Cartoon of The Day: Not So Smartphone

 

 

 Taken at the Happy Vixen. Smartphones can be useful, but their AI sometimes has much to be desired.

By Bixyl Shuftan

Linden Lab Confirms Work on Mobile App For Second Life "In Early Stages"

There's been some talk in the past several months about Linden Lab coming out with an app for mobile devices, such as iPhones and Android phones. During the "Meet the Lindens" events at the Second Life Birthday in June, Ebbe Linden stated the Lab was "thinking hard about mobile." In August, Linden Lab had a job opening for a "Senior Mobile Engineer."

Not much more was revealed, until January 9 when Inara Pey blogged that Brad Linden, Second Life's Marketing Manager, had posted about work beginning on such a project. The following day on January 10, Inara posted that he had responded to her questions, and confirmed ''we’re in the early stages of work on an iOS companion app for Second Life."

    ...we discussed at our Town Hall events last year that we’re actively looking at ways to extend the reach of Second Life to new audiences including mobile platforms. For example, we’re in the early stages of work on an iOS companion app for Second Life. 

    Right now we’re focused on getting a prototype out to our Residents, at which point we’ll be looking for feedback and suggestions. In the early stages, we will not be tying the app to a streaming service. However, we don’t have anything to formally announce yet about the specific features, capabilities, and availability.

Inara felt this wasn't much information to go on. But it did say they were in the early stages of the project. When they'll have something to release for the public is still unknown.

Source: Modem World

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

More on SL Go

By Bixyl Shuftan

It was Wednesday March 5th that Linden Labs announced the release of SL Go, it's new application which allows users to access Second Life via a tablet. Since then, a number of people have tried the product. Some like it, some have reservations.

Inara Pey gave a little history of the app on her blog. She stated the idea first came not from Linden Lab or then CEO Rod Humble, but cloud computing and gaming company Onlive and it's chairman Gary Lauder, "Lauder made his approach because third-person adventure games have been particularly successful for OnLive. As such, Second Life was seen as a logical choice for extending OnLive’s reach into more immersive environments  while at the same time potentially offering Linden Lab with a solution for providing SL to tablet devices and to low-end desktop and laptop systems." Among those working on it's development were Nick Barsetti, whom was "a former Linden Lab employee (Scout Linden) and a long-time Second Life resident who has been actively engaged ... for seven years, notably as a community leader in a Star Wars role-play group." The SL Go service is "provided entirely by OnLive," Inara felt this may have been one of the reasons for Linden Lab's controversial change in it's terms of service in regards to content creation. 

 For now, SL Go is designed to run on tablets powered by Android, though plans are in the works to include the iPad. Of the display, "for convenience, the log-in fields are displayed at the top of the viewer’s splash screen. Tapping the Username field will display the tablet’s on-screen keyboard (note you can also use a suitable bluetooth keyboard as well), allowing you to enter your avatar name. Tap the Password field to enter your avatar’s account password, then tap Log In to log-in to SL. The Tablet overlay provides a means of carrying out routine interactions with the viewer – walking, turning, flying, jumping, camera movement and zoom, closing floaters, and so on."

"According to the supplied reviewer notes, double-tapping the avatar icon in the middle of the movement keys is supposed to enter flight mode; however, this consistently didn’t work for me, and I found flight could be enabled much as when using the viewer on a computer – tap and hold the Jump icon. Movement can be achieved either by using just the movement controls in the overlay (think arrow keys / WASD on a keyboard), or through a combination of using the 'up' key to walk forward and the joystick control to adjust your direction of travel. This takes a little getting used to, but isn’t that hard to grasp."

"Tapping the camera icon shifts the overlay to the camera options, All of the menus and toolbar buttons are accessible via tapping the tablet’s screen, although keyboard shortcuts are not enabled (even when using a separate keyboard). To assist with using the buttons and menus, pinch-zoom motions are fully supported, as is the ability to 'drag' the viewer across the tablet’s screen using a two finger gesture when zoomed-in. To help prevent the overlay getting in the way of things, you can tap the “Power” icon to collapse the overlay into a single icon; a second tap will expand it again."

Inara had some doubts about the app seeing widespread use, "I do wonder as to the potential impact SL Go will have on established users. From Nate Barsetti’s comments, the service appears to be aimed towards a niche set of uses (thus helping justify the cost). Frankly, for many users, there are alternatives when presented with most of those niche uses."

Draxtor Despress gave SL Go a try, his efforts recorded on video.



(Click Here if the link fails to load)

Draxtor was among those whom gave glowing reviews, "Seriously: the user-generated universe known as Second Life - beautifully rendered in the cloud - runs BETTER at times on an Android tablet than on my PC: I am thoroughly impressed ...  for SL professionals and enthusiastic residents this is a must IMHO: SL GO is not only running on 4G on the road but is instantly upgrading EVERY OLD machine in your household by using OnLive desktop app = pretty darn good!"

Hamlet Au also expressed enthusiasm, saying that he'd been using SL Go through being a tester was the reason he was reporting more about Second Life from in inworld perspective lately, "SL Go feels like a new era of Second Life ... here is the thing that makes all the difference for the world: SL Go works, and almost paradoxically, is the first platform to present Second Life as it really is. It eliminates almost all of the lag and load times most SL users have learned to accept, and presents to you a Second Life at its best, and purest form. If you couldn't see dynamic shadows, you can see them now; if your draw distance was small, it's now broadened to the sky. ... it's probably not ideal for new users (at least not in this early stage), but I do think it will bring many back to Second Life, to see the world as they've always wanted -- and as they've always wanted to share it with their friends -- but up to now, have never had the means."

Ciaran Laval thought the technology was good, but felt the high prices limited it's potential, "The pricing would get very expensive very quickly for anyone who used the service often, which means it’s unlikely to be used often by anyone. ... like tier, the SL Go pricing is a tad on the high side. Used infrequently there’s a lot of potential here but for a regular service, it’s a very expensive proposition."

Jo Yardley blogged that SL Go vastly improved the appearance of Second Life on her old Mac Laptop. But the high price bothered her, "Would you pay 3 bucks to go into SL for an hour? I would only consider doing that for emergencies, when I need to be inworld for a few minutes to fix something or kick a griefer in the unmentionables. Having said that, the OnLive experience is impressive, there is almost no lag, it loads a lot faster than most computers, it is mobile and it allows you to use your TV for SL. So although I am very impressed with SLGo, I fear that the costs may keep a lot of people from using it more than just occasionally."

For more comments, one can check the thread in the official general discussion forum: (Link). There's also a thread in the Second Life Universe forums: (link)

Pictures provided by Inara Pey , Hat tip to Daniel Voyager for blog links 

Bixyl Shuftan

SL Go: Second Life Now Accessible on Tablets, For a Price

Yesterday on March 5, Linden Lab announced a new application on the market, this one for Second Life users: SL Go. This product allows residents to run Second Life on tablets. It is currently in open beta.

OnLive, the leader in cloud gaming, today released an exciting new service for Second Life users. SL Go, now in open beta, is a mobile Second Life viewer for Android that delivers a fully immersive desktop-like experience on tablets.

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With SL Go, you can experience Second Life from anywhere you have Wi-Fi or 4G connectivity, with ultra high-quality graphics, full shaders, shadows, and the Advanced Lightning Model on Android devices. Not only can you get high-quality graphics on a low-powered device, but you also don’t have to sacrifice frame rate or draw distance for high fidelity inworld explorations. Thanks to super-fast gigabit connections with OnLive’s high-performance gaming servers, objects and textures rez quickly when logging in and teleporting. OnLive has clocked the SL Go viewer at upwards of 200 fps set to Ultra with Maximum Render Distance, allowing people to participate in events, engage in combat games, and generally enjoy immersion in Second Life at a level never before possible on a mobile device.

With SL Go, OnLive has brought touchscreen interaction to the Second Life experience, but if you prefer keyboard and mouse, you can opt to connect these devices and interact with your friends in the same way you always have. SL Go gives you access to edit menus, inventory, preference settings and chat management just like the Second Life Viewer on your home computer.

To use the application, one needs an account with Onlive. New users get a 20 minute free trial, after which residents need to pay to use it, from $3 an hour, to $8 for three hours, to $25 for ten hours. For now, it is limited to the United States, Canada, and Great Britain.

This is clearly a major move for Linden Lab and Second Life, one in development for many months.

More information later on SL Go and what others are saying about it.