<![CDATA[io9: Second Life]]> http://cache.io9.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/io9.com.png <![CDATA[io9: Second Life]]> http://io9.com/tag/second life http://io9.com/tag/second life <![CDATA[7 Virtual Reality Technologies That Actually Work]]> So far, virtual reality has mostly been a colossal disappointment. But VR has had its share of breakthroughs and innovative applications. Here are seven VR technologies that work, and that may yet point the way to truly successful virtual reality. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5288859&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Second Life Embraces Corporate America, But Is It Mutual?]]> Second Life! It's not just for cybersex anymore... or, at least, that's what Linden Labs is trying to tell the various corporations of the world, as they try to reposition their virtual domain as the latest and greatest way to commute virtually to the office. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5273498&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Is Linden Really Pushing Second Life Sex Away?]]> Is Second Life about to become the new Times Square? The virtual world is to be cleaned up, according to reports, allowing those who don't want to see cyberfrottage to remain innocent and untouched. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5207282&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Second Life Foresaw the US Banking Crisis]]> Yet another financial casualty: Citigroup just became the latest institution to come crawling to the feds for a bailout. Where will it all end? As industry experts become desperate for any kind of divining rod, some observers pointed out that the failure of unregulated banking has already played out — in Second Life. The rise and fall of one of the virtual world’s unregulated banks has some financial researchers taking a closer look at the predictive benefit of virtual environments. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5097324&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[What Happens in Virtual Reality ... Probably Won't Stay There]]> Cross Reality, Dual Reality, X-Reality: all of these terms describe the recent work of an MIT Media Lab team to bring the virtual into the real and vice versa. So far, the X-Reality group has focused their attentions on Second Life; last year, its Shadow Lab project allowed the game's users to virtually check out real-life activity inside the Media Lab building in Cambridge. Later this month, the next X-Reality project goes live — and they've got big, wormhole-tunneling, reality-crossing plans for it. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5088877&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Do Virtual Worlds Have to Make You a Psycho Loser?]]> A new documentary about virtual worlds called Second Skin debuted at the South by Southwest Festival over the weekend, and it's already causing controversy for portraying gamers as social defectives. Though the filmmakers clearly want to offer a positive view of massive multiplayer games like World of Warcraft, they nevertheless managed to focus the documentary almost entirely on people whose immersion in virtual worlds destroys their engagement with the real world. Either that, or the relationships that the gamers form via the virtual world are shown to be unstable and perhaps even illusory. C|Net's Daniel Terdiman wrote a fascinating essay about the movie after its debut, pointing out how strange it is that we're still getting these one-sided portraits of the "loser gamer" despite the fact that gaming is fast becoming the most popular form of entertainment in the world. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=366583&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Discover The Sensuality Of Virtual Worlds]]> Virtual worlds are driving people to suicide — and making them fall in love. A new documentary, opening this weekend, follows seven people who are devoted to virtual worlds, and finds them struggling with addiction and discovering romance. Second Skin, which debuts at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, showcases players' devotion to worlds like Second Life, and soon the science fiction wonderment addiction that is Starcraft 2). Click through to view the trailer. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=363028&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Virtual Chair in Second Life Reflects Real World Drama]]> The virtual world is as real as a chair in Boston. From the same design consortium that brought us the psychedelic cathedral Evoke comes a new project called Remote, which links a chair in Second Life with a chair sitting in a gallery near Boston's Emerson College. Here are some of the cool (but admittedly pointless) ways in which the two chairs affect each other. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=357853&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Virtual Worlds Are So 1994]]> Sometimes an idea is ahead of its time and backward thinking represses it. Other times, an idea is very much stuck in its own time but can't be realized due to crappy technology. Such is the case with virtual worlds, an idea that captured people's imaginations at the dawn of the Web in the early 1990s. At that time, people dreamed that "the future" would be all VR — just like in Lawnmower Man, or Total Recall. But our digital forebears didn't have the computer power to make that happen. Now that we have that power, using it to recreate a dream from the Rave Age puts virtual world companies like Linden Lab and Metaverse in the ashcan of history. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=325691&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Second Life in China]]> Linden Labs chief Philip Rosedale, creator of Second Life, says he's in talks with an Asian company to bring Second Life to China. No word on how that nation's notorious online censorship will fit into the virtual world. [New World Notes] More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=325668&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[New Book Explains How to Peddle Your Ass in Second Life]]> The best thing about Daniel Terdiman's new book, The Entrepreneur's Guide to Second Life, is that it teaches you how to be a hooker. Sure there's informative stuff about how to set up a business and advertise in the metaverse, but what pushes this book into virtual world classic territory is the blithe way Terdiman explains fetishism and fucking in Second Life using the how-to tone you'd expect from an article about home electronics kits in MAKE magazine:
The Second Life sex industry consists of the following categories: fashion, accessories, genitals, clubs, escorts, toys, furniture, and animations. An explanation of each follows.
Even better? The advice from sex entrepreneurs. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=322699&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Second Life Avatars Are Portable As Purse Dogs Now]]> As the Virtual Worlds conference kicked off in Silicon Valley yesterday, IBM announced a partnership with Linden Lab, makers of Second Life, to create portable avatars that you can bring with you to any virtual world. But how? IBM and Linden Lab say they are developing open data formats, or a "universal character creation system," that will let people use their Second Life avatars anywhere. The problem is that most virtual world companies like Blizzard, which owns World of Warcraft, have very strict rules about what your avatar can look like. Same goes for things like the Barbie virtual world. You can't just bring your trippy Burning Man avatar from Second Life into a WOW campaign and slay dragons with your powers of fashion and relating deeply to other people. And I doubt the Barbie world people will welcome your naked sex god avatar. More »
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