things coming up beyond Linden homes.

Of moving Second Life from current data centers to cloud-based servers, Grumpity stated the Lab was "very carefully moving things and not disturbing the way things are set up. ... with a 15 year old infrastructure, there's some complexity there." She hoped it would eventually lead to lower prices for residents, but "the migration from the data center to the cloud is quite expensive for us, taking a lot of resources and additional costs." So if there is an effect on what residents are charged, it will be "a few years into the future"

Work on a mobile client for Second Life was going on, Grumpity saying, "I'm looking forward to seeing how that impacts Second Life usage in education. ... There's not a lot to report yet. ... SL wasn't designed to go on a mobile." She stated the Lab was going in the direction of an IOS style viewer for now, "a robust text-based viewer."

Of the new Linden Homes, Patch stated didn't want to reveal too much. He called them a "complete redesign,' from the original ones. The "structure of the regions themselves designed more organically, less repetition, more choices," and more options to modify the homes. People will also be able to modify them from inside the homes themselves instead of "web-based tools" as they are now. Already, the land for the new homes was being placed, "The continent will grow as we continue to roll these things out ... it will get much bigger. We will .. expand continent connections, water pathways" for sailboats and flying.

When asked if they were improving existing tools for users, Patch stated they haven't gotten new ideas or requests from the residents, going on to say his team doesn't make the tools regular users of Second Life put to use, but use them as well. Grumpity called it "eating our our dog food," commenting one can only put so much on a prim.

Of Sansar, Grumpity stated she and Patch have been "rooting for the success of Sansar" but they've been mostly looking from the sidelines with their attention on Second Life.

After a while, questions came from the audience.  One was if the Lab was trying to improve Second Life's Search function. Grumpity answered that there was a project ongoing about that, adding a few years ago there was another for Marketplace search, calling it "painful and complex."

It was asked if having an app to get on Second Life via mobiles would affect age restrictions. Grumpity stated the introductions of mobile clients would have "zero effect on that."  They were also asked if there were any plans for a new grid that didn't allow for adult content so educators could more easily use it to teach younger students. Patch stated that would require a policy change by the Lab, "the idea of a second grid isn't foreign, but it's not on the roadmap." He would go on to say Sansar pretty much handles that function and there's been much improvement there lately.

When asked about plans for artist development, Patch responded that the Linden Endowment for the Arts was in "hiatus." But people have come forward to the Lab to offer ideas to move things forward, so he told the audience to watch for developments.

Asked about why the number of groups residents can be in is limited due to a design issue, it was answered that the Lindens were able increase the number of groups after some infrastructure work, notably for Premium residents.

One question was how can Linden Lab overcome the impression that Second Life is a "seedy world." Patch Linden didn't think that was the case, and if so not as much today as yesterday. Grumpity went on to say the Lab welcomed Second Life's different communities with their different interests.

The last question to the Lindens was how would they like to see more interaction with the education community in Second Life? Grumpity wanted a more open forum for conversation, "We can highlight your work, and you can influence ours." Before leaving, the Lindens asked the audience to spread word about the educational resources of Second Life.



To view the video from the VWBPE, click here: https://youtu.be/BH_Zogm8zAQ .

 Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of the Day

Taken at the Happy Vixen

By Bixyl Shuftan

Hippo Technologies Announces Closure Due to "Infrastructure Failure"

Those whom have been around Second Life for a long time are probably familiar with Hippo Technologies, or at least it's products HippoVend and HippoRent, particulary merchants and renters. But the sight of the HippoRent cubes will soon be a thing of the past. On their blog on February 16, Hippo announced they were closing due to "infrastructure failure" of Rackspace Cloud Servers, which they had been using to hold their data.


On Feb 12th Rackspace Cloud Servers collapsed and took down the legacy Hippo web services which Rackspace supported. Rackspace admits service degradation to cloud orchestration and cloud servers. Surely in due time the long established server technicians at Rackspace will rebuild their cloud infrastructure, but for the time being there appears to be an unsafe amount of dust and smoke around the Rackspace Cloud server collapse to extract the backup databases to migrate to another server host.

For the last several years increasingly abandoned land through Second Life has also led to lack of new customer demand for the legacy web service. It marks a best decision for Hippo Technologies to step away from that legacy web service.

Hippo Technologies will certainly be keeping a keen eye to future trends in virtual worlds.

The statement is somewhat vague, as Hippo doesn't use a clear term like "shutting down." But the talk about "lack of new customer demand" and "will ... be keeping a ...eye to future trends" isn't the kind of words a company uses if they're keeping their product going.

Caspertech, perhaps Hippo's biggest competitor, would post about Hippo's close later that day on their own blog.

Today is a sad day for some, and a frustrating day for many, as Hippo Technologies has finally bit the dust. Hippo's services (including HippoVend, HippoRent and HippoUpdate) were extremely well respected and well established within Second Life for a long time. HippoTech pre-dates CasperTech by a few years, and although their presence in Second Life has slowly been in decline, many users heavily depended on them right up until today.

It's unclear exactly what happened - the blog post alludes to a catastrophic failure at Rackspace Cloud services, but Rackspace's own status page mentions no such failure (I have contacted Rackspace to ask for clarification). What is clear, however, is that it leaves a lot of users in a very unfortunate position - their vendors, rental units and update systems are suddenly non-functioning, leaving their businesses high and dry.

Aside from these two blog entries, there's not really anything to go on. A look at the two Hippo groups I found revealed no recent announcements. Their products are still on sale in Marketplace. When I talked to Casper Warden, the head of Caspertech, he didn't have a greal deal to add, "From my understanding, they were taken offline by a technical fault.  Given that their business was dwindling it was not worth the technical effort to invest into getting it back online." He did want to make it clear, " that it's only my understanding, i don't know anything about it for certain."

In any event, places that once used HippoRent are now having to decide what to replace them with.


Bixyl Shuftan

"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

Cartoon of the Day

Taken at Club Cutlass. Sometimes when you use "cloud computing," you end up in a storm.

By Bixyl Shuftan