Avatar Planet

The following are links to the most recently added articles. Click here to see links to earlier articles.

Read my Second Life blog on examiner.com

new Second Life sends users on virtual vacations "I'd ventured into the world of pixels to check out Second Life as a virtual - and not-so-virtual - travel experience. To paraphrase the ancient Chinese sage Lao Tsu: Can a journey of a thousand miles, I wondered, begin with a single mouse click?... You can do things that are impossible in real life, such as parachute off the Eiffel Tower ... but doesn't virtual France lack a certain ... je ne sais quoi - reality, maybe? ... So strap on your mental seat belts. The tour begins..." (Cherilyn Parsons, San Francisco Chronicle, Mar 9, 2009) Read

Second Life without mouse and keyboard! Kapor Enterprises is developing a way to control your avatar in Second Life by controlling your avatar's movements with your body! Move one way, you fly, move another, you land gracefully, or you build objects, or walk. A 3d camera converts your movements into avatar movements. It's still under development and not available commercially, but you can see demos of it at the Kapor website Hands Free 3D. In Second Life, if you have a Life 4-U TV, you can currently (as of Feb 20) view a demo on Channel 1. note: the Life 4-U website is in German, but the shows are telecast in English. (Feb 20, 2009)

Virtual Worlds Directory Rezzable.com has launched a Virtual Worlds Directory, allowing users to rate locations in virtual worlds. At present it works only for Second Life, but there are plans to expand it to other virtual worlds. (Wagner James Au, New World Notes, Feb 15, 2009) Read

Virtual Worlds as Social Science Research Laboratories? Although social scientists, engineers and physical scientists have studied the World Wide Web as an entity in and of itself for some time, there is now a growing group of social scientists who are learning how to use the World Wide Web as a tool for research rather than as a subject of research. Virtual worlds are excellent laboratories for observing and prototyping new social forms that can later be applied to the outside world. (Times of India, Feb 15, 2009) Read

Second Life Attempts to Stage a Rebirth With Second Life's once meteoric growth slowing, Linden Labs has recently revamped its website and is investigating ways to make the virtual world more friendly to neophytes. (Brian Morrissey, AdWeek, Feb 12, 2009) Read

Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds Carnegie Council Senior Fellows Joshua S. Fouts and Rita J. King produced a graphic novel version of their exploration of Islamic cultural manifestations in the virtual world of Second Life. Download the PDF to get a glimpse of the creativity and interactivity they experienced while researching the public diplomacy potential of these spaces. (Joshua S. Fouts, Rita J. King , PolicyInnovations.org, Feb 9, 2009) Read

Will Virtual Words Rescue TV (or vice-versa)? As online audiences continue to ignore TV and vanilla/social virtual worlds suffer from a lack of direction, will the marriage of the two will save both from irrelevancy?. (Gary Hayes, PersonalizeMedia.com, Feb 1, 2009) Read

Digital Ontario Canada's Ontario provincial government has devoted an entire Second Life sim to information about digital life and initiatives in the province. There is a guided tour, and there are entrance and exit surveys. Download the exit survey before entering, so you know what to look for while you take the tour. If you're a Second Life member, click here for the SLURL to teleport there

ScienceSim, a Step on the Way to a 3D Internet? ScienceSim, using OpenSim open source technology, is a collaborative virtual world for scientific researchers. (John A. Hengeveld, Intel Blogs, Jan 29, 2009) Read

Eleven Virtual World Technologies that Will Change the Way We Work Information about eleven virtual worlds that are "business-ready" or are expected to be soon. (Nick Wilson, CleverZebra.com, Jan 29, 2009) Read

Is Second Life Your Feudal Lord? The similarity between ownership of land in feudal England and in Second Life suggests that offline courts should protect user interests in virtual items, gradually, without treating them as full-blown modern “property.” (James Grimmelmann, Yale Law Journal, Jan 19, 2009) Read

Italian Woman Explores Prostitution Via Second Life A communications professional by day, at night, like some kind of Freudian superhero, she dons her virtual persona and sells faux sex for 2,000 to 3,000 Linden Dollars a pop (the equivalent of $9 to $13 USD). (Earnest Cavalli, Wired, Jan 12, 2009) Read

A 'Second Life' For Educators Elizabeth Knittle, technology integration specialist for the Barnstable Public School District in Massachusetts, took her first tentative steps in the 3D online virtual world known as Second Life about two years ago. She wasn't impressed. "I looked around and I thought, this is crazy," Knittle recalls. "I just couldn't see the value of it, so I left. But then people starting blogging about it-- a lot of people-- so I had to reconsider. I quickly realized that Second Life was a great place for educators to collaborate and share their experiences," she says, "which is not something we have all that many opportunities to do. Here was a place where anyone could participate. You didn't have to be invited or submit a proposal. And if my district didn't have the money to send me places, I could just go into Second Life and learn great things." (John K. Waters, T.H.E Journal, Jan 2009) Read

Virtual Theft on the Rise In China, a 41 year old gamer murdered a younger gamer after accusing him of stealing his virtual property. World wide, property owned in virtual worlds totals over 1.5 billion US dollars. When thefts occur, only 25% are recovered. Should legislators consider laws aimed at theft in virtual worlds? (Bobbie Johnson, Guardian UK, Nov 20, 2008) Read

The Rise and Rise of Virtual Worlds China is building a series of virtual worlds, accommodating hundreds of millions of avatars. The Chinese government thinks virtual worlds will be as vital to the economy as manufacturing is today. In England, a pub has a large screen on which a Second Life reproduction of the pub is shown, with avatar patrons, while a web cam shows avatars what's happening in the real pub. Where is all this leading? Victor Keegan, Guardian UK, Nov 14, 2008) Read

Second Life: Is this the Future of the Academic Conference? An estimated 5,000 educators are in Second Life. In this era of shrinking budgets, could Second Life be the new home of academic conferences? (Donald MacLeod, Mortarboard Blog, Nov 11, 2008) Read

Use Your Avatar Name on Facebook and Get Banned for Life. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg laying down the law. “You can’t be on Facebook without being yourself,” Sandberg says. “We kick you off.” (Eric Reuters, Reuters, Sept 25, 2008) Read