Club Squeaks Closing It's Doors (Additional Info)

 

Earlier this month, Brandi Streusel announced on her Discord that she was having to stop her music parties at Club Squeaks. 

"Due to my new job promotion, I will not be able to do my morning sets at Club Squeaks anymore. I am going to miss everyone!"

Earlier, Brandi had told people at the club that she would be having to stop the events soon.

"Feels like I've let my fans down," Brandi would say, "I was hoping it wouldn't come to this. But, such is real-life."

But this doesn't mean the end of all of Brandi's DJ sets. She still plays at Club Balance on Friday evenings from 7 to 9 PM SL time. 
 

Club Squeaks was a small club high above Pacific Waters in the Sunweaver community. Set in a skybox, the official entrance was inside a man-sized live trap. It attracted a crowd of both American and Canadian early-risers and Europeans. There was a foam machine which resulted in occasional antics. Brandi was able to play music during her tech support job, so she was able to get online and do music for a crowd. But her promotion means that isn't an option, at least for now.

Hopefully the club will be back soon,

Bixyl Shuftan
 

*Addition* As it turns out, this wasn't a true closure. The club will still be playing on the few mornings Brandi doesn't have to work in real-life.  

Linden Lab Announces Then Pauses AI Character Designer

 

Several days ago, Linden Lab announced they were making available an AI Character Designer to Premium-Plus residents. 

We are making the Character Designer available on the main grid for early testing and feedback to Premium Plus residents. While we have completed initial internal evaluations, we encourage all interested residents to explore this alpha release, identify any issues, and share their input so we can continue refining the tool.

What is the Character Designer?

Developed in collaboration with Convai, the Character Designer empowers you to craft, customize, and animate virtual characters within Second Life. This tool is intended for developers, community builders, roleplay enthusiasts, and anyone looking to enhance their inworld experiences through dynamic characters.

Current Capabilities and Intended Use

The Character Designer provides a solid foundation for immersive roleplay, offering a range of features that let you shape and refine the personalities and behaviors of your inworld characters. Current capabilities include:

• Early-Stage Roleplay Support – Characters respond intelligently through IM, adapting and evolving as you interact.
• Custom Personalities and Backstories – Define unique histories, preferences, and communication styles to bring your characters to life.
• Integration with Existing SL Systems – Connect through a dedicated alt account, set arrival points, and fine-tune behavior filters for a seamless inworld experience.

This was quickly mentioned in the forums, where it quickly got hundreds of responses. Some expressed interest in the AIs. Some made jokes, "the thought of Second Life being so dead that they're trying to occupy its antisocial user base with chat bots." Some wondered if Linden Lab was doing this because AI was "the new shinny" thing in technology. But some expressed privacy concerns about private chats being exposed, "f that's not a password harvesting bot, I don't know what is.  NO WE DONT NEED AI." It was also brought up that anyone signing up to use one would be entirely responsible for whatever output it made, even if it wasn't it's creator's idea, "By agreeing to this, the bot, a literal black box I have no control over, can be made to say stupid **** and I would be entirely responsible for it. This is dead on arrival and has no place in Second Life as it's used. No one will want to take the risk that their store bot (perhaps in an adult store) can be coaxed into saying something truly reprehensible by a random stranger and then abuse reported for it, which as this is AI, should be pretty trivial." 

 

Finally after a few days and 17 pages of posts, Darcy Linden announced the new bots were being put on hold.

 

Hey everyone, thank you for posting in this thread and continuing the conversation!

We've taken your feedback and the Character Designer experiment has been paused while we retool.

I bolded experiment as that's what this is, and it's how we want to proceed with new ideas: get it out early, collect feedback, and optimize/terminate.

When we started this test, the goal was NPCs like Greeters, store clerks, quest givers, etc. It's a creator tool. The companions were an attempt to scale down as NPCs will require more work and this space is in its infancy. AI has been in Second Life for years now and this experiment doubles as an investigation into how we facilitate the allowing people to make cool experiences while respecting the rights and privacy of others. 

With that said, many creators have reached out to me personally with excitement and ideas.

———

AI in/for Second Life is NEVER meant to replace people. EVER. It is a tool, to help us connect, create, and explore.

———

This statement isn't a marketing ploy. We all understand the value (and potential dangers) of AI and are taking incremental steps to integrate these tools to help creators make the best experiences without having to toil over servers, load balancing, prompting, model selection/fine-tuning, and of course getting the characters to work in Second Life within the parameters we all deal with each day.

For the creators watching this thread and especially to those who make AI characters for advanced, narrative-driven NPCs in roleplay — we are attempting to make a tool that would potentially have a deeper integration than LSL can provide, and are not in the market to directly compete. If you are interested in shaping this product, I highly encourage you to fill out the following form and we'll be in touch: https://forms.gle/6w1X9PuFsAfsjxJk9 (heads up, I will be reviewing these).

In terms of data collection, the term 'harvesting' data came up. We work very closely with Convai and have complete control over the pipeline. To reiterate, data is not being used to train any models, it's not being shared, sold, or used in any other way other than to return a response. If something like confidential computing (where only you hold the keys to the conversation) is important to you, let us know.. That goes for any additional feature that would give the grid peace of mind

The thread was left open, and people continuing to comment, some expressing a little sadness the experiment was over. As of the writing of this article, it was 25 pages long. 

So for now, Linden Lab's AI experiment is on hold. For how long is unknown. 

To check out the forum thread, Click Here. 

Bixyl Shuftan

Science Circle Events Oh Hiatus, Senchai Library Schedule Changed

 

Usually the Newser has posted what event the Science Circle will be having on Saturday, and we used to post what events the Seanchai Library will be doing in the week ahead. But this will be changing for the Science Circle, and has for the Seanchai Library. 

Last week's tour of the SL20B was the last scheduled event of the Science Circle (except for a classical music concert the following day). As of now, there are no more events planned until November. So until then or we hear of sooner, the SC announcements are on hold.

As for the Seanchai Library, they used to announce their events each week in a convenient schedule. This has changed. Those still wanting to catch them can still join their group inworld, or check out their website at http://irelandslstory.blogspot.com/ . But should they resume their weekly schedules, we'll start posting them once we find out.

 

Bixyl Shuftan

Furry Fashion Puts Lounge Events on Hold

For years, the Furry Fashion Lounge has offered DJ music events for the friends of the mall. But yesterday, it was announced in both the inworld group and Discord channel that the events at the Lounge, recently renamed Furscape, were being put on hold, at least for a little while.

We decided to reevaluate  the way that we manage the sim.

In order to restructure we decided that Regularly scheduled events would be on hiatus for a few weeks while we make plans on a future event structure. While we won't have scheduled events running, the lounge is still open as a good place to hang out and enjoy yourself. Keep your ears open for when DJs might decide to play music for your enjoyment! Furry fashion is not closing down!

Thank you for your unbelivable support!

There is not yet a date for when events will resume. For those wanting to know when impromptu events are taking place, joining the group is recommended.

News and Commentary: Sansar Newsblog on Hiatus After Dispute With Linden Lab

By Bixyl Shuftan

If Linden Lab has a theme song these days, it might be "Oops, I did it again."

In December, Linden Lab found itself in a public relations flap when Strawberry Singh was asked by them to remove or edit a video with Second Life's eye-in-hand logo. When the Lab later apologized and annouced their trademark policies would be revised to allow others to promote the virtual world, all seemed well. But recently there was a dispute involving a blog of Linden Lab's other virtual world: Sansar.

On January 8, Ryan Schultz posted in the Sansar Newsblog about the "Aech's Garage" location, a build of a place in the upcoming Steven Spielberg Movie "Ready Player One." Shortly afterwards, he was contacted by Linden Lab, and he was asked to take the pictures in the article down and apparently there was a problem with the blog's use of the word "exclusive." "Apparently, someone at one of the many companies mentioned in that blogpost is upset," he would later post in the comments of Inara Pey's article on the location, telling her, "you’d better be prepared for a request from Linden Lab to take down the pictures you posted to this blogpost." Besides Sansar Studios, the companies involved were Intel, HTC Vive, and Warner Brothers.

After some talks with more in Linden Lab, Schultz was able to repost the images without fear of trouble. But he was asked to take down the word "exclusive." And there seems to be some problem with the name "Sansar Newsblog." "I have asked Linden Lab for clear, yes-or-no answers," Schultz stated about the issue of the pictures and the name of his blog, and had only gotten one for the former. As a result, he is putting his blog on hold.

I don’t want to lose that tight focus on Sansar, on which I have worked so long and hard on with the Sansar Newsblog these past five months. ... I may not be a Warner-Brothers-size company, but my blog is important to me and, if I can believe the comments I have received in support, important to many others as well. Until I get clear, authoritative yes-or-no answers to BOTH of my two questions (Can I repost the pictures I took from Aech’s Garage? Can I keep the name Sansar Newsblog?), I’m not going to bother spending my time and money blogging for Sansar. Linden Lab can go find some other blogger to cover and promote their platform.

Right now, I have only a verbal okay from Ebbe Altberg at an in-world meetup months ago that the name Sansar Newsblog is acceptable to Linden Lab, but after this recent incident, now I want more. I want a clear “Yes” or “No” from someone official at Linden Lab that the company is not going to ask me to rename my blog.

Until I get clear “Yes” or “No” answers to BOTH these two questions, from someone at Linden Lab who is authorized to speak on behalf of the company, the Sansar Newsblog will remain on hiatus.

Schultz stated if he was told to change the name of his blog, he would stop his focus of Sansar and give more coverage to High Fidelity, VRChat, "and the other new VR-capable virtual worlds ... and the other new blockchain-based virtual worlds that are suddenly springing up."

He would later update his post. saying he had gotten an apology from Ebbe Altberg, Linden Lab's CEO. "I do still have a lot of love and respect for Linden Lab. ...  However, I will wait for Linden Lab to issue new brand guidelines for Sansar before I start blogging again. I am really tired, and I need to take a break. ... perhaps two or three weeks at most. The blog will be back, either as the Sansar Newsblog, or under a new name with a new focus."

The incident has been starting to get attention from other blogs and newsletters. Nalates Urriah was reminded of the trouble with Strawberry Singh last month, " ... it looks like the Sansar team is going to have to go through the same learning curve. But, I had hopped the SL experience of the Linden support people, like accounting, legal, marketing…, would carry over. I suppose not, now that I see this second ‘take down’ call." Isabelle Cheren would write about it as well, "Be thoughtful to people who visit. Sansar needs the promotion and here you go and upset a person who promotes it daily, often a number of times a day?" Inara Pey, when asking the Sansar community team for answers, was told, "users are not discouraged from posting screenshots from any experience that is open to the public as long as there is no claim to exclusivity, early access, or other potentially misleading statements or claims that are untrue or could be construed as an official statement from Linden Lab or Sansar."

After Sansar was officially opened, it had gotten a lukewarm reception from most. I had gotten a number of comments asking for the Newser to focus on other subjects, notably when the Second Life Friends Facebook group told me any links to Sansar-related posts would be removed. With the Sansar Newsblog on hold, the next-generation virtual world is without a blog that promotes it with singular focus. It would seem once again, Linden Lab's heavy hand has backfired.

Sources: Sansar Newsblog, Modem World, Natle's Things, Isabelle Cheren  

Image Credit: Isabelle Cheren, Ryan Schultz

Bixyl Shuftan