TikTok Deal Finalized, Complaints About New TOS & Posts Being Censored

 

For fans of TikTok in America who have been somewhat worried about the lingering threat of a potential ban in the United States, they no longer have to worry about that as a deal was made with American investors that satisfied the demands of the current administration. But, it may have come with a price that some users are not willing to bear.

More on the story in Extra. 

 

(finally up, sorry about the delay). 

Ryan Schultz to Stop Blogging

 

A few days ago, Ryan Schultz, a noted blogger about Second Life and other virtual worlds and VR technology, announced there would be no more posts on his blog. 

I’ve had a good run, but it’s time for me to close this blog after a little over seven years and three months. It’s time.

Please know that it has been an honour, a joy, and a privilege to write about a subject that I loved: virtual worlds, social VR, and the metaverse, plus virtual and augmented reality in general. This blog has opened many doors for me, and I am truly grateful for the experiences I have had.

Thank you for your comments, suggestions, encouragement, and feedback throughout the years. I have made many friends and acquaintances in many virtual worlds, and I hope that our paths cross again soon, either via the metaverse or in real life.

I will be offline for a while, but I hope to be back soon. I doubt it will be a blog, though. Perhaps something different; I don’t know what yet.

Be well. Keep each other warm in a cold world. I love you all.

In his post before, he stated was staking an indefinite break, saying he was too busy with the demands of real-life. In the post before that, he had stated his job at a university has undergone quite a bit in recent months. His last post about technology was on October 1, with two posts in August. On July 4, he announced there would be fewer posts "for the forseeable future" due to his job.  

Ryan Schultz was a blogger about Second Life, often posting about mesh avatar accessories and outfits. But he didn't limit himself to Second Life, starting off as a blogger about Sansar when it was owned by Linden Lab, calling it the "Sansar Newsblog" at the time. But in January 2018, he briefly suspended writing following a dispute with Linden Lab about a story he did on one of Sansar's locations, later renaming it the Ryan Schultz blog as part of Linden Lab's complaint was about the blog's name. He would also write about VRChat and other virtual worlds, as well as VR Gear. 

Ryan Schultz did hint he would be back in some form. But it looks like he won't be with the blog he made a name for himself in Second Life media.

To check out Ryan Schultz's blog: https://ryanschultz.com/

Bixyl Shuftan

Trying To Figure Out New Tech

 

If I haven't been writing much lately, there's a reason. Yours truly has been making a tech upgrade. 

 

For years, I had just the old flip phones that came about in the 90s. Then when the company phased them out about a couple years ago, I finally got a smartphone, a simple one. But friends kept telling me I needed to upgrade. So I finally did. I went ahead and got a much better smartphone: a Samsung.

 

Trouble is, the joke about new tech being scary to people over forty, well, there's something to it. It's been something of a struggle trying to get the thing working right, which takes time. Time that cannot be used for writing, or covering events like the last days of the SLB.

But I'll get this figured out. In the meantime, in-depth stories, other than from other reporters and reader submissions, will have to wait.

 

Image credit: PC Mag 

Bixyl Shuftan

Linden Lab Ending Support for 32 Bit Viewer

 

When Second Life users download either the official or Firestorm Windows viewers, they have a choice of either the 32 bit viewer or the 64 bit viewer. The reason for this is older computers often being better at handling the 32 bit one. But this choice will soon be coming to an end, at least for the official viewer. Late last month in the Tools and Technology blog, Linden Lab announced they were ending support for the 32 bit viewer. They were also changing the minimum requirements for Apple computers.

As of July 1st, 2023, we will be ending support for the Second Life 32-bit Windows Viewer and updating the minimum system requirements for MacOS to 10.13. This decision is made to align with the evolving technology landscape and to ensure the best performance and security for our residents. 

This does not mean that 32 bit Linden viewers will not be able to log in, as the Lab would state, "After July 1st, we will continue to allow the last supported version of the Second Life 32-bit Windows viewer to log in indefinitely."

As of the writing of this article, there has been no similar announcement from Team Firestorm concerning their viewer, which is used more often than the Linden viewer. 

Linden Lab Working on "Puppetry" Feature

 

 A few days ago in the Tools and Technology blog, Linden Lab stated they were working on a new and experimental feature for moving Second Life avatars, which they called "Pupetry."

 We have been working on this feature for some time and now we are ready to open it up to the Second Life community for further development and to find out what amazing things our creators will do with this new technology.

The codebase is alpha level and does contain its share of rough edges that need refinement, however the project is functionally complete and it is possible for the scriptors and creators of Second Life to start to try it out.

The Lab explained some how it works.
 

 Puppetry accepts target transforms for avatar skeleton bones and uses inverse kinematics (IK) to place the connecting bones in order for the specified bones to reach their targets.  For example the position and orientation “goal” of the hand could be specified and IK would be used to compute how the forearm, elbow, upper arm, and shoulder should be positioned to achieve it. The IK calculation can be tricky to get right and is a work in progress.

The target data is supplied by a plug-in that runs as a separate process and communicates with the viewer through the LLSD Event API Plug-in (LEAP) system.  This is a lesser known functionality of the Viewer which has been around for a while but has, until now, only been used for automated test and update purposes.

The Viewer transmits the Puppetry data to the region server, which broadcasts it to other Puppetry capable Viewers nearby.  The receiving Viewers use the same IK calculations to animate avatars in view.

People can find more information in "Puppetry : How it Works" in the Knowledge Base. There are some known limitations and issues such as avatars needing to be Bento technology and the project viewer occasionally crashing. 

 

To be able to use this technology, go to the Alternate Viewers page and download the Puppetry Viewer. The regions that support it are all in the Preview Grid, which is separate from the main one, and are Bunraku, Marionette, and Castelet. With the viewer, you should be able to see others use it. To use it yourself, the Lab says you need, "a working Python3 installation, a plug-in script to run, and any Python modules it requires." One can get more instructions at the Puppetry Development page on the wiki. 

 

Also at Bunraku, Marionette, and Castelet on the Preview Grid, the Lab will be having a discussion at Thursday Sept 8 at 1PM SL time, "We're also happy to talk about this at the upcoming Server User Group or Content Creator meetings.  Come by, let us know what you think, and hear about our future plans!"

Bixyl Shuftan

Announcement: This Saturday at The Science Circle - "Artificial Intelligence? The Truth Behind a Fascinating Buzzword"

 

"Artificial Intelligence? The Truth Behind a Fascinating Buzzword"

Saturday October 23,

10 AM to 11 AM

Nowadays it is almost impossible to read newspapers or watch media without encountering the words “Artificial Intelligence or AI”. These words evoke in most people either scaring remembrances of sci-fi movies or anticipations of a bright future where human beings will be freed of any duty and will devote their time to leisure or personal growth. In the real world, AI has very little to do with what we normally perceive as intelligence. It is just a combination of powerful statistical methods, fast algorithms and great volumes of data. This combination is however very powerful and potentially the most powerful an also the most disruptive technology ever  invented.

Presentation by Giuseppe Longo

Auditorium

To read more, Click Here. 

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Science%20Circle/125/132/22
 

Details on Second Life Mobile App

For those of you waiting for Linden Lab to come up with a Second Life app for mobile devices, there were a few small bits of information made available. First, in the Technology section of the forums, there's a new sub-section: "Mobile." A thread soon started, and Keira Linden made a few comments.

In response to how much longer for an app for the Marketplace:

Marketplace does pose it's own set of challenges.  We have had (and will continue to have) many internal discussions about what features to introduce at what time and Marketplace did rank high on that list.  Right now, we're really focused on the social aspects like chat (both IM and group) and getting those right.

About an hour later:

I've got a little gossip, but not sure how juicy it is.  😆  Android app is in the works!  We went with iOS first because we have more Residents on iOS devices, not because we don't love our Android Resis too!  Release for an Android app is going to be a little delayed after iOS because we still have some backend work to do and (in case you hadn't heard) we are frantically working on this eency little project called UPLIFT.  🤣  But, we're still working on what we can along side iOS.  Once we have a beta version of it that we can open up for you all to bang on, I'll drop an announcement in here so you all can sign up. 

SL blogger Daniel Voyager feels this means sign-ups for a beta version of an SL mobile app will be "very soon." The full version of the app is not expected to be available until sometime in 2021.

Hat Tip: Daniel Voyager

Bixyl Shuftan

Press Release: Labor Tech Discussion at Virtual Ability

Labor Tech discussion
Hosted by Tom Boellstorff and Winifred Poster
FRIDAY March 16, 8-10am SLT
Sojourner Auditorium, Virtual Ability

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Virtual%20Ability/54/170/23

Join us on Friday, March 16, 8AM SLT for an informal discussion about labor and technology. Some members of an informal group of researchers studying labor and digital technology (for instance: call centers, “sharing economy” things like Uber and AirBnB, uses of social network sites like Facebook and Instagram for earning money) are going to make brief presentations about their research, and we’ll have a couple of brief presentations about some research about labor and disability in Second Life too. There will be plenty of time for open discussion. Please join us!

Hosts:
Tom Boellstorff is an anthropology professor from the University of California at Irvine. He is the author of the book "Coming of Age in Second Life."

With support from the National Science Foundation, Tom and Donna Davis (University of Oregon) are engaged in an SL research project “Virtual Worlds, Disability, and New Cultures of the Embodied Self.” How is the internet changing how people think of themselves as individuals and interact as members of communities? For this project, they focus on the disability experience in virtual worlds  where disabled persons can appear any way they choose and do things they may not be able to do in the physical world.

Since some early human first picked up a stick to use as a cane, people with disabilities have been at the forefront of technology innovation. What can their creative uses of and adaptions to online social interaction teach us? Tom and Donna explore this question by collaborating with disabled persons as they create and interact socially in virtual worlds, and discover how they use different kinds of devices in their homes to experience these online environments.

This research will have implications for improving health care and social support. But it also will use the insights of disabled persons to better understand now new online technologies influence how we think about our bodies, how we think about social interaction, and how we think about the role of the internet in everyday life.

Winifred Poster is a professor in the International & Area Studies / International Affairs Program at Washington University, St. Louis. She is the author of "Invisible Labor: Hidden work in the contemporary world" and "Borders in Service: Enactments of nationhood in transnational call centres."

Her areas of interest are feminist labor theory, digital globalization, and Indian outsourcing.  For the past two decades, she has been following high-tech firms from the US to India, both in earlier waves of computer manufacturing and software, and more recent waves of back-office work and call centers.  Her focus is on the intersection of post-colonial computing with the political economy of service labor.  She's curious how information communication technologies are changing the meaning of work, dispersing it transnationally, incorporating new types of workers, and reshaping identities.

Presented in voice with text transcription.

AOL Instant Messenger To Shut Down

Those of you whom have been around the days of browsing the Internet and the World Wide Web since the beginning will remember America On-Line's AOL Instant Messenger. Also known simply as AIM, it helped pioneer the days of social media, people using the Internet and being online to get in touch and chat with one another instead of simply looking up information and checking email. But like many other pioneers in technology, it became outclassed by later products. It was announced earlier this month by the VP of Communications of Oath, the company created by the merger of AOL and Yahoo, that AOL IM would be shutting down in December 2017 after 20 years of operation.

If you were a 90’s kid, chances are there was a point in time when AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) was a huge part of your life. You likely remember the CD, your first screenname, your carefully curated away messages, and how you organized your buddy lists. Right now you might be reminiscing about how you had to compete for time on the home computer in order to chat with friends outside of school. You might also remember how characters throughout pop culture from “You’ve Got Mail” to “Sex and the City” used AIM to help navigate their relationships. In the late 1990’s, the world had never seen anything like it. And it captivated all of us.

AIM tapped into new digital technologies and ignited a cultural shift, but the way in which we communicate with each other has profoundly changed. As a result we’ve made the decision that we will be discontinuing AIM effective December 15, 2017. ... Thank you to all of our AIM users.

The announcement was made on Twitter and Tumbler, two newer messengers that helped displace AIM into irrelevance, and ended by promising to "continue building the next generation of iconic brands" and "provide more products and experiences."

And so, a peice of life on the early Internet is fading away into the history books.

Source: CNN

Bixyl Shuftan

Webcam Program in Development Would Let Users Appear As An Avatar

How would you like to appear in video chat with a whole different look, one that doesn't even have to be human? That's what a product in development named "Facerig" is promising, and more. This program promises to allow webcam users to take on the look of whatever character they want over Skype and any other video chat service. And as your face moves and gestures, so will the Facerig avatar.



(Click Here if the video fails to load)

"FaceRig is a program enabling anyone with a webcam to digitally embody any character they want," states the program's website, "For now we're focusing on just the portrait, but we aim to do more in the future."

How does it work? The crowdfunding page states Facerig makes use of "state of the art real time image based tracking technology" from Visage Technologies, a tech company from Sweden, which is then combined with "a cross-platform real-time animation and visualization framework developed by indie-powered Holotech Studios and its partners from the games industry."

"A lot of research has been put into FaceRig by top level academics and professionals to create the current results, and if the interest is high and we keep at it, it will get even more amazing."

For Second Life residents, the potential is obvious. One could potentially appear in video chat as their avatar, whether it's normal human, anime-looking, furry, etc. Gamers would have the chance to look like a Worgen, Orc, or whatever gaming character they wanted. And it's not just users on online worlds whom would find it useful. Ohgizmo.com suggested it would be useful for those mornings when you need to be at a video conference at home, and you don't have enough time to shave and dress properly.

Holotech Studios decided to crowdfund it over Indiegogo, with the goal of raising $120,000 (US). But As of January 5, they had been pledged over $200,000, with 31 days remaining.

FaceRig will come out in five different versions, FaceRig Classic and FaceRig Pro for home use, FaceRig Studio for businesses, FaceRig Audiolite for those looking for a simple version of the program, and FaceRig Mobile "for iOS and Android."

Sources: FaceRig.com, Ohgizmo.com, canoe.ca.com 

Bixyl Shuftan

Second Life Featured in Online Technology Magazine "The Verge"

It isn't often Second Life is mentioned in larger media these days, and often it's for the negative, such as last month when a couple in Tulsa Oklahoma was arrested for neglecting their daughter's well being, and their time on the virtual world was blamed in the press as being a factor. It's tenth anniversary did not go entirely unnoticed, however. In late September, "The Verge," a technology news website, wrote about the place in an article titled, "Second Life's Strange Second Life."


Written by Chris Stokel-Walker, the article isn't always flattering, starting off by describing Second Life as "the faithful replication of our modern world, where whoring, drinking and fighting were acceptable." And at one point one of the people interviewed claims "at one point" Linden Lab admitted "six of every ten women" avatars were actually males in real life. But The Lab never made such a comment, and it is not true. Hamlet Au, who also wrote about the article, also called the claim baseless and responded the Lab instead stated its most active users are women in real life.

More accurately, the article contrasts the ability to be and live like a fantasy/sci-fi character to "huge areas ... that look just like suburbia" in which people faithfully replicate real life existances the best they can, "an entire world of opportunities out there and (some) people chose to be couch potatoes."

Chris interviewed several people, including former Lindens, one who commented about the Lab, "after five years of working quite closely with them, I still don't feel I really know what the culture is. ... They simply never seem to understand their own product." The article ends on a fairly optimistic tone, suggesting Second Life will still be around in some form ten years from now.

More than two hundred readers commented on the article. There was some general bad-mouthing about Second Life, such as calling it for "losers," as well as comments were about the "jiggly" layout of some of the pictures on some computers. But there were also balanced comments and some of praise for the virtual world such as a well written one by Jo Yardley.

Once you realize the potential of SL and all the options, other ‘games’ suddenly seem less exciting. ... yes, SL has a steep learning curve and it takes a while for people to figure it out, to understand the possibilities and how it all works. ... But once people realize the secret of SL, they usually get excited. The secret being that you can build and do anything and if you can’t find something you like, you can build it yourself. We all have a passion we are excited about, something we love, something we enjoy sharing with others. SL allows you to do that in a way nothing else can.

To see the article in it's entirety, (Click Here).

Bixyl Shuftan

SL Enquirer: The Abyss Earth Sciences and Marine Life Observatory

Imagine you were intrigued by a documentary in your youth and seeked a career that would allow you to advance a field of science similar to what was presented in that favorite show you saw years ago.

Yan Lauria has been able to do just that, having seen the Jean-Jacques Cousteau ocean exploration documentaries in his childhood. He is now working as a project manager at JAMSTEC, “Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology”. He is also the main force behind Abyss Observatory, the oceanographic earth science sim on Second Life © (SL). Stareyes Galaxy had the opportunity to interview him and take a tour of the sim.

Read more of Stareyes' Article (Here).

Second Life Enquirer: Pocket Metaverse- The Ultimate Second Life App For Ipad and Iphone

Often times, our busy real lives keep us from our second lives. But what if you could take Second Life anywhere? 

As we all know, mobile technology has really taken off in the last few years. We can do virtually anything from ordering a pizza, to making a bill payment online. Now that the tech world has advanced even further, gaming apps are also readily available. As an avid Second Life user with a busy real life, I needed a way to keep up with business clients, friends and other activities in Second Life. As I recently switched from android to Iphone, I was unsure of what I would find. I was thrilled to stumble upon an app called Pocket Metaverse. 

Read Nehem Resident's Article Here »

Pooky Amsterdam’s Talk on Virtual Worlds and Science Fiction

Last week Pooky Amsterdam gave a talk on the influence of science fiction on virtual worlds, including Second Life. Held in the Constellation sim, she talked about how virtual worlds were in a sense a classic sci-fi fan's dream come true, allowing the 'readers' to 'write' their own stories. Pooky also mentioned the story of one science fiction writer whom continued to indirectly speak with fans and make the news after his death.

Read more in People.

Future Medicine in Second Life

Despite Linden Labs dropping it's discount for education-themed sims, some universities continue to keep a presence in Second Life. Reporter Any1 Gynoid checks out the UNCP campus, where college students use the Grid to telecommute to class on courses in nursing.

Check out the story in Extra.