tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68806401581395983082024-03-13T10:13:10.216-07:00Metaverse TravellerSeeking the elusive virtual worlds deep in the free Metaverse. Baldly going where few have gone before.Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.comBlogger73125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-42771180044029434532018-10-26T07:38:00.000-07:002018-10-26T07:41:32.366-07:00Opensim G+ Refugees Seek Social Media that Respects its Users!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Just when the Opensim Hypergrid community were busy welcoming an influx of refugees from InWorldz we then got hit with another bombshell when Google Plus announced they would close their social platform by next summer. The greater part of the Opensim community had come to rely on G+ for keeping in touch with the many grid servers that make up the Hypergrid across the world, and it worked very well serving our needs for the past six years. There was no problem using avatar names, something that got you banned from the data abusing tech giant Facebook, which most of us avoided anyway. Of course Google was data mining too but they were the best of a bad bunch for our particular needs. However, with the news G+ is to shut down we who have been actively running groups in support of the Opensim Metaverse are being forced to look elsewhere.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So this is a follow-up to my last article to explain how we have got on in our search for an alternative social media site that is similar to Google plus and might offer a new home or Hub for our community where people can easily find other Opensim users across the Hypergrid. This has become so important to us and the perfect way to feed news, help people and promote entertainment and products. Finding something that closely matched G+ is what we were looking for and the list of possibilities is actually quite large according to Wikipedia. However, some stood out and a strong contender was the Diaspora network but there were others that looked more like Google plus including MeWe and Minds.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Opensim Virtual in MeWe</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">MeWe has so far proved quite popular with the Opensim community but not everyone. Some take the view that MeWe is just another corporate-run social media and would rather develop a community on the Diaspora network which is open source and decentralized. Diaspora consists of a group of independently owned nodes (called pods) which interoperate to form a network served via a number of clients including Mastodon, Friendica and others. The Federation protocol is how Diaspora servers (and other servers supporting this protocol) talk to each other. The important thing to understand is that no one server in the network controls all the data so only a local owner or manager can block content. This is very appealing to those that value freedom of speech but has lead to problems where extremists like Islamic State and criminals have used the media to distribute propaganda, communicate with their followers and to radicalise and recruit. This is the kind of thing that the corporate media giants like Facebook and Twitter are now starting to block centrally and will do so more and more as they broaden their definition of what constitutes unacceptable content. So, while the big tech giants take it upon themselves to censor politically unacceptable views and hate speech, the smaller fringe tech companies and groups are highly exposed to extremists that exploit the decentralized networks. Well, that is what we are being told by the mainstream media which, of course, just happens to be owned by the giant tech companies and a handful of billionaires too.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Anyway, I registered on the Social iSurf server running Friendica and found other familiar names from the Opensim community were posting so there is certainly interest and one member was talking about setting up a server to run a node for the community. Personally, whereas I like the fact Diaspora is decentralized and members can be part of a federation, I didn't particularly think much of the client projects or that the servers are dependent on a network of enthusiasts which I thought rather limits them. They rely on donations to operate but none have the speed, polish or the millions of users that Google Plus has so I consider it as one to watch but not ideal presently. I also found that the iSurf community was rather geekish and the display Twitter-like so I moved on to MeWe which was recommended to me and I have to say right away I was quite impressed. I really did like the layout and the features so I registered there too and formed a group for Opensim Virtual easily and quickly at no cost. That group has taken off quickly and now has well over a 100 members after just week or so. I promoted it on G+ while I can of course but I didn't just leave it at that. I joined with Nara Malone and we now run the Adult Metaverse group too and that is actually growing even faster with over 200 members already at the time of writing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />I have since also joined the Minds social media and I will come to that shortly but I have to say MeWe is now front runner and other G+ groups have followed us there which is probably helping the growth in membership too as the whole community expands. So far the list includes the "Ruth & Roth 2.0 an OpenSim Mesh Avatar Project", Nara Malone's "Metaverse Authors", Lecktor Hannibal's "Infiniti Grid", Leighton Marjoram's "HG Traveller Opensimulator", Wayfinder Wishbringer's "Elf Clan", Fred Beckhusen's "Opensimulator DreamWorld and DreamGrid" and the list goes on - like 23 groups I counted so far. I think MeWe is very likely now to become the preferred social media for Opensim simply because it looks good, works well and has useful features including chat. Moreover, the owners setup MeWe with the expressed promise they wont sell user data like Facebook does and they respect free speech. It is not decentralized like Diaspora but there is a degree of central control to block violent extremists and criminals, which is a good thing. Groups are easy to set up at no cost so no group server is required. The system is powerful and not limited by the computing power and connection of a home PC so the way I see it is, what's not to like? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As I mentioned above I did notice how quickly The Adult Metaverse in MeWe was growing which is not surprising really given that MeWe's very relaxed policy on adult material is encouraging some quite explicit material which, admittedly, if you don't want to see it, can at least be blurred out. So there is that but what we found was many new recruits to the Adult Metaverse expressed an interest in learning about Opensim worlds when asked if they were 18+ and if they were familiar with Opensim. Answering these two questions was a condition of joining the Adult group and the answers we have been getting suggested there is an opportunity here to recruit new people for grids that focus on adult material and services perhaps. But I think there may well be some spillover into the other grids depending on the interests of the recruit.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I also joined some of the so-called Blochchain social media sites such as Steemit, Gab and Minds but, though Minds was easy to join and setup a group, I can't say yet I would recommend it. However, once again I created a group for Opensim Virtual and even posted a little but the way this site works, and others using cyptocurrency like it, is you pay for views and, while Minds also rewards its users with crypto-tokens for like liking, commenting, and sharing, you still need to register for a crypto wallet or you can barely get a group started without it. Setting up a wallet and registering with Coinbase is not that hard but the process overall is quite confusing and time consuming given that there are delays in servicing your transactions. But there was more. I bought $62 in Ethereum crypto on Coinbase exchange and added it to my Minds wallet to buy tokens which can then be exchanged for increased views on the network using the "Boost" feature. I wasn't quite prepared for what came next though.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Adult Metaverse in Minds</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Opensim Virtual in Minds got hardly any views in its first few days - about 14 - so I hit the Boost button now I had some credit in my wallet and it took one token for 1000 views which I then realised was half my credit! That one token cost me about $30 which seemed a lot but atleast I had some idea what a token is worth, not that I could cash them out because it would appear you can only use tokens to boost views. I had one token left so I decided to spend it on my second post in Opensim Virtual rather than The Adult Metaverse which I had also set up. This allowed me to compare the views that each of the two groups were getting and, sure enough, it was disappointing. Remember, views don't translate into anything but extra exposure to the Minds community because Minds is not visible to the public like G+ is without registering. The views jumped to the hundreds very quickly but didn't gain a single Like, comment or a new member. Well, I did get some subscribers and, apparantly, I have to send invites to subscribers to join my group - bit of a bother really. Meanwhile, The Adult Metaverse group was crawling along with views in the low 20's.<br /><br /><br />I did some monitoring of the public wire and I found that quite often the same topics appeared twice, one above the other and some blank even, quite often including my boosted posts so it seemed to me the system is either having teething troubles or it is quite intentional to get the 1000 views used up quickly. Anyway, according to Znet, Minds has amassed one million users since it launched and is growing quickly since it introduced the reward tokens. Bill Ottman, CEO of Minds, told Znet, "We have successfully proven the demand for an open-ad network that allows our users to gain exposure for their content and grow their followings in a better, more rewarding way." According to Znet, Minds Boost has already rewarded users with over 500 million free ad impressions during 2017.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In fairness to Minds, I did gain some small reward in the form of a percentage of one token for opening the groups, posting a blog article and a few topics. The reward was 0.157 so I did gain something and it looks like I attracted 11 subscribers too which I now have to invite to the group if I want them as members. Unfortunately, the notices about new subscribers doesn't mention which group I gained them from but since I spent my tokens on boosting Opensim Virtual I have to assume they came from people reading that. I'm not sure I like the way this works but from a commerical view point I can see how it might appeal to advertisers.<br /><br />In conclusion I think it fair to say MeWe is the best option for the Opensim community at this time. It is free, clean and fast, and very similar to G+ in some ways with extra features too. It has become a popular choice very quickly as word has gone round so it is growing fast and any grid or group that uses Opensim would surely loose out if they went elsewhere. The Opensim community is already actually quite big but there is a need to help the grids recruit and it appears MeWe dose see a lot of traffic. For us we want to develop the same kind of community we had in G+ without the costs to get exposure that Crypto social media require or the cost of running servers to open channels in the Diaspora network. Our community is spread over the Metaverse on many servers around the world but we come together in social media to help each other, recruit and promote all we enjoy doing in our virtual worlds. I think MeWe does offer the best service for now and is probably the best way to go.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />MeWe: <span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><a href="https://mewe.com/join/opensim_virtual1" target="_blank">Opensim Virtual</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">MeWe:<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><a href="https://mewe.com/join/the_adult_metaverse1" target="_blank">The Adult Metavers</a></span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Minds, <a href="https://www.minds.com/groups/profile/899989169831641088" target="_blank">Opensim Virtual</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Minds,<a href="https://www.minds.com/groups/profile/900390197974441984" target="_blank">The Adult Metaverse</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Friendica, <a href="https://social.isurf.ca/profile/talla_go" target="_blank">iSurf</a></span>
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Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-3307072929317323232018-10-08T18:57:00.003-07:002018-10-09T04:42:53.728-07:00Google Plus to Close! Where to now for Opensim Virtual?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It is a sad day to learn that Google plus social media platform will be shutting over the next ten months. This really is a bitter disappointment and a blow to the Opensim community that has come to rely on it to reach a wider public than just the Second Life community. I saw the potential to reach existing and new Opensim users as soon as they launched it back in <a href="http://metaverse-traveller.blogspot.com/2018/10/google-plus-to-close-where-to-now-for.html" target="_blank">December 2012</a>. It wasn't perfect but it had an easy names policy and I just went for it and created the Opensim Virtual community which everyone knows has been a great success. I think it was the first and grew quickly to lead the field with over 2000 members while others opened their own communities for services and in support of grids. Opensim Virtual turned into a popular community for news and promotions as well as help and friendly advice and social exchange.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I personally feel the loss considering how much time and effort I have put in to developing the community over the years. In the early days I pretty much worked alone in posting topics of interest to give the community life and material of interest. But others saw how useful it was to communicate and promote so it didn't take long before others started posting too. It just kept growing because Opensim was getting better anyway and more grids were opening so that today there are many G+ communities on all kinds of subjects from Hypergrid travelling to support groups for the hundreds of grids that make up the Opensim Metaverse. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Opensim Virtual As it was on day 1, December 2012</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Opensim Virtual has always been at the heart of the Hypergrid community along with many other groups so it would be a shame to loose such a powerful platform that brings community together. I don't know yet what I personally will do but there are options and I still have my web site and grid at Farworldz. Perhaps there is a case for using Discord and connect it here on Metaverse Traveller. Each article, rather than having a comments section would display a full Chat window and Opensim Virtual forum to support the community and invite promotions as part of it. There may be other ways that are better. I am going to have to do the research and work on it double quick because time is short.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Opensim Virtual as it is today</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">All I can say right now is Opensim Virtual is still open and doing well so I have time to promote again once a new plan is set. Just watch this web site and Opensim Virtual for the latest news.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Time to sit down, have a virtual drink ( a real one too!) and think.</span></span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></td></tr>
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Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-80981497095684207552018-09-25T17:21:00.000-07:002018-09-27T08:30:28.006-07:00The Metaverse Coming to a Web Page Near you!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Just recently there was mention of a browser based virtual space on the Google plus Opensim Virtual community which piqued my interest because such things have been promised again and again over the past ten years but nothing ever really came of it. However, a topic was posted by Nara Malone of the Opensim </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://naramalone.com/2018/09/04/is-opensim-dying-or-evolving/" target="_blank">Greyville Writer's Colony at Nara's Nook grid</a></span> where she said a member of her community, Neo Cortex has been developing a Unity based client with the goal of merging Opensim and Unity to make a hybrid system designed with a focus on storytelling. I found it really interesting but there was a comment by Magnuz Binder who let us know he too was <a href="https://plus.google.com/+NaraMalone/posts/gorzDv9E6L2" target="_blank">working on a virtual web world</a> using ThreeJS and NodeJS as his preferred coding languages. This prompted me to take a closer look and, believe it or not, from what I learnt I had my own web based world online and working in just three days from scratch. I was pretty excited!</span></b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Talla's Virtual Space on a Web Page named after her grid, Farworldz<br />Use mouse to pan the screen and arrow keys to move avatar</span></span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Admittedly it is a very simple portal world but my final version had basic movement, a blobby avatar that responded to keyboard controls and a simple text window for chatting. Naturally, I wanted to find out if others could access it so I gave the address to friends and to my delight some of them found it and left messages on the chat window and said it loaded quickly and was easy to use. It is still online (see above) so feel free to check it out and leave a short message. I might do more with it as I learn but in its present form it still serves as good example of what can be done using open source code snippets and learning the basics of Node and Three javascript. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Not just satisfied with my own effort I wanted to know more about other recent developments and from Selby Evans I learned that a new platform based on that same code has been developed by Evie Marie (SingingGirl) who works with Bill Bright out of the <a href="http://inspiration-island.com/" target="_blank">Opensim Life</a> grid. The platform is <a href="https://3dwebworlds.com/index.php?lang=en" target="_blank">WebWorlds3D</a> and Selby has his own web world based on this code called <a href="https://virtualoutworlding.blogspot.com/2018/09/2018-ww-hg-bringing-opensim-and-web.html" target="_blank">CyberLounge</a>.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">3DWebWorldz.com</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://inspiration-island.com/" target="_blank">Opensim Life</a> is dedicated to education and art. Bill Blight said he was not interested in selling content or offering freebies. He is content to handle the Opensim server and support Evie in her work. He said, "She is the brains behind the webworld part, it is her baby from the ground up , I just beat up the servers once in a while."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I pressed Bill a little more and he replied, "Well again, the Art and Education aspect is all SG, she is the one with the Masters. I'm a code monkey who swings a big hammer. My grid is focused on people, not commerce, it is a passion project, something to keep me busy. So Art, Education , Entertainment, all things that bring people together is what I/we focus on here."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I liked what they have done but they still have a way to go. I visited the web world as a guest and looked around. I had no problems, the page loaded quickly and I could touch things and interact in a limited way but a whole lot more than I had managed with my version. The avatars are not that great though - a bit stiff and woody but easy enough to control and walk about. I understand </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">there is a company behind all this which is the A2Z Smart Group LLC who are </span> offering to set up a platform for people with embedded code to place it on a web page. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2016/11/exploring-mars-map-panorama-pictures/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="369" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_G82pXaQyZk/W6qAbHH5GvI/AAAAAAAAKWg/P4Ezvy1TeoI9bkqwGp1e5tWJfnC_mk7lQCLcBGAs/s1600/nationalgeographic.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">National Geographic offers an example of NodeJS for Mars, The Red Planet</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Anyway, I also learned that Misterblue (Robert Adams), who is a core developer of Opensim focused on BulletSim which is a port of the Bullet physics engine, has also worked extensively on an infrastructure for a virtual world on the web. His projects include <a href="http://blog.misterblue.com/2018/2018-07-01-Convoar-and-Converting-OARS" target="_blank">Convoar</a>, an Opensim OAR file converter, <a href="http://blog.misterblue.com/2015/2015-05-23-one-viewer-to-rule-them-all" target="_blank">Basil</a> for displaying web worlds and <a href="http://blog.misterblue.com/virtualworlds/herbal3d/" target="_blank">Herbal3D</a>, in which the various web world projects he is working on are pulled together.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I was interested to note from Robert Adams research that one of his aims was to build an architecture around creating a web viewer where a High Fidelity avatar can stand next to an Opensim avatar in the same space. And, from recent comments by Philip Rosedale he too spoke of the same design goals.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">SpotOn3D steaming to a web page</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Looking back though, there has been a number of notable attempts at building a web viewer and one of the first caused some controversy when SpotOn3D applied for a patent on the open source code that streamed an Open Simulator world to a web page. That, however, was never a true web viewer like Cloud Party which came later. Cloud Party was developed by some ex-Second Life developers and though it was relatively successful it was taken down when Yahoo bought it out and the developers went to work for them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There were others too. Chris Collins, CEO of Tipodean Technologies developed a Canvas web-based viewer and, around the same time, others including Rezzable produced a Unity-based web viewer for Opensim and Katalabs demonstrated an HTML-5/webGL web viewer. Much later there was high expectation from German-based PixiTec who demonstrated the Pixie Viewer which functioned very well and even featured building, mesh with mirrors and 3D printing as an option. Even <a href="https://www.kitely.com/" target="_blank">Kitely</a>, at one time, said they were interested in working with other developers to build a web-based viewer but nothing ever came of any of it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I recall also that the US Army under the MOSES group were working on a web viewer for Halcyon (the InWorldz fork of Opensim) so I asked Balpian Hammerer, a developer at <a href="https://discoverygrid.net/" target="_blank">Discovery Grid</a> that had worked on Halcyon while at InWorldz and he gave a less than enthusiastic reply "They were in the design phase, and the idea was the leveraging of WEB objects to render a scene instead of using a viewer app. I am not enthusiastic that this approach will lead to anything better let alone more efficient. There is much to be said to writing performance critical code as close to the OS native graphics layers especially in limited performance devices like tablets and phones. Too many layers burn cycles which drives up the system requirements. Generic code tends to run much worse when in resource constrained environments like, for example, the 5+ year old computers typical of OpenSim users."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">That said recent work by Robert Adams, Evie Marie and others like Neo Cortex and Magnuz Binder and Dahlia Trimble raise the prospect once again that a useful web viewer might be on the way where the Opensim user community can benefit and see their cherished platform's life improved and extended well into the future.<br /><br />Imaging it, teleporting from an Opensim world to High Fidelity or SineSpace and all done on a web page. Now that would be my idea of what defines a true Metaverse and I think it would do justice to Neal Stephenson's definition in his 1992 Sci-fi novel "Snow Crash" where, to quote Wikipedia, humans, as avatars, interact with other avatars and software agents in a three-dimentional space that uses the metaphor of the real world to describe a virtual-reality successor to the Internet. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://heraclosgame.com/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="369" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FR6xY-L3TtA/W6rTMCq4AUI/AAAAAAAAKXo/2V4jpuK1DDo0HvIhKBu8ky8gbOy0TedZQCLcBGAs/s320/heraclosgame.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Web Game: HERACLOS and the quest he never asked for</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.welcometofillory.com/map" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="369" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WsxgF9DkaWs/W6ryKf21G1I/AAAAAAAAKYk/BOCXFugQ7-El4fB-j5csBJ5ds0HZqOxEQCLcBGAs/s1600/Fillory.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Play Fillory, a fully interactive fantasy game on a web page</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">FOOTNOTE: I have to confess I knew Dahlia Trimble had been working on a web viewer too and I should have asked for an update. My mistake because, while I was unaware Dahlia's work in this area was was continuing I never the less should have checked. Fact is Dahlia has a very advanced demo and posted it to Youtube very recently and, to quote, "Stress testing a WebGL/emscripten build of one of my viewers with lots
and lots of prims. This is a live OpenSimulator 512x512 megaregion on my
test..."</span><br />
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<a href="https://youtu.be/1XNdOOVLbJs" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Watch the video on YouTube</span></a><br />
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Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-14080653025251718052018-09-08T11:42:00.000-07:002018-09-09T04:20:49.906-07:00Crossing Virtual Worlds: The Elf Clan from InWorldz to OSgrid<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">When InWorldz grid collapsed it left a lot of residents homeless. In fact, they had just four days notice the grid would close so very little time to pack up and take what they could. Fortunately, they found plenty of welcoming Opensim grids only too pleased to take them in. Few returned to Second Life so it was of great interest to me to find out how some of them were settling in.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I had heard of the Elf Clan fantasy group before and I was aware they had been a strong supporter of InWorldz almost from its very early days. I contacted Wayfinder, an Eldar of the clan, and he told me the founders of Inworldz were friends of his and he could have joined them as a founder himself originally but he chose not to. However, Second Life was proving just too expensive for them and Inworldz would turn out to cost a lot less. He told me "While it was virtually unknown at the time, we saw potential in the grid and decided to move there."<br /><br />I asked if they had considered returning to Second Life after Inworldz closed and the response was an emphatic no and he continued, "We never really considered returning to Second Life. Well, we did: the answer was a unanimous, resounding no. The prohibitive costs and one-sided TOS makes that platform what we consider to be a 'bad investment' for non-profit, themed groups. Understandably Elf Clan has had enough of bad investments."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I wanted to know why they decided to move to an Opensim grid but I though it would be better to find out more of the history of the clan first and Wayfinder enlightened me, "We started out on Second Life in November 2004. At that time SL was still relatively small. I originally intended Elf Clan to be a friendly 'small family' of Elves. We started out with 12 people in the group. Within a couple of weeks we hit 50. Within a couple months we reached 500 (this was at a time when the largest fantasy group had 100 members). We were the first fantasy group to reach 1,000 members. Elf Clan's unexpected growth was unprecedented (it surely surprised me). It was pretty much a snowball that just kept rolling. Before long I was the unintentional founder of the largest themed group on the grid, and I was still pretty much a newb." <br /><br />When Elf Clan joined Inworldz it consisted of 14 regions, 13 of which were company-owned. Special arrangements were made with the founders to obtain "early-adopter" region discounts, for which they would help promote the grid (a common practice in the computer field). "Elf Clan came to Inworldz in May 2010 and brought their friends and those friends brought their friends. Within 30 days Inworldz grew to 200 regions. Within 60 days 500 regions. They hit 1,000 regions by the end of the year. The snowball effect all over again." Wayfinder said.<br /><br />"We hadn't really considered leaving Inworldz prior to its collapse." he went on, "While there were some significant problems, all grids have problems. Inworldz itself was visibly declining, but Elf Clan was in the process of a membership / land push and had grown 33% in just 90 days. We were thriving as group when the sudden news came that Inworldz was going offline-- somewhat crushing news to all of its members (to put it mildly)."</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Elven Forest</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Returning to the matter of why the Clan decided to move to Opensim I asked if they knew much about it and if they were familiar with Hypergrid and he answered, "I thought we did... but we really didn't. In a way the closing of Inworldz has been a blessing for our group in that area. While we were doing reasonably well on Inworldz, things felt somewhat "stagnant" due to the declining population, exiting merchants and lessening active participation. We were not well-acquainted with Hypergrid and considered it a huge security risk. That is what I now consider 'closed wall mentality'". <br /><br />"Once people open themselves up to the concept of creating and giving things to others for the joy of it (or selling, whatever one wishes)... the Hypergrid opens up a vast world of adventure." he told me, "There are still a lot of things that need to be ironed out (I am personally not a big fan of the "suitcase" concept). Both OpenSim and the Hypergrid are growing. It is far from perfect... but then after all these years group chat on Second Life still doesn't work properly. So in all things, one accepts the negatives along with the perks. I am absolutely thrilled with the idea of VARs, OARs and IARs. Moving beyond that limiting 256m postage-stamp land limit is wonderful. (256m is fine for a personal home land, but one does like to stretch out a bit.)"<br /><br />I understood Elf Clan is a group of associates rather than a particular RPG in itself so I asked about the set up and the various associated groups that do organize role play and he explained, "Elf Clan started from the beginning as a themed group rather than role-playing. That was out of desire to provide people a more relaxed environment in which they could "dress up" but not necessarily portray a part. We eliminated the requirement to be "in or out of character"... and just let people be who or what they chose. This created an atmosphere where people felt more like a friendly community and have lots of fun "shape shifting"-- being whatever character they feel like at the moment. Myself for example: I play the part both of High Elven and a tiny dragon... depending on my mood that day. Both parts are very different in personality and I am told I significantly "role play" both parts... but to me it's more like pretend and just having fun. I naturally tend to take on the personality of the avatar I am wearing, so enjoy the concept of "theme" rather than specific role play. Many of our members feel the same-- which is part of what attracted them to Elf Clan."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">...Elf Clan decided on a G-rated, family-friendly mode from the start... which surprisingly attracted a lot of people. To this day people comment on that being one of the reasons they stay with our group: they like that kind of environment. We started out as a Tolkien-style fantasy theme (with a bit thrown in) but over time have expanded that theme to include other areas of fantasy, science fiction and Steampunk. Considering the nature of those genres, that gives people a lot to choose from in setting up their lands and avatars.<br /><br />...We have had affiliate groups join us in the past. Most notably is the WAAUGH!... a group of Orks (note: Orks not Orcs!!!) lead by Big Boss Schlitzie Martini. They latched on to Elf Clan almost the moment we set up our first sim, were (by their own claim) the first inhabitant of Elf Clan lands-- made it their home land and over the years proved to be our greatest allies (Elves and Orks, who would have imagined?). We have to date enjoyed three great wars with the Orks, during which great fun was had by all. Of course the Orks won all three wars. Just ask them.<br /><br />...Other role playing groups have been Chanwood (medieval fantasy based to my understanding), and while not currently part of Elf Clan itself: Star Trek Experience... who have been good friends for quite some time now. Now that Elf Clan is expanding to the Hypergrid there is the possibility of more individual groups becoming official affiliates of Elf Clan. All that is required is to abide by the Elf Clan Charter (present on our website), and hang a banner at the landing point. Beyond that, each land owner is sovereign over their land, as has been the way since the beginning of these virtual worlds. They are free to choose whatever theme, role play or genre they prefer within the published family-friendly guidelines. We even encourage special requests if a new theme is desired.<br /><br />Have you started to establish a network across Hypergrid with other Elf Clan role players, I asked and he replied, "Inworldz has been offline for a bit over five weeks... so we're still just trying to set up the foundation of things. It took us some time to research other grids and learn about OpenSim, the Hypergrid, VARs, OARs, IARs etc... which was fairly new to us in detailed concept. Bit of a learning curve, but not bad. However we have set up an affiliate program presented on our website (<a href="http://elfclan.spruz.com/" target="_blank">http://elfclan.spruz.com</a>) and people are starting to join that program."<br /><br />I understand you had help from Digiworldz and Kitely but what made you decide to set up in OSgrid, I asked and again I got a detailed reply, "The folks at Kitely, DigiWorldz and 3rd Rock all three have been very friendly and welcoming. We could not have asked for warmer welcome, better assistance, or people who answered our questions with spot-on tech... not to mention just basic friendship. We hope to have our members set up affiliate regions on all of these grids."<br /><br />...Regarding OSgrid... the most unexpected thing can press the right button at the right time. Long-time Elf Clan member Koni Lanzius had been only partially-active on Inworldz Elf Clan for quite some time. I knew she had set up home lands on OSgrid and was spending most of her time on that project. I had visited them from time to time, but it was in earlier days, the lands were laggy, very buggy, and I was still Inworldz-closed-grid mentality. I honestly never paid it much attention-- although in reality she was accomplishing some amazing things there. <br /><br />...After Inworldz self-destructed Koni mentioned, "You know, you could set up your own region server on OSgrid and have total control over your lands... and own a VAR as well." That's all it took. The light went on, the bell rang, and for the first time (now that we were looking for an alternative to Inworldz) I decided to check in to it. I asked her to give me a tour of her lands once again (ElvenWorld). When I saw what she had accomplished there I knew that OSgrid would work for our needs: that of setting up Elf Clan's home lands with total control over our historic group assets. We had a meeting of the Eldar and it was unanimously agreed. In addition the Eldar then discussed the needs of the rest of our group. We realized our members all had different requirements, different desires, and that we were no longer locked into one grid. That is when we realized we could set up the Elf Clan group on multiple grids and expand everywhere. For the first time in our history, Elf Clan is no longer "land-locked". Our group is a concept that can exist on any grid and our members travel by means of the Hypergrid. That has been a most liberating experience.<br /><br />I was pleased to learn the Clan had settled in OSgrid which I think suits them given it is a community share and share-alike grid with plenty of Hypergrid traffic. I set out from my own personal mini grid at Farworldz to visit the new Elf Clan regions and took some great pictures as you see. Some are of Elven Forest were particularly good and I learned from Wayfinder that Elven Forest is a part of the ElvenWorld VAR owned by Koni Lanzius. "I am pleased to announce she has registered those lands as the first of our affiliates-- with the Elf Clan Welcome Banner at her landing point." he said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I am personally thrilled that Wayfinder and the Elf Clan have settled in an Opensim grid that is open to Hypergrid and I have to pay tribute to them for their ability to keep going despite the let down's and huge expense they have had to suffered. Perhaps now they are free to control their own destiny in the open Metaverse they will flourish and go on to greater things. I'm sure they will and they certainly deserve it.</span></div>
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Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-42752307598122158322018-08-28T09:44:00.000-07:002018-08-30T04:48:35.560-07:00The Changing Face of the Opensim Metaverse After InWorldz Closed<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>What I like about the Opensim Metaverse is that it's constantly changing while Second Life, being a walled garden with an increasingly restrictive and self-serving TOS, has begun to stagnate as it slowly declines. I would liken Second Life to a declining protectionist superstate while Opensim has become a growing collection of medium and smaller worlds with upwardly mobile populations that travel the Metaverse via Hypergrid, thus forming a greater market for virtual goods, services and entertainment. </b> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This has been made more evident with the sudden collapse of the walled garden InWorldz grid just recently and the displacement of a it's rather large population. What we are seeing from this exodus is that very few people are returning to Second Life or seeking out other walled garden grids like InWorldz. The vast majority are voting with their virtual feet and most are settling in the larger Opensim grids that are open to full Commerce and Hypergrid travel.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In my article at the turn of the month "Ex-InWorldz Staff to Launch New Grid" I broke the news that a <a href="http://infinitigrid.com/" target="_blank">new grid, Infiniti</a> was being set up that will be run the way many of those now on the move wanted the old InWorldz to be run. Infiniti is not InWorldz II but I did report that when InWorldz closed due to financial problems, Beth Rieschel and those close to her did say they aim to set up a new world just like the old one, same management, same user data and as much inventory as they could save. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Well, the new InWorldz grid is now under construction and has the domain name, <a href="http://islandzvw.com/" target="_blank">islandzvw.com</a>. I was told it is registered in Panama but whois states it's a private registration. Beth Rieschel moved to Panama recently but anyway, the new grid will be funded by those who pledged money for the original Go Fund Me appeal that was meant to save InWorldz. The decision to use those funds to start a new grid was taken after it was clear InWorldz could not be saved and, while many withdrew their pledge complaining the money was not meant for a new grid, those close to Rieschel agreed they would support the new venture. Currently, the new grid management headed by Rieschel is beset by IP rights issues as they try to grapple with the filtering process to insure no content legally not entitled to be on the new grid is there.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Meanwhile, Infiniti </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">is offering a limited 'alpha/beta associates' program for content creators. I've kept in touch with the planning team headed by Lecktor Hannibal and he tells me "Our technical members have been hard at work setting up the grid and making sure coding is on level for accepting new guests." Well, it is open and will be accepting new registrations soon. The grid address is infinitigrid.com:8002/ and I visited via Hypergrid and met with Lecktor who is hard at work on the project. There was not much to see yet but a basic arrival platform and some free avatar vendors. I shall keep in touch of course.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Going back to the exodus from InWorldz, the grid that has taken the most settlers to date is <a href="http://digiworldz.com/" target="_blank">DigiWorldz</a> and, once again, I am grateful to Terry Ford (Butch Arnald) for the information he was willing to share with me. By the August 8th 108 regions and almost 400 new users had been added to the grid since InWorldz posted they were closing. Terry said, "Most users from InWorldz seem pleased with our grid's performance with many saying we have far less lag than InWorldz had. They are also 'Amazed' at our support with many saying they have never been helped so fast. Many are very happy with our pricing and the time it takes to have their region ready once they place their order, in most cases we have the region online in under an hour, sometimes as fast as 5-10 minutes. They are also very happy with our community and how friendly and helpful everyone is."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I wanted to know about grid performance but before moving on to that it's worth mentioning that DigiWorldz were the first to offer a money back guarantee and they still do. Also, they use both <a href="http://www.podex.info/" target="_blank">PODEX</a> and <a href="https://gloebit.com/about-gloebit/" target="_blank">Gloebit</a> currency but leave it up to the individual region owners to decide which to use. Terry explained, "Some new users are confused when they have D$ (PODEX) and they visit a Gloebit region where their D$ goes to $0. That takes a bit of explaining, but once they know all they have to do is go back to a PODEX enabled region and their money will return, they are fine. We've had several of our new users ask for Gloebit instead of PODEX, but I would guess a percentage of less than 10% have chosen Gloebit." I also asked about Hypergrid and he told me, "None of our new users have asked to have Hypergrid turned off in their regions, but we will do so if asked."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So back to performance, Terry said, "We hit a 'High' for us last week as we had a total of 150 avatars online. Our system, thus far is handling the traffic and the loads just fine and we are not seeing any issues and are ready for more. We may, at some point need to upgrade our core storage to ensure we will have plenty of room for growth, but this was planned well before the closing of IW." He also told me they always keep extra servers available to use if they are needed and this practice proved itself very well with the sudden influx recently. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #ffe599;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>DigiWorldz Metrics: Standard Regions: 6395, Avatar Accounts: 7204, Traffic: 2390*</b> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Ilan Tochner, </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Co-Founder and CEO of <a href="https://www.kitely.com/" target="_blank">Kitely grid</a>, </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">reported a 300% spike in recorded Kitely Market Sales on August 8th in a <span style="color: #fff2cc;"><a href="https://www.kitely.com/%20virtual-world-news/2018/08/02/%20record-kitely-market-sales-as-%20former-inworldz-residents-go-%20shopping/" target="_blank">blog article</a></span> that showed a sales graph. He said "Users that moved to new grids began restocking their avatar inventories. InWorldz didn't allow its residents to use Kitely Market, so for many of these users this is the first time that they've been able to buy from our marketplace." and he went on in the same article, "We saw Kitely Market sales begin to rise on July 26, a day before InWorldz shut down. The graph below compares sales from the week since InWorldz shut down, to the average weekly sales in the three weeks before that. Kitely’s own grid experienced the biggest growth in absolute numbers, but DigiWorldz and Discovery Grid experienced the most growth relative to their previous sales levels." Kitely Market can deliver automatically to all Hypergrid-enabled grids just as easily as Second Life market place can deliver in-world to it's residents.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Commenting on the same Kitely blog, Snoots Dwagon of <a href="http://elfclan.spruz.com/" target="_blank">Elf Clan</a>, which had been big in InWorldz from it's early days, said, "We lost a BUNDLE on that grid. Wanna speak out-of-pocket: my group spent some $150,000 over 8 years with Inworldz just on land. That doesn't count for inventory and avatar purchases. So yeah, we're "out of pocket" a whole lot." And he continued, "Both Kitely and DigiWorldz have proved themselves bend-over backwards friendly in helping us get back on our feet. Kitely features privacy and web-control tools, DigiWorldz features open lands and interconnectivity. Both grids went out-of-their-way to help us learn how OpenSim and Hypergrid works, how VARs are set up, and help us figure out how to understand this (for us) totally new environment. They didn't do that just because we're "Elf Clan"... they've been doing the same thing for individual members. I'm talking about personal service, standing right there and showing you around and answering questions."</span><br />
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<b><span style="color: #ffe599;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.kitely.com/" target="_blank">Kitely</a> Metrics, </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Regions 15854, </span>Avatar Accounts: 105087 Traffic: 1267* </span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">(not counting the higher number of people visiting the <a href="https://www.kitely.com/market?wt=os" target="_blank">Kitely Market</a> website).</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It has been reported in a poll on <a href="https://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2018/07/poll-where-are-inworldz-folks-going/" target="_blank">Hypergrid Business</a> that very few refugees returned to Second Life which shows the level of commitment and, in deed, confidence the people currently on the move have in the Opensim Metaverse. Even the none-commercial grids like OSgrid and Metropolis which are the biggest community "share and share-alike" grids have taken in a small number. These grids do have a high user traffic and thriving communities with a lot of private land mostly run on home PC's so not up to handling more than a few users at a time. Most function well enough though but others are hosted on external grid services that offer greater bandwidth. That said there are some very popular venues on OSgrid such as the Maritime Club in Virtual Belfast. There is always life at the Lbsa Plaza too where people arrive when visiting for the first time or, using Hypergrid teleport, this is often where the travellers land. And look out for the Summer of Arts on Metropolis grid.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://hypergrid.org/metropolis/wiki/en/index.php?title=Hauptseite" target="_blank">Metropolis</a> <span style="color: #ffe599;">Metrics, Regions Online: 793, Avatar Accounts: 17587, Traffic: 3440*</span></span></span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.osgrid.org/" target="_blank">OSgrid</a> <span style="color: #ffe599;">Metrics: Regions Total 5482, Avatar Accounts: 123774, Traffic: 4524*</span></span></span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It should be noted that the way Opensim takes account of metrics is a mixed bag and it has always been difficult to try and get a total count on all the hundred's of grids in the Metaverse because some refuse to show any statistics and others show them partially and in different ways. It makes it hard to scrape the numbers too and so much of the Opensim Metaverse is hidden or "Dark", as they say. That doesn't mean anything sinister, it just means some grids exist without being known about or they are school grids behind a firewall. The big grid owned by Linden Lab has no problem with it's stats because it is all under one roof, the Second Life grid and, thanks to web services like <a href="http://gridsurvey.com/" target="_blank">Tyche Shepherd's Grid Survey</a>, We get a pretty good idea of the region count. But with Opensim the grids are owned and run by many different people and companies from all over the world. So it helps to understand that traffic in Opensim Metaverse is made up of both unique logins and travelling visitors where the grid is Hypergrid enabled.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Returning to the commercial grids, <a href="https://discoverygrid.net/" target="_blank">Discovery grid</a> was perhaps the first to start welcoming refugees because, as one commenter on Hypergrid Business Survey said, they chose "Discovery. Balpien Hammerer is one of the admin's. That worked for me." And, in deed, Balpien had been in InWorldz for many years and did development work there particularly on physics. His interests include sailing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">They say people go where their friends are and I think that this is well demonstrated with Discovery grid because of all the comments on the <a href="https://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2018/07/poll-where-are-inworldz-folks-going/" target="_blank">HB Survey</a> it appears to be an often given reason to go there. For example, Lamat Lisle said "Discovery, because it is the most promising one in terms of residential use, economy, stability, development and possibilities, imo. A reliable grid, ran by professional and friendly people, a lot of folks I know from old InWorldz and all regions are connected with large waters to sail or fly. Dedicated and skilful work by the developers. Great for physics. Affordable prices for land as well."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://discoverygrid.net/" target="_blank">Discovery Grid</a> <span style="color: #ffe599;">Metrics: Regions Online: 244, Avatar Accounts: 1041, Traffic: 1148*</span></b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I have written to Balpien Hammerer and he agreed to answer some questions for me but, unfortunately, I didn't get the reply in time for this article so that is something for another time. Suffice to say that Balpien left InWorldz long before it's collapse. He probably left when others appeared to start leaving when the InWorldz metrics had been showing signs of decline as reported on Hypergrid Business. Looking back I recall Beth Rieschel caused something of a stir on HB at that time when she stopped publishing the active user stats on the grid's splash page. This lead to some copycat reactions especially from Great Canadian grid who's owner also pulled their active user stats and complained of HB bias. But, whatever, InWorldz decline was probably not that great anyway and, as we have seen, the user base still appears to be substantial given the numbers of people re-settling in other grids.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In a discussion with Mike Chase, an ex-InWorldz resident involved with the Golden Touch Dance Troupe</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">, I mentioned that in Opensim grids land is cheap and plentiful - too plentiful perhaps, I would add, because it leaves so much empty space that may be great to explore until you get bored and then you have to find the places where most people gather, or role play or whatever and that means often one has to travel via Hypergrid to the grids with some of the busy regions. The problem for all grid owners is getting enough traffic to get people together so they discover mutual interests and form friendships. And friendships are like glue because, as I said before, people go where their friends are!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Too much empty land is not just wasteful but it is off-putting in my view. Better to have fewer well-developed themed regions that keep people coming back to than have them get lost in the vast wilderness of the good and the bad in region building and design - it wont impress anyone for long. I recall someone telling me in Second Life they liked InWorldz and it had lots of nicely built Game of Thrones regions to explore but she is a role player and never met anyone to role play with. At least, in Second Life, there is still a well established large role play community. And, like it or not, Linden lab's high land pricing actually serve to keep RP land in regular use. There is empty land in Second Life too, of course, on Mainland particularly but most islands are in use. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span data-dobid="hdw">Courtesy</span>, Linden Lad Sansar</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Linden Lab maintain high land prices which makes it difficult for anyone to own more than a single region. Land Barons capitalize on this and offer regions and smaller parcels. Many Europeans rent because they avoid 20% VAT they would have to pay on top of the tier if they buy land directly from Linden Lab, and that is not to mention the high setup fees they charge. A lot of people just can't afford full sims anyway so it works well for the Land Barons and Linden Lab sits back raking in the money with little effort, given the Barons are always paying whether land is rented out or not. The key here is land scarccity because it is over priced but in Opensim land is cheap and the grid owners are, in effect, the Land Barons. However, it is not hard to run your own instance so this pushes Opensim land value down further and the free Metaverse ends up with a vast number of virtually empty sims as I said above.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Partly for that reason Linden Lab will always be ahead of the game. They had years to build a large user base when SL was new and exciting. Content creators had years to make all manner of content to share or sell and the users had time to grow their personal inventory they are loathed to part with after so many years of collecting and spending their money. Opensim has never had that kind of advantage. Today the free Metaverse has to make the most of Hypergrid, low cost and more freedom. There is no scarcity advantage because land is so cheap.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">However, Second Life is still declining slowly while Opensim goes on expanding in terms of land area, and this despite all the new next generation VR platforms like <a href="https://highfidelity.com/" target="_blank">High Fidelity</a>, <a href="http://www.sine.space/" target="_blank">SineSpace</a> and Linden Lab's <a href="https://www.sansar.com/" target="_blank">Sansar</a> desperate to build a user base, which so far they seem to be failing to do. In deed, it appears they all share many of the same people and those same people turn up in Opensim grids and in Second Life as well. I think it is going to be a long time before a critical mass of people desert SL and Opensim to make a difference.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">High Fidelity Reaches a New Record! Over 250 Avatars in One Domain</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But, regardless, I still think Opensim can be improved and that will help it survive many more years yet. In my view Opensim needs innovation and, hopefully, some of the people coming from InWorldz will help breathe new life into it and get it on a new development curve that will see serious improvements in speed and features so that Opensim too can be a platform for VR as well as desktop. I asked Mike Chase are there some serious problems porting Halcyon code to Opensim and he said, "Most of the changes would come over fairly easily. In spite of some of the public comments made in the past Halcyon is still basically OpenSim. Much of the internal structure is the same. There are a few things I’ll touch on in other questions that are more work. But I think there are some quick wins for assets, inventory, mesh and materials. etc. that might be useful especially for grids trying to scale."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I am leaving the rest of my interview with Mike Chase for another article after I hear from Balpien Hammerer hopefully but my point about creating value added features would give some grids the edge in renting out land and justify higher prices because feature-rich land would be scare in Opensim. Value-added proprietary features will make some grids more inviting too but in-house or paid developers are needed for that and it could prove expensive. Kitely has done this already I might add in the form of its own version of improved var regions and better asset storage as well as numerous code fixes and improvements where some have been contributed back to core and others kept as value-added features unique to Kitely. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Anyone can run a standard instance of Opensim and it is fairly easy to set up but, for the most part, they lack the power and expert maintenance that the bigger grids can provide. I have a basic personal grid and I run it on a VPS with commercial grade bandwidth so it is great for personal use and as a workshop to experiment and script. But I would not expect it to handle sim rentals as well so, in my view, if you want to run a store, entertainment or role play I think it better to go with a leading grid like those mentioned above. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">*</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">(logins for last 30 days + Hypergrid visitors)</span> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">(technically private remote VarRegion estates on the Kitely grid are Worlds and the Region equivalent of </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">15854 in</span> land size is 17651)</span></span></span><br />
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Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-37545538633581658622018-08-24T19:55:00.000-07:002018-08-26T02:19:26.192-07:00VR Crypto Coin Speculation Rife as High Fidelity Starts Cash Out<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Virtual Technology landscape is evolving rapidly. Virtual reality is forecast to reach $30 Billion (US) by 2020 and major brands are lining up to do battle for dominance in the market. VR companies have raised multi-million dollar backing in venture funding but there are growing numbers of start-up's that are selling their own crypto currencies to help fund their development and this is attracting speculators hungry for profit. It is into this bubbling cryptocurrency market that High Fidelity have just announced they will cash out and exchange their crypto coins for U$ dollars.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">According to the latest news from <a href="https://blog.highfidelity.com/cashing-out-earn-and-exchange-high-fidelity-coins-hfc-for-u-s-dollars-bfa3b8cb3ebc" target="_blank">High Fidelity blog</a>. Philip Rosedale wrote, "High Fidelity users can now convert High Fidelity Coin (HFC) into U.S. dollars. This opens the possibility for people to earn real money creating and selling virtual goods and services within High Fidelity. We see this as a vital step in the emergence of a thriving High Fidelity economy: the flywheel of innovation and creativity in any marketplace starts when creators have positive incentives to contribute to the growing body of content for sale. In time, we hope creators will be able to support themselves by selling items in the Marketplace, charging for the experiences they create, and offering useful in-world services to other creators and performers."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The currency is called HFC and is tied to the US dollar at a fixed rate (100 HFC = 1 USD). The High Fidelity company controls the rate to prevent inflation in an attempt to avoid speculators treating it as an investment like happened to Bitcoin. Rosedale thinks there is great value in a digital currency that has low speculation value.<br /><br />Other virtual worlds like <span style="color: orange;"><a href="https://decentraland.org/" target="_blank">Decentraland</a></span> have also issued a crypto coin "Mana" and then used it in a bidding auction selling 10-metre-by-10-metre plots of virtual land. Last August the two Argentinian co-founders, Esteban Ordano and Ari Meilich raised 24 million dollars in an initial coin offering (ICO) and sold out so fast that the vast majority of users waiting for the launch never got any of their orders filled. Apparently, over 28 million dollars change hands in the bidding war, making it what Decentraland calls the largest ever virtual land sale.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /><br />Decentraland uses the Ethereum blockchain to store information about land ownership and its content so they are using similar methods to High Fidelity. They are using Ethereum smart contracts to validate that modifications were made by the owner of the land and content will be distributed using the IPFS network, while data hashes are stored in the blockchain. <br /><br />They base everything on the theory of land scarcity. "Without scarcity, most LAND would be left abandoned, which would hurt content discoverability and the user experience overall." they say on their web site. Incredibly, some 10m by 10m parcels of land actually sold for over $120,000! So the hype must work.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />This does seem fantastic when you consider that land is so cheap in the Opensim Metaverse, one wonders why anyone would buy land for such a high price in Decentraland - land that doesn't even exist yet I might add! That's right, they still have to finish building the virtual platform. The founders have hit on the idea they can fund development by selling crypto coins so they have to push the scarcity factor to the speculators. But there it is, this is all about speculation and the hope that the land will rise in value at some point because there is only a limited amount. They are effectively trading futures. It is not a new idea though if anyone remembers people bidding up the price of virtual land to unheard-of prices when Bay City was launched in Second Life.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #e69138;">Talla visits Aech's Garage from the movie, Ready Player One in Sansar</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Presently, I see very little "scarcity" (to use Decentraland thinking) in High Fidelity or <a href="https://www.sansar.com/" target="_blank">Sansar</a> to speculate on but perhaps there could be in Opensim grids if it wasn't for the fact there is so much empty land spread around. However, if some of the commercial grids started building in value-added proprietary features that are not found in the standard Opensim code which is so easy to set up that could all change, especially if it coinsided with a faster frame rate for VR. <a href="https://www.kitely.com/" target="_blank">Kitely</a> did introduce value-added features and code fixes to Opensim but negated any land scarcity value by giving land away free as an inducement, much like Sansar does. High Fidelity on the other hand is open source and running on private servers so, in theory, someone could set out to add value by coding in advanced features. It could then happen that users would gravitate to those grids with the best features and start buying up land if the grid owners decided to limit the amount of land available and put up prices like Linden Lab did in Second Life and auction it off or do deals with land Barons. It is an interesting thought and I wondered if crypto currency could play a part too so I asked Christopher Colosi, the former Linden Lab employee that worked on the Linden dollar exchange and the developer that issues the <a href="https://gloebit.com/about-gloebit/" target="_blank">Gloebit universal tokens</a> presently, if he saw any way to offer crypto currency in Opensim? He gave me a very detailed answer on how it could be done which I will save for another article but his short answer was "I think it is possible in theory, but very challenging in practice, and it would likely make commerce much more complex for the end user."</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Talla visits High Fidelity too.</span></span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Other VR platforms see the advantage in adding feature value rather than land value as an inducement. For example </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.vutoken.io/" target="_blank">Virtual Universe</a> </span>looks impressive, they are ahead in development and they are selling their own crypto currency. Ukledo, the company behind VU, say it is part game, part social network, and part social creation platform, blending elements of Minecraft, Second Life and Simcity with innovative artificial-intelligence technologies that drive engagement. It combines AI, VR, and blockchain to produce a virtual world that looks and feels real, with non-player characters such as animals reacting and interacting with the player in ways that feel intelligent and natural.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #e69138;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AI driven creatures in VU not too unlike Opensim has had for years!</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Well VU is not exactly a decentralized social VR in the sense Decentraland claims to be but it is feature rich. Sansar is graphically ahead of High Fidelity but land has zero value and Linden Lab is the Master Controller which is blah for anyone that knows the company's history. If any platform was truly decentralized it has to be Opensim because anyone can set up their own grid and there is no central authority they are dependant on, or answerable to, like High Fidelity. And what about those NPC creatures in VU, haven't they existed in Opensim for years? The drawback, of course, is the viewer which depends on third party cooperation to get features added that are needed in Opensim. But when you look at the graphic rendering in Niran's <a href="http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Third_Party_Viewer_Directory/Black_Dragon" target="_blank">Black Dragon</a>, formerly known as Niran's Viewer, it shows Opensim could be seen in a much better light if only Niran were to support Opensim, or another developer ported some of its code. Opensim has plenty of features that make it impressive but a faster frame rate and the kind of improvements that could come with Halcyon ported code, PhysiX and a viewer like Black Dragon could make all the difference for it's longer term survival.<br /> </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;"><span style="color: #d5a6bd;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is an example of Black Dragon and in the HiFi forums Niran says "All in all Second Life could do much much more, what Second Life is
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As far as High Fidelity is concerned, Rosedale says in his blog article, "Enabling people to convert HFC to real tender is important to us. Our vision is for people to work in virtual worlds creating content, offering novel experiences, teaching lessons, staffing events, having meetings, being greeters, or a myriad of other tip-worthy tasks. And now they can." He goes on to add, "At the same time, our 3D import tools will open the door to bringing content which already exists into High Fidelity with the protection of marketplace certification."<br /><br />Rosedale is ever the forward thinker so I have faith he can make it work but it remains to be seen if crypto will give High Fidelity the edge and help to propel the platform onto the world stage as a major player, something he never managed with second Life although it is still very profitable for Linden Lab, the Land Barons and the top content brands that hang in there.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It was late when Talla arrived back at her own Opensim place, the Principality of Steam. She took a mono tram from central station to her office at the Babel Tower. She was tired but the (NPC/AI) tram driver was chatty and kept her entertained during the short journey. It was good to be back.</span></span></td></tr>
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Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-28174905286812267802018-08-23T09:48:00.000-07:002018-08-23T10:10:59.557-07:00Making More of Google Plus Communities and Blogging<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I have been running the Google plus <span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="color: #fff2cc;"><a href="https://plus.google.com/communities/116284417302234467612" target="_blank">Opensim Virtual community</a></span></span> for nearly six years now. It was launched on December 8th 2012 when Google announced the social media platform was about to start. My aim was to build a community to try and bring people together in the Opensim Metaverse and it's been pretty successful at doing that. It has always featured top of the list on <span style="color: #fff2cc;"><a href="https://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2018/01/top-opensim-communities-of-2017/" target="_blank">Hypergrid Business</a></span> and the membership has grown to over 2000. Many have said OV is a great sauce of news and information about what is happening and, true enough, I have encouraged all that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I wanted OV to provide a platform to promote Opensim grids, products and services as well as entertainment venues. Today we get a lot of promotions and I found I had to figure a way to limit some and try to push interesting topics to the top of the page, especially if they were getting a lot of comments. More recently I started removing promotions at advertised entertainment events where the event time and date has passed so it has become much more work to maintain. However, it is still proving popular so I don't see me giving up on it any time soon.<br /><br />I took on another community several years ago too, <span style="color: #fff2cc;"><a href="https://plus.google.com/communities/112812844000583620045" target="_blank">The Adult Metaverse</a></span> but mainly as a way to divert more adult material away from what I deemed was family friendly OV. This community I took over jointly with Nara Malone of the Writers Colony at <span style="color: #fff2cc;"><a href="http://www.narasnook.com/" target="_blank">Nara's Nook Grid</a></span> and together we have kept its focus on adult themes found in Opensim worlds.<br /><br /> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As far as blogging goes I will admit I have a love/hate affair with it. I do like to write interesting stuff about the open Metaverse and, as always, I promote Opensim when ever there is something I can go on about. I had been very quite in blogging for the past year but recently important events happened that affects everyone that use these spaces. First, Maria Korolov, editor of Hypergrid Business announced she was <span style="color: #fff2cc;"><a href="https://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2018/06/hypergrid-business-is-winding-down/" target="_blank">winding her coverage of Opensim down</a></span> and would not be publishing her monthly stats update which had been very popular. Then, just recently, the walled garden grid InWorldz crashed due to financial troubles and there was a great exodus of residents to other Opensim grids. How could I not blog about all of this?<br /><br />So I have been blogging again as well and I have pretty much kept my readers up to date on the recent events. I have published five articles since mid July and the last one was a <span style="color: #fff2cc;"><a href="https://metaverse-traveller.blogspot.com/2018/08/breaking-news-ex-inworldz-staff-to.html" target="_blank">"Breaking News" scoop</a></span> when I got a heads-up about the new Infiniti grid. I don't want to lose the momentum so I will be publishing another article again shortly apart from this one and I intend to keep my ear to the ground looking for important news about the Opensim Metaverse.<br /><br />I think it is time I started covering other platforms related to VR too. I have done so briefly in the past <span style="color: #fff2cc;"><a href="https://metaverse-traveller.blogspot.com/2013/08/extreme-adult-virtual-reality-oculus.html" target="_blank">here</a></span> and <span style="color: #fff2cc;"><a href="https://metaverse-traveller.blogspot.com/2013/10/" target="_blank">there</a></span> but so many are now in development or active like <span style="color: #fff2cc;"><a href="https://highfidelity.com/" target="_blank">High Fidelity</a></span>, <span style="color: #fff2cc;"><a href="http://www.sine.space/" target="_blank">SineSpace</a></span> and Linden Lab's <span style="color: #fff2cc;"><a href="https://www.sansar.com/" target="_blank">Sansar</a></span> that I really should draw on it for new material to blog about to add to my coverage of Opensim. So please stay tuned and watch this space.</span></div>
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Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-80283840536169272312018-08-01T06:30:00.000-07:002018-08-20T11:30:49.512-07:00Breaking News! Ex-InWorldz Staff to Launch New Grid<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In the wake of the InWorldz shut down, the exodus of refugees to Opensim grids and the declared aim of Beth Reischl (Elenia Llewellyn) and those close to her to launch InWorldz II, other ex-InWorldz staff members say they plan to launch a new grid as well and they intend to port the best of Halcyon code to their Open Simulator version. The grid is called <a href="http://www.infinitigrid.com/" target="_blank">Infiniti</a> and the slogan being toyed with is "Infinite Dreams, Infinite Possibilities - Yours at Infiniti Grid" </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lecktor Hannibal, one of the founding members of <a href="https://inworldz.com/" target="_blank">InWorldz</a> from 2009 and departed in 2010, said he is working with a small team of other ex-InWorldz staff and residents to set this up. He told me, "Infiniti will be open to all residents, however the target audience has been initiated based on ideas and information that residents of InWorldz had always wanted but never were able to experience." He told me they did not have aspirations for profit in this endeavour, just to set things right so to speak to our reputations and how we wished InWorldz had been run for the long haul. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Presently, the team are running a private <a href="http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page" target="_blank">Opensim</a> standalone instance where they are meeting and fleshing out their plans. "We have a loose tentative goal to have something online by the weekend. If nothing else than to get started on the infrastructure."<br /><br />Legion Heinrichs (John Arnolde) and Lecktor Hinnibal were part of the original six founders of InWorldz along with Beth Reischl and others who Lecktor says he has lost contact with. He said, "Over the years, Beth's strong type A personality, managed to alienate all of us. As time went on she added David and Jim to her team as technical folks." Neither David (Tranquillity Dexler), former CTO who left in 2016, or Jim Tarber, who says he won't be involved with InWorldz any longer after helping to recover content, are involved in the Infiniti project. <br /><br />Lecktor continued "It is with great sadness and pain that we've watched InWorldz deteriorate over the years and what motivates us to this project. We are all excited however with the prospect of helping the Opensim/InWorldz community heal from the hurt." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There were some things I wanted to know from Lecktor and he was forthcoming in his replies. For one I asked, "How do you and your team feel about Hypergrid?" I know there was never any real interest from Beth Reischl and it seems a lot of people from InWorldz would argue against it on Hypergrid Business comments thread when ever the subject came up. I'm also sure that many residents and merchants probably had a presence in the Opensim grids anyway and are familiar with Hypergrid and the huge network of connections it offers."<br /> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"Well," he replied "I have basically been a denizen of the Hypergrid Opensim Metaverse since leaving the staff of InWorldz sometime in 2010. Hypergrid will be available with our project. Most likely enabled by default with opt out on a case by case. Easier to manage the backend that way."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I suggested <a href="https://gloebit.com/about-gloebit/" target="_blank">Gloebit</a> would be a good currency choice and a lot less hassle as they handle the legal aspects and the currency is universal so plenty of Hypergrid users have it and many grids enable it now as well. I also suggested enabling Infiniti grid to accept <a href="https://www.kitely.com/market" target="_blank">Kitely Market</a> deliveries too as Open Metaverse merchants, residents and grid hoppers expect a full set of services now which all serve to make the Hypergrid such a powerful feature of Opensim.<br /><br />"Another fork in the road we'll be taking is NOT having a grid currency." Lecktor said, "Gloebits is a strong runner, PayPal will be likely available, Podex is up in the air." And he confirmed "The Kitely Market point made is and was in considerations for our business plan."<br /><br />I am staying in touch with Lecktor and I will visit Infiniti grid via Hypergrid from my office at Farworldz grid for further insightful discussion and a first hand look at what they are doing. I am promised exclusive early access so stay tuned!</span></div>
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Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-56107290969586523872018-07-27T10:17:00.001-07:002018-07-27T19:34:14.583-07:00Exodus from InWorldz As Diehard Remainers Promise New World<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">InWorldz II is now being actively worked on and those close to Beth Reischl are fully behind the move now the GoFundMe appeal has been stopped after fierce accusations of bad dealing and bait and switch tactics which some claim amounts to fraud. The community is hopelessly split between those that have faith in Reischl and those that have had enough. There is already an exodus from InWorldz under way where residents and merchants are frantically packaging up all they can before the servers shutdown today, Friday 27th. They are moving onto other grids in sizable numbers so I am being told. Meanwhile, the tech-heads among the Remainers are busy setting up new servers and migrating data across including avatar registrations, groups and filtered inventory for those not objecting to the transfer of content to the new grid. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">No date has been mentioned for InWorldz II to open but it will probably be several weeks given the amount of work to do. When it does open some may well return so for some of the departing refugees it might be a two-way tip - hard to say really. But there is a lot of bad feeling and people feel put out losing stuff and having to move anyway. The longer it takes to rebuild will also play a part in determining how many will return. But there is plenty of places to go anyway and some grids are already welcoming the new comers and doing all they can to help them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In a comment on <a href="https://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2018/07/inworldz-residents-raise-thousands-to-keep-grid-alive/" target="_blank">Hypergrid Business</a>, Rene said "We are receiving a goodly influx of IW immigrants in <a href="https://discoverygrid.net/" target="_blank">DiscoveryGrid</a> - Most of the IW people coming here marvel at Hypergrid and the ability to traverse the greater Metaverse. I'm sure other grids are receiving IW people, so lets help out the people who chose to move onto OpenSim, show them the places to get started, explain large regions, good crossings, and more. Let's get the welcome wagons happening."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This made me wonder if any of the bigger commercial grids like <a href="https://www.kitely.com/" target="_blank">Kitely Virtual</a> and DigiWorldz were seeing a similar influx so I sent an email to Terry (Butch Arnold) of <a href="https://digiworldz.com/" target="_blank">DigiWorldz</a> asking and he replied, "We have received many new InWorldz users over the past few days. We've added approx. 150 new users to our system since 7/24/2018 and we've also added approx. 42 new regions in that same period." I was quite surprised by the numbers but it may well reflect the extent of the bad feeling amongst IW refugees. Anyway, I also asked Ilan Tochner at Kitely grid, which is well known for it's unique cloud-based worlds on demand, to see if they were experiencing a similar influx.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Ilan Tochner replied, "We've seen a significant number of people migrate into Kitely as a result of Inworldz's pending shutdown. Many of them have been ordering new Kitely worlds and buying items from Kitely Market to start building up their new avatar's inventories. We've also seen an increased number of content creators opening new Kitely Market stores."</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Welcome to Kitely Virtual</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Opensim code has come on leaps and bounds in recent years and there is a lot more security offered. Kitely has added code of their own too such as proprietary cloud-based Inventory and Asset systems that work significantly better than the ones that come with OpenSim and backup content to multiple datacenters across the world to prevent data loss. Ilan told me, "Kitely has been open to business since March 2011 and offers 16-region sized private estates (VarRegions) that allow for up to 120,000 prims and 80 avatars for just $39.95/month. We've implemented export controls to protect content creators creations while at the same time enabling people to easily export their worlds to filtered OAR files on-demand." See: <a href="https://www.kitely.com/virtual-world-news/2013/06/12/export-permission-implemented/" target="_blank">https://www.kitely.com/virtual-world-news/2013/06/12/export-permission-implemented/</a> "I think it's important," Tochner said, "for people searching for a new virtual home to consider the stability and performance of the grid they select for storing their avatar and their land. Almost all OpenSim grids worth visiting are now open to the Hypergrid thus making it less important to select the same provider as your friends as you'll be able to use the Hypergrid to visit them no matter what grid they have chosen themselves."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I asked Terry how he felt about the situation with InWorldz and what he could do for the refugees. He said "It's a sad situation when any grid closes, but especially one with the reputation and history Inworldz has. We are pleased many of the Inworldz users have chosen to try DigiWorldz and we welcome them with open arms. We'll work hard to make sure their experience in DigiWorldz is the best it can be and by all means, we'll continue our tradition of doing whatever we can to help protect the rights of not only our residents/creators, but any resident in any grid."</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Kitely Market online & can deliver to any grid!</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Kitely also has a very popular <a href="https://www.kitely.com/market?wt=os" target="_blank">Market Place</a>. Here is what Ilan Tochner said of it, "One thing that is important to keep in mind is that if someone wishes to sell in Kitely Market they'll need to have a Kitely avatar to be able to do so as items are added to Kitely Market product listings via direct access to the uploading avatar's inventory and that only works with Kitely avatars. Kitely avatars are also the only ones that get direct deliveries of their Kitely Market purchases into their inventories. Avatars on other grids need to use our Hypergrid delivery system which is less robust." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">See:<a href="https://kitely.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/doc/pages/6914050/Kitely+Market+Delivery+to+Other+Grids" target="_blank">https://kitely.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/doc/pages/6914050/Kitely+Market+Delivery+to+Other+Grids</a> </span>.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There are other options too depending on one's desire to do business or settle into one of the community grids such as <a href="https://www.osgrid.org/" target="_blank">OSgrid</a> and <a href="https://hypergrid.org/metropolis/wiki/en/index.php?title=Hauptseite" target="_blank">Metropolis</a>. These grids are well known for their share and share alike culture which others say amounts to tolerance of copybotting and even Communism! It is true they don't have grid currency either but not everyone on those grids thinks or behaves like a Marxist and some do run businesses and sell products for <a href="https://www.gloebit.com/about-gloebit/?u=0&r=&rt=/login/" target="_blank">Gloebits</a> which is a universal currency and given that people connect their own instances to the grids they can indeed set up a currency like Gloebit on the server running their simulator. It only takes a viewer with Gloebit enabled to spend money in enabled regions.</span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://farworldz.weebly.com/uploads/9/8/5/5/98558784/gloebitpromo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="300" src="https://farworldz.weebly.com/uploads/9/8/5/5/98558784/gloebitpromo.png" width="600" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Upgrade your viewer for an improved commerce experience.</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://farworldz.weebly.com/uploads/9/8/5/5/98558784/ui-0-7.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://farworldz.weebly.com/uploads/9/8/5/5/98558784/ui-0-7.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Outworldz Dreamworld</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Anyone can set up an Opensim instance at home or on a VPS server. It is less complicated than setting up Halcyon even. In fact, the Outworldz DreamWorld is a free, pre-packaged Windows-compatible virtual reality Opensimulator system that is easy to install, easy to run, and powerful. It is free and open source. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">You can download it from <a href="https://www.outworldz.com/outworldz_installer/" target="_blank">https://www.outworldz.com/outworldz_installer/</a></span><br />
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Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-3613189203794729272018-07-25T10:13:00.000-07:002018-07-26T09:40:58.728-07:00GoFundMe Wont Save InWorldz But New Grid Might Emerge<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qp5l5EsJWjA/W1iUIx-J9eI/AAAAAAAAJ4c/RljC95AWx-QARUJHvkKzJeV6QIfDI_p4ACLcBGAs/s1600/Snapshot2_001.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qp5l5EsJWjA/W1iUIx-J9eI/AAAAAAAAJ4c/RljC95AWx-QARUJHvkKzJeV6QIfDI_p4ACLcBGAs/s320/Snapshot2_001.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Talla @ InWorldz</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/inworldz-in-trouble" target="_blank">GoFundMe</a> to save <a href="https://inworldz.com/" target="_blank">InWorldz</a> has been a spectacular success, reaching near its $17,000 goal in just two days. But we are now told the money wont be available in time to pay off the demand from RackSpace where InWorldz servers are maintained. Merchants and residents are being told to save everything they can and the technical staff are working to provide OAR's and opening sandboxes for those who don't have land to package inventory. The activity has been frantic as the Friday deadline approaches when the servers will be shut down and everything left will be lost. It appears now that this will be the outcome regardless of the success of the GoFundMe appeal and it has lead to calls for a new grid to be set up on the proceeds of the fund. In an update to the GoFundMe appeal, Beth Reischl (Elenia), wrote, "Wow! Everyone has been amazing! So here's where things stand. I asked in discord this afternoon, once we hit our goal, then what? What about next month? After much agonizing and upset, it was suggested by the residents that we use these monies to start a new grid. We'll be able to move OARS, profiles, groups. Inventory can only be taken that can be put in a box to be OAR filed. We'll be opening the sandbox for people who have no region to place their items and can get them back."</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lir8zGkvCw0/W1iUSiGDsiI/AAAAAAAAJ4s/BxmB9E3D1mEd3YWkyFX8ERcwFrLB3YuBgCEwYBhgL/s1600/Kings%2BLanding%2BBeth%2BTyrell_001.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lir8zGkvCw0/W1iUSiGDsiI/AAAAAAAAJ4s/BxmB9E3D1mEd3YWkyFX8ERcwFrLB3YuBgCEwYBhgL/s640/Kings%2BLanding%2BBeth%2BTyrell_001.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Kings Landing - Game of Thrones by Beth Tyrell</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">She went on, "If you are NOT ok with this, I urge you to please withdraw your support on the page. I do not want to take anyone's money who is not ok with this!" Reading Discord and other comments, it is clear now not everyone is happy with the change of plan. There is a sizable group close to Reischl that want a "new" InWorldz but there are also many voices raised against it and some of those are questioning the ethics of changing the GoFundMe aims. Moreover, some residents are openly hostile to the plan. On the GoFundMe comments, someone wrote:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"I am sorry to hear of the troubles InWorldz is having. However, I will not give my permission for the Full Perm items which I have sold on IW to be exported to any other grid. They were sold on InWorldz for the sole purpose of being used on InWorldz and NOT to be exported to another grid. Such an action would be in total infringement of my Intellectual Property Rights and the intellectual property rights of all other Full Perm Creators who uploaded their work to InWorldz in good faith and according to the assurances of InWorldz management that our intellectual property would be protected: "LICENSE TERMS AND OTHER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY TERMS You retain copyright and other intellectual property rights with respect to content you create InWorldz to the extent that you have such rights under applicable law. InWorldz retains ownership of the account and related data, regardless of intellectual property rights you may have in content you create or otherwise own. Even though InWorldz retains this right, your intellectual property will not be used without prior permission and or licensing to InWorldz."</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fm-GjM-W01s/W1iUB7qBv3I/AAAAAAAAJ4g/QD_3M1fyv6AlXbbveUvwAjNmD3QFzRzZQCEwYBhgL/s1600/Steampunk%2BIsle_001.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fm-GjM-W01s/W1iUB7qBv3I/AAAAAAAAJ4g/QD_3M1fyv6AlXbbveUvwAjNmD3QFzRzZQCEwYBhgL/s640/Steampunk%2BIsle_001.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Steampunk Isle Calia Estates</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Another said, "Ok STOP! the fund raising was to save IW not to make a new grid!" And yet another was outright hostile, "It was not 'suggested by the residents' that you start a new grid, it was decided by a small clique of people who rudely refuse to listen to the views of others. Most residents don't even know about this yet. I think you have taken money under false pretences. The initial 'cause' has been replaced by totally different one. You should refund all donations and start again clearly stating exactly what you are raising the money for. As it stands this could be viewed as fraud."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I have kept the names back of those commenting but they can be read on the GoFundMe page so there are arguments for and against and there is no clear idea if a new grid is possible. For one thing it would need to be a Halcyon server because all the OARS are Halcyon code and none are going to work in other grids so it appears. Anyone hoping that a new InWorldz will run on Opensim I am sure will be very disappointed and I have yet to find out if any that have left and gone to other grids have been able to move their content. Likely they will be able to if they have the original inventory before it was ever uploaded to InWorldz but for many, those that have been in InWorldz for years and created there, I suspect they have no choice but to go with whatever is setup to replace the InWorldz grid.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KZ6Iu0qMflw/W1it7cIZSgI/AAAAAAAAJ5Q/vgqkPtwQr84MttJ3odhxcNI0YBBOtC3rACLcBGAs/s1600/Castle%2Bat%2BInland%2Bwaterway%2BIW%2Bscenic_001.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KZ6Iu0qMflw/W1it7cIZSgI/AAAAAAAAJ5Q/vgqkPtwQr84MttJ3odhxcNI0YBBOtC3rACLcBGAs/s640/Castle%2Bat%2BInland%2Bwaterway%2BIW%2Bscenic_001.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Castle at Inland waterway IW scenic by Yadni Monde</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Presently, everything is in the air and in the days and weeks to come a new InWorldz will emerge from the ashes of the old one - probably. I think one thing is for sure though, if Beth Reischl manages to pull it off and keep as many on board with the new plan then I doubt the grid will run as a business in the same sense that it was. What I mean is that it is quite likely those that held faith and voted with their money will want more say in the running of the grid and that may well be a challenge for Beth Reischl who has held a firm hand on the helm at InWorldz since she and others founded it ten years ago. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Update: InWorldz cofounder and former CTO David Daeschler has posted a statement on <a href="https://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2018/07/inworldz-co-founder-has-doubts-about-grids-future/" target="_blank">Hypergrid Business</a> expressing doubts about a new grid and making it clear he has not been involved with InWorld management since 2016 so has no knowledge of the current affair. He said "InWorldz will always hold a special place in my heart."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There has also been heated comments on G+ <a href="https://plus.google.com/communities/116284417302234467612" target="_blank">Opensim Virtual</a> community about all this. </span><br />
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Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-21509446980531279602018-07-24T09:22:00.002-07:002018-07-24T10:34:39.836-07:00InWorldz Grid Fighting to Survive!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">InWorldz announced the grid was to close just a day ago but after an outpouring of Resident grief and worries over lost money and content, Beth Reischl, leading founder of the grid 10 years ago, set up a <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/inworldz-in-trouble" target="_blank">GoFundMe</a> and is appealing for help to save the virtual world so many have come to love and call home.</span><br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-miWdNVEVwM0/W1dN6Y5q9SI/AAAAAAAAJ4I/WBF2SgcunrIfezkRkWDlgvrY6nG9evWmQCLcBGAs/s1600/InWorldz-logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="301" data-original-width="301" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-miWdNVEVwM0/W1dN6Y5q9SI/AAAAAAAAJ4I/WBF2SgcunrIfezkRkWDlgvrY6nG9evWmQCLcBGAs/s1600/InWorldz-logo.png" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Reischl has blamed travel-related communication problems, bureaucratic mistakes and other issues resulted in the shutdown of the grid’s PayPal accounts and the calling in of the company’s business loans. <a href="https://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2018/07/inworldz-to-shut-down-end-of-week/" target="_blank">Hypergrid Business</a> reported this and, quoting InWorldz blog, Reischl also explained "In middle May, we took a loan from LoanBuilders, a subsidiary of PayPal." All was going well then everything took a down turn. She went on "The first payment was scheduled at the end of May. I received notice from them that it was NSF (Non-Sufficient Funds). I checked our bank account, the monies had not even attempted to be taken and the monies were definitely there."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"Without payment, RackSpace will be shutting our servers down," she went on to say in her initial announcement. "I’ve extended our servers out until Friday, July 27. I can not process cashouts, no payments may be sent out. For that, I’m truly sorry." However, she said she will begin issuing refunds, as much as she can before PayPal shuts access to the accounts, and she recommends customers use the PayPal dispute system on monies they paid to InWorldz which PayPal will have to honour and make refunds from their account although the dispute process may take a short while.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Later in the day Reischl came back with an addendum to her initial announcement, saying "Many of you are not happy over this, and want to do whatever you can to save the grid. I'm down for that! So what I did was set up a GoFundMe that will update your tiers and if we raise the amount needed, the grid will be ok and we'll set up new payment methods. They will not include PayPal. If you want to keep your home, please visit us at: <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/inworldz-in-trouble" target="_blank">https://www.gofundme.com/inworldz-in-trouble</a> And let's make this happen! I can't stand the idea of going down without a fight, but now it's on our users! YOU!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">InWorldz does, indeed, have a loyal user base but there have been many voices raised against the managment over the years including my own at one time when the InWorldz founders, having migrated from another early start-up based on Opensim code, kept attacking Opensim developers and Hypergrid at a time when InWorldz was itself an early fork of Opensim and little different than the growing number of other grids around. However, although InWorldz has it’s roots in Opensim, it has diverged considerably over the years and now runs on the in-house developed Halcyon platform.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hRGv8u9J7RQ/WP453HCO-cI/AAAAAAAAJtY/rVGM89wsWfkkmEO8RDhSj4KBf4ZT2-X_gCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/Inworldz.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="763" data-original-width="1244" height="392" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hRGv8u9J7RQ/WP453HCO-cI/AAAAAAAAJtY/rVGM89wsWfkkmEO8RDhSj4KBf4ZT2-X_gCPcBGAYYCw/s640/Inworldz.png" width="640" /></a></span></div>
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Early on in 2017 Hypergrid Business posted an article "<a href="https://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2017/04/inworldz-stops-publishing-falling-stats/" target="_blank">InWorldz stops publishing falling stats</a>" which brought a torrent of heated comments from both Opensim users and InWorldz supporters on the reasons why Reischl suddenly decided to stop giving their monthly traffic stats. The gist of the argument was that InWorldz was losing merchants and users which brought a backlash from the Iz community on HB for the article. A year later HB published a new article, this time headed "<a href="https://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2018/01/inworldz-merchants-concerned-about-future/" target="_blank">InWorldz merchants concerned about future</a>" and reported that the public forum for InWorldz had been closed some time to try to block complaints.<br />
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Not withstanding all the past drama and obvious drop in traffic many merchants remained on the grid and it appears they are willing to help save it because after just a day the fund stands at $11,818 of $17,000 goal. InWorldz is loved by and for its community as much as anything else and it looks like help is on the way. </span></span><br />
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Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-7380360464963096852018-07-16T20:21:00.001-07:002018-07-17T07:42:54.774-07:00Kim Kardashian is Big on Second Life too!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So Kim Kardashian has switched from <a href="https://secure.imvu.com/welcome/ftux/" target="_blank">IMVU</a> to <a href="https://secondlife.com/?campaignid=290832150&adgroupid=29556767910&loc_physical_ms=1007111&placement=&keyword=play%20%2Bsecond%20%2Blife&matchtype=b&creative=100838268270&utmsource=Google&creativeid=T002085&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5Pu_-ZCl3AIVaLvtCh3MBgu-EAAYASAAEgIiu_D_BwE" target="_blank">Second Life</a> and posted this screenshot to her Instagram account to promote her new perfume!</span><br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1RgBDyucLUo/W01NlqfcNWI/AAAAAAAAJ3Y/E60N2sRcbMAz8jxsd_Gp0DyTWuQyB8HiwCLcBGAs/s1600/kim-kardashian.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="564" data-original-width="660" height="545" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1RgBDyucLUo/W01NlqfcNWI/AAAAAAAAJ3Y/E60N2sRcbMAz8jxsd_Gp0DyTWuQyB8HiwCLcBGAs/s640/kim-kardashian.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The photo already has <a class="zV_Nj" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BlOc0P-lLt4/" target="_blank">1,179,119 likes</a> so that must be good news for Second Life if any of those clicking actually know SL is a virtual world. But it has certainly brought a smile to the faces of those reporting on it - mine too!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In fact I was so bemused by the use of a voluptuous SL look-alike avatar I had to look on <a href="https://marketplace.secondlife.com/products/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search%5Bcategory_id%5D=&search%5Bmaturity_level%5D=G&search%5Bkeywords%5D=Kardashian" target="_blank">Market Place</a> to see what was actually on offer and it is huge!</span><br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0vWAAxnrFOE/W01TPecRhiI/AAAAAAAAJ3k/qci2q29Y74IOLMIOvCouGNkUnyyd53vdwCLcBGAs/s1600/KK-MP-SL.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="489" data-original-width="727" height="427" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0vWAAxnrFOE/W01TPecRhiI/AAAAAAAAJ3k/qci2q29Y74IOLMIOvCouGNkUnyyd53vdwCLcBGAs/s640/KK-MP-SL.bmp" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So there you go if you are looking for an avatar that is all bum and boob you know where to look. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i89eEGWEfL0/W01W6vQkYyI/AAAAAAAAJ30/p7ddfI_Mnp45fyiv_IzBEtRxkU7Fx1xcwCEwYBhgL/s1600/KIMOJI.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="629" data-original-width="516" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i89eEGWEfL0/W01W6vQkYyI/AAAAAAAAJ30/p7ddfI_Mnp45fyiv_IzBEtRxkU7Fx1xcwCEwYBhgL/s320/KIMOJI.png" width="262" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">By
the way, we are told this is not the first time she’s has done it either.
Wagner James Au over on <a href="http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2018/07/kim-kardashian-second-life-avatars.html" target="_blank">New World Notes</a> tells us she did the same thing
in the past used the Kimoji avatars that appear to be from IMVU.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Anyway, one can only wish her the best of luck with her product and may Second Life and and all those wobbly avatars strut their stuff to heart's content.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Wagner adds "</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://secure.imvu.com/welcome/ftux/" target="_blank">IMVU</a>, the social network with 3D animated avatars, said that it has provided the technology behind a new version of the popular <a href="https://www.kimkardashianwest.com/" target="_blank">Kimoji paid app</a> created
by Kim Kardashian West... “Kanye and I found this amazing social
experience company, IMVU, and worked with them on creating some of our
latest Kimoji designs and GIFs. They’re such innovators who have helped
me really set Kimoji apart,”Kardashian wrote on her site." </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/kkwfragrance/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="634" data-original-width="959" height="262" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Q5RYJO9czFA/W01dyw58CjI/AAAAAAAAJ38/SrWSniP55gIMS54UFEZDYkLqCcXOA7QDgCLcBGAs/s400/Kims%2Binstagram%2Bfeed.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/kkwfragrance/" target="_blank"><i>Kardashian's official </i></a><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" target="_blank">@kkwfragance perfume brand</a> on Instagram has even more SL pics</i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Heck, I haven't blogged in ages and I return with this! Well it was fun to write about.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But really, it is about time I got into blogging again. I mean there are all these new VR worlds to write about and Second Life and Opensim are far from dead. They're actually doing quite well despite the arrival of <a href="https://www.lindenlab.com/#" target="_blank">Sansar</a>, <a href="https://highfidelity.com/" target="_blank">High Fidelity</a> and a lot more next gen platforms.</span><br />
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Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-12057473631240421902017-04-24T11:13:00.000-07:002017-04-25T02:44:59.670-07:00Opensim Metrics Paranoia Kills Popular Grid List<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">A biter war of words broke out just recently over the publication of Grid Lists & Stats with some well-known people fanning the flames with some pretty incendiary and divisive blogging calling on grid owners to remove stats info from splash screens. This row began recently on <a href="http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2017/04/inworldz-stops-publishing-falling-stats/" target="_blank">Hypergrid Business</a> where, in comments, <a href="https://inworldz.com/" target="_blank">Inworldz</a> owners demanded they be removed from the HB grid list and stopped displaying their full stats to prevent HB from scraping the numbers. <a href="http://www.greatcanadiangrid.ca/" target="_blank">Great Canadian Grid</a> then joined the argument and a furious row broke out between Magnuz Binder and Roddie Macchi, owner of GCG, which lead to the closure of the <a href="http://binders.world/gridstats/" target="_blank">Binder stats list</a> and to Macchi threatening to bring a lawsuit against Binder. GCG, Inworldz and <a href="http://atekgrid.com/" target="_blank">Atek grid</a> appear to be arguing that stats lists are being used against them unfairly. However, others say the grids complaining have seen some decline and rather than addressing the root causes of that decline they would rather have the numbers hidden.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Great Canadian Grid Arrivals</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">It is well known that Inworldz owners have had a stormy relationship with HB at times and complained of bias in their reporting and yet that grid which grew out of forked Opensim code has grown pretty well over the years to be the grid with the most active users, and it is that statistic which has been falling in recent months, and the stat they now want to hide. HB noted this as part of the grid watch reporting but Inworldz owners just saw it as yet more bias. Inworldz is not Hypergrid enabled and they have often complained that HB takes a "them and us" approach while others, myself included, have generally taken the view that Inworldz appears to see Hypergrid as their main competitor as if it were a single grid they were up against. Well, in a sense that is true but only because Hypergrid connects grids allowing travel between them and that is building a bigger market for goods and services. For a large competitive commercial grid like Inworldz you can see how they might see that as serious competition.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">However, regardless of how Inworldz might see things I myself though G+ Opensim Virtual and I think Maria Korolov of HB too have been trying to bring the community together including the closed grids but that is not because we favor or disfavor closed grids in any way. My view and that of Maria I'm sure is that it is better to be conciliatory towards closed grids while spelling out the advantages of Hypergrid and trying to persuade them to open up. Some grids have done so and I think that proves it is better to take that approach than waging an ugly war of words that, in my view, is more likely to drive people away from the open Metaverse altogether. And to be fair to Inworldz I do think they seem to get the headline when Maria reports on Opensim Statistics and that does tend to labour the point that Inworldz is outside the mainstream Hypergrid community which must be annoying and even frustrating to both the owners and the resident community that would naturally defend the grid they call home. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Inworldz is not actually against Hypergrid though but, like Avination before it closed which has a core developer, Melanie Thielker, both grids wanted to see a more secure Hypergrid if they were to adopt it. Inworldz lead developer, David Daeschler said recently in comments on HB "I personally review and approve many of the pull requests I can tell you that there's no reason we would block an interconnectivity protocol from Halcyon, unless it really messed up the core code. I would definitely prefer to see something like Hypergrid implemented as a separate gateway process that worked gracefully with the simulator rather than something that had to be tightly integrated with the core code. A contribution as such would be welcomed with open arms and actively supported. This has been discussed at length with core Halcyon contributors." Jim Taber, another Inworldz developer also commenting at HB said, "I think InWorldz would welcome connectivity with other grids, provided it meets either (or both) of the following: protected content must travel securely, or what seems more likely to me personally, it allows exportable full-rights content to enter other permissions-free worlds. Of course it could do both. But one thing is clear, that does not describe Hypergrid, so there would need to be a new, improved, peer-reviewed protocol between grids. I think the MOSES team may have put a start to that, but it would be a big project and could be years away from production use." So this doesn't sound like they want to shun the rest of the free Metaverse as a closed world and HB has probably given that impression.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />So, in the wake of this controversy, we have lost a very useful stats list that Magnuz Binder took great pains to keep updated. He did this as a service to the Metaverse and asked nothing to use it. HB provides a grid list too and free adds that help our community. I keep a grid list as well on the METAVERSE link of my blog Metaverse-Traveller which is designed to be searchable and serve the community. That's what we do for free but too often, and especially at times like this, it becomes a thankless task that only brings us unnecessary abuse, legal threats and stressful drama.<br /><br />The thing is grids display their stats for public information so it is helpful to gather those statistics and publish them in a list so people can get an idea of the size of the Metaverse and where the action is likely to be found. Bloggers and writers may well report conclusions after looking at the stats and if the most active grid shows some decline then it is fair to report it. I agree they do have a responsibility to not over egg the point though which Inworldz claims HB has done. But, at the end of the day, if the numbers show decline for a grid then I would say the owners need to address the reasons for that decline and not try to shoot the messenger to avoid the facts being known.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Grid Search</b></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Now the Binder list has been closed I decided to review my own Grid Search list and it looks like Inworldz will drop in ranking if I can't find their stats. They have, until now, enjoyed the highest rank since I started publishing some three years ago simply because they have consistently had the most active users in that time and, as of last month, they still had enough to keep their high placement when people search the commercial category. Unfortunately, now Inworldz active user stats are hidden, they are not going to appear at the top and that will also make the Metaverse look smaller when, in fact, an important member has just made itself invisible. Or, some might say, cut its nose off to spite its face.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Grid Search open web page in viewer</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">But I have a plan! Maybe I should do some informed guess work? Well, let's face it, some people are quick to say all grids fake their numbers and that may well be true in a few cases. I'm pretty sure Second Life stats are suspect anyway because we know there are plenty of bot's and alt's - that is, robot avatars and alternative names owned by the same person - that are all included as unique active users. Well, Opensim grids might have their alt's and bot's too but, better than Second Life, Opensim does have proper scripted NPC bot's and they are not included in Opensim stats anyway so you can rule those out. What I mean though is I am going to have to login to those grids that don't display their stats and seek to get view on the in world activity and try to build an estimate based on new user count and the in-world actives I find. It is possible although extra work for me but no Opensim grid is so big that it would be impossible to do. it's just a matter of if I want to bother helping a grid to keep their high ranking for the sake of keeping a full view of the Metaverse.<br /><br />The thing is the open Metaverse is growing. People are investing in it. Kitely Market are delivering to very many grids and now there is a universal currency, Gloebit, available which is spreading with new malls opening that will increase in-world shopping via Hypergrid. There are a number of Opensim forks and Inworldz has open sourced their code under the name, Halcyon which the US Army MOSES team have adopted and continue to work on a web viewer for it. Inworldz might differ from core Opensim in physics and script engine now but it is based on the same protocols so will always be an Opensim derivative and therefore part of the open Metaverse so I think they will be included in grid search and I will still welcome promotions from both closed and open grids including Inworldz at G+ Opensim Virtual.</span>
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Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-54699942109729366942017-01-31T08:46:00.000-08:002017-01-31T09:34:32.631-08:00Zangrid Opens Up Shopping To Hypergrid...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I was interested to learn <a href="http://www.zangrid.ch/" target="_blank">Zangrid</a> has opened a shopping mall region that is Hypergrid enabled. You can reach it using this address: <span style="color: #ffe599;">hg.zangrid.ch:8002:HyperShopping</span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #fff2cc;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Arriving at the HyperShopping Mall at Zangrid</span></span></span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">According to Rique Giano, speaking on Google plus, Zangrid now has Gloebits currency installed which their host <a href="http://zetamex.com/" target="_blank">Zetamex Virtual Service Network</a> is supporting. Gloebits were first mentioned by Maria Korolov in a series of articles <a href="http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2016/02/how-to-use-gloebits/" target="_blank">here</a> & <a href="http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2016/02/hosting-firms-grids-split-on-gloebits/" target="_blank">here</a> in Hypergrid Business last year although one article did say hosting firms were split on adopting the token currency at that time. However, it now appears the <a href="https://gloebit.com/about-gloebit/" target="_blank">Gloebits</a> team headed by Seth Alves who spent seven years developing and administering cutting edge systems for <a href="https://www.lindenlab.com/" target="_blank">Linden Lab's</a> <a href="http://secondlife.com/" target="_blank">Second Life</a> Virtual World is testing a new module on Zangrid which permits direct purchases, allows cash out for merchants and offers full online accounting for users. I understand Zangrid merchants are giving full permissions on content bought at the mall so visitors from the Hypergrid who buy virtual goods for personal use can take their purchases away with them when they leave.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I visited the shopping mall at Zangrid and took some pictures but I didn't sign up for Gloebits yet. It's hard to say at the moment if it offers a better or comparable service to Podex Exchange and Kitely but it is to be welcomed of course and I hope more grids consider adopting it to help stimulate trade across the Hypergrid. I like shopping at the Kitely online market and having the goods sent to my grid at <a href="http://www.farworldz.com/welcome.html" target="_blank">Farworldz</a> but I also love to browse in shops at Hypergrid destinations when I travel so I'm sure the experience of in-world shopping will be given a powerful boost with Gloebits and it would be nice to have a universal currency rather than having to buy local currency.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I did wonder if a serious currency trader might bring out a universal coin and it seemed to me that Podex who is well established might be the one to do it. I even dedicated a plot on my Welcome region at <a href="http://www.farworldz.com/welcome.html" target="_blank">Farworldz</a> ready to invite Podex to serve my currency requirements which would have left me free from legal worries and all. So, I am interested in Gloebits but more than likely I will still take Podex who have a good reputation anyway. They've been a virtual coin trader in Second Life since 2007 and serving Opensim grids in recent years. They offer both their own currency and they trade in local currencies so exchanging one local coin for another struck me as quite handy. The only drawback now is they can't exchange Linden dollars any more since Linden Lab imposed a ban on thrid party exchanges effectively cutting off a big part of their business. Podex also deal in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin" target="_blank">Bitcoins</a> which gambling venues like YrGrid offer. However, Gloebits is offered as a universal, or global (as in the name) currency, they hope will be adopted across many grids. Opensim has been growing steadily and the growth is largely Hypergrid traffic so a universal currency might well become big business. Of course, if it becomes big, then I'm sure it may encourage some of the banking and share dealing that Linden Lab allowed in the early years before taking a tougher approach to be sure of satisfying financial regulatory laws in the real world.</span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">None the less, having a universal and easy to use currency has got to be the way to go if the Hypergrid is to continue to grow. There really isn't anything quite like Hypergrid out there yet although <a href="https://highfidelity.io/" target="_blank">High Fidelity</a> is a possible contender for the crown and what with Kitely market possibly selling to HF worlds in the near future then a universal currency like Gloebits can prove itself in Opensim and expand beyond as time goes by. </span></div>
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Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-48557866783515356002016-08-17T06:56:00.000-07:002016-08-17T07:00:43.720-07:00US Army, MOSES Team Report Progress with Halcyon Branch of Opensim<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In an article by Douglas Maxwell, the Science & Technology manager
of MOSES, the US Army team working on a forked branch of Opensim, he
reports on the team's progress in this important development. The team
are working with Halcyon, the InWorldz engine that can handle PhysiX and
advanced script improvements. Maxwell has answered some of the
questions raised in Opensim Virtual recently and confirmed their
aim to produce an HTML5 web viewer. This article, published in <a href="http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2016/08/us-military-turns-to-halcyon-branch-of-opensim/" target="_blank">Hypergrid Business</a>, is a must-read for anyone
seriously interested in the future of Open Simulator...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> This is a very welcomed update on MOSES, team's
progress with their branch of Open Simulator. We had been discussing
this briefly at G+ Opensim Virtual recently asking if anyone had heard
news on the project. Some of the user community have been talking about
how we might help and have our views considered. New Media Arts (NMA)
are also interested in stimulating the development of OpenSimulator
software and in an article at <a href="http://virtualoutworlding.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/2016-people-hg-new-media-arts-plans-to.html" target="_blank">Virtual Outworlding blog</a></span> <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">there is more discussion. This article has also been linked to <a href="https://plus.google.com/106115943375300299121/posts/Tu46igyttGM" target="_blank">G+ Opensim Virtual</a> </span></div>
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Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-79167294504805700902015-12-08T10:55:00.000-08:002015-12-10T04:17:46.254-08:00Opensim Virtual at Google + Two Years Old Today!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Back before Google Plus
took off two years ago it was hard to say Opensim grids collectively had
much community. It was easy to point to the Second Life community given
it was all under one roof with a central focus but Opensim didn't have
that. There were numerous individual grids, some closed, insular and
fiercely competitive, while others were Hypergrid enabled but still not
reaching out as much as they could have. A decent social network was
needed and Facebook with it's real names policy and data mining was not
filling the void. That was when I thought G+ could make a difference and
the fact Google have no problem with avatar names it really has become
all that I hoped it would.</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xa1ELYnAiQM/UR-JDqnaaLI/AAAAAAAABrM/JGlRs026GnE/s1600/STARGATESG1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="427" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xa1ELYnAiQM/UR-JDqnaaLI/AAAAAAAABrM/JGlRs026GnE/s640/STARGATESG1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />It was slow to start and I had to find
topics to post every day to keep up interest so, naturally, my focus
was on the many open grids, lots of pictures and a little praise for all
their efforts. Gradually the members began to join, post new topics of
their own and comment on things of interest. I decided right off from
the start to welcome all grids whether closed or Hypergrid enabled. I
was happy to have them post topics about what they did on their grids
and what they were offering in terms of entertainment, free content and
services. Event notices where especially welcomed. I believed that by
allowing promotions both commercial and none-commercial we would start
to see the extent of the Opensim community as it came together around
G+.<br /><br />Happily, it did start to take off and the membership was
growing. I saw grids promoting their activities and members asking for
help. New G+ communities started to appear as well which supported
individual grids while others focused on Hypergrid tours and education.
More opened to promote role play and services like content creation and
where to find it. I don't think anyone would doubt the impact Google
Plus has had on the Opensim community and the centralizing focus it has
given us. I believe it has helped more than anything else to bring
Opensim users together to show the world we really do have a sizable and
growing community across many grids, both open, closed and even the
hidden ones.<br /><br />In the past I used to speak of the hidden Metaverse
but today, two years after I started Opensim Virtual, I think we have
become more visible as a collective community than ever before and that
in itself has been attracting new people. There are more and more grids
opening and the associated G+ communities just keeps adding to the
promotion. That can't be bad!<br /><br /><br />The future is looking good for the Opensim Metaverse.</span></div>
Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-66546661611450246422015-02-28T09:40:00.000-08:002015-02-28T09:42:46.788-08:00Crowdfund Settlement News & Next Public Meeting Info<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Dahlia Trimble has
fixed the llLookAt() function for OpenSim and it works beautifully according to Fred Beckhusen who has tested it extensively. It is very low-lag with a
modified sensorless script Dahlia gave him to test with and he put a high-def
video version of how well it works on Vimeo seen here...</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" src="//player.vimeo.com/video/120518275" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe> </div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="https://vimeo.com/120518275">llLookAt is Fixed!</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/user3917242">Ferd Frederix</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a></span>.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Now we have this success the Pledge Makers readily agreed at a private meeting on Friday 27th to pay a bounty of $1200 to Dahlia Trimble and the breakdown of payments due by the Pledge Makers is as follows...<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #e69138;">Talla Adam</span> (Kitely Grid) $120</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #e69138;">Shin Ingen</span> (Ingen Lab Grid) $120</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #e69138;">Fred Beckhusen</span> (Outworldz Grid) $300</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #e69138;">Selby Evans</span> (Virtualoutworlding blog) $300</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #e69138;">Gavin Hird</span> (Geir Nøklebye @ Xmir Grid) $30</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #e69138;">Terry Ford</span> ( Butch Arnold @ 3rd Rock Grid) $60</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #e69138;">Michael Sietz</span> (Digital Worlds Group LLC) $210</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #e69138;">Alex Ferraris</span> (Avi-Labs/Aviworlds) $60<br /><br />Progress info for this fund is <a href="http://metaverse-traveller.blogspot.co.uk/p/c.html" target="_blank">here</a>.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The target sum for the fund was $2000 and that was reached but the way we work is to ask the developer what they would like for payment if they complete the work and Dahlia asked for $1200. That left a surplus $800 which it was agreed the pledge makers would hold their own share for a time and it might be called on for follow-up maintenance of the code. Dahlia agreed to make minor tweaks and adjustments free of charge but anything major will, it is hoped, be covered by the surplus fund. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">We now hold public meetings at various grids on the last Sunday of the month where we hear proposals and debate them. A proposal can be made by anyone at the public meeting for some new code feature or to fix a bug in some important feature the community really world like to see working properly. Once the proposal has been considered we ask if anyone will guarantee at least half the target sum considered sufficient to interest an Opensim developer. We then call for pledges and publish a Crowdfunding request to Opensim Virtual with details of the item proposed. It is possible we may get more than one proposal at the meeting but since this has to be handled in Administration going forward I may only take the first proposal that gets a guarantor and postpone other proposals to the next meeting. It is basically a simple system that actually works and has produced quick results in the first project.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The next public meeting to hear & debate new proposals will be held Sunday 1st March 8pm GMT/ 3pm EST/ 12pm PST.<br />HG address: grid.xmir.org:8002:Barcola</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">For those of you who live in Europe and don't relate to GMT, the meeting is 21.00 Central European Time.</span><br />
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Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-43264053737562178362015-01-30T14:28:00.000-08:002015-02-02T04:53:46.317-08:00ZanGrid to join the Hypergrid And Other Metaverse News<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">On the 1st February, <a href="http://beta.zandramas.com/index.php" target="_blank">Zandramas</a> becomes ZanGrid and the Club region will open to Hypergrid visitors so ZanGrid is set to join the open Metaverse and start welcoming a whole new bunch of visitors. <a href="http://3rdrockgrid.com/" target="_blank">3rd Rock Grid</a> showed the way last year and, after many months of agonizing on the merits and risks of Hypergrid, and working to persuade their residents that it would benefit the grid, they opened up a number of regions and gave their residents the option to be open or remain closed on an individual basis.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />Butch Arnold, CEO of 3rd Rock, said their grid is seeing more traffic since they opened HG and some visitors have registered accounts with us. I told Butch I see your traffic is up some and he replied, "it is indeed.. almost doubled since October." The grid uses partial Hypergrid which blocks most content leaving the grid other than note cards and landmarks. Anything can be brought in of course so that includes deliveries from <a href="http://www.kitely.com/market" target="_blank">Kitely Market</a> but Butch told me they are still working on their system.<br /><br />ZanGrid has the benefit of seeing the success 3rd Rock is making of its entry into connected worlds of Hypergrid and, no doubt, they will look closely at their achievements. In any event, I am certain ZanGrid will see a boost in visitor traffic.<br /><br /><span style="color: #e69138;"><b>Opensim Virtual Crowdfund Meeting...</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #fff2cc;"><b> </b></span><br />OV will be holding a meeting for the pledge makers to discuss the current Crowdfunding project to have <span style="color: red;">llLookAt</span> and <span style="color: red;">llMoveTo</span> fixed. 3rd Rock Grid was chosen by me to hold the first meeting and Butch Arnold said he was happy to offer a venue and any help they can give. I'm drawing up a policy (or charter) to present to the pledge makers which sets out how we will operate the fund. <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-po00ZR6U4q0/VMv0cRgTs_I/AAAAAAAAIPM/7oSdrVlNcEE/s1600/Beckunsen-animated-bee-508x350.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-po00ZR6U4q0/VMv0cRgTs_I/AAAAAAAAIPM/7oSdrVlNcEE/s1600/Beckunsen-animated-bee-508x350.jpg" height="220" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Fred Beckhusen’s flying bee. (Image courtesy Fred Beckhusen.)</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Everyone is welcome to attend the meeting though but the first part will not be open for general discussion. I want to make sure the pledge makers have their say and get to decide how we proceed. Once that is out of the way then I'll invite the audience to ask questions and engage each other in debate if they wish to.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />The meeting is scheduled to start at 9 PM which is 8 pm UK, 3 PM EST and noon PST on Sunday 1st February 2015.<br /><br />The pledge makers who have confirmed by email are as follows...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">Talla Adam (<a href="http://www.kitely.com/" target="_blank">Kitely Grid</a>) $200<br />Shin Ingen (<a href="http://blog.ingen-lab.com/?author=1" target="_blank">Ingen Lab Grid</a>) $200<br />Fred Beckhusen (<a href="http://www.outworldz.com/Opensim/How-to-Log-In.htm" target="_blank">Outworldz Grid</a>) $500<br />Selby Evans (<a href="http://virtualoutworlding.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Virtualoutworlding blog</a>) $500<br />Geir Nøklebye (<a href="http://www.xmir.org/" target="_blank">Xmir Grid</a>) $50<br />Butch Arnold (<a href="http://3rdrockgrid.com/" target="_blank">3rd Rock Grid</a>) $100<br />Michael Sietz (<a href="http://digitalworldsgroup.com/" target="_blank">Digital Worlds Group LLC</a>) $100</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">Alex Ferraris (<a href="http://avilabs.net/" target="_blank">Avi-Labs Grid</a>) $100</span></span> </span><br /><br />That makes a total so far of $1750 confirmed pledges and the target is $2000.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #e69138;"><b>Update (<span style="color: #f9cb9c;">2nd Feb 2015</span>): Crowdfund Meeting at 3rd Rock grid </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The meeting at 3rd Rock grid was fruitful and went well. Turnout was about 20 from other grids including all but one of the Pledge makers. They all teleported in successfully via Hypergrid. Apart from the loss of some attachments like hair everything seemed normal and relatively lag free. There is a log of the meeting posted <a href="http://metaverse-traveller.blogspot.co.uk/p/c.html" target="_blank">here on it's own page</a> together with a video from Fred Beckhusen illustrating the issues the Crowdfund is being raised to try and address. <a href="http://opensimunited.com/lllookat-crowdfunding-meeting/" target="_blank">Opensim United</a> also posted the log and pictures. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">Michael Sietz (<a href="http://digitalworldsgroup.com/" target="_blank">Digital Worlds Group LLC</a>) has also raised his pledge to $350 bringing the fund up to the target sum of $2000. I regret no more pledges can be accepted now.</span></span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Follow-up news on the Crowdfunding progress will be posted to the <a href="http://metaverse-traveller.blogspot.co.uk/p/c.html" target="_blank">Crowdfund-log page</a> on this site so please stay tuned!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #e69138;"><b> Closed Grids & Hypergrid traffic neck & neck but every way is up!</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #e69138;"><b> </b></span><br />Ever since Maria Korolov published last month's traffic metrics on <a href="http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/" target="_blank">Hypergrid Business</a> and declared that the Hypergrid worlds now were leading in total visitor traffic I have been watching our own Grid Search metrics closely. Our search engine updates all the metrics twice a week presently and displays a breakdown of which part of the Metaverse is getting the most traffic. Last month, according to HB, the combined closed grids figure was down below that for the combined Hypergrid worlds. But according to Grid Search, which tracks the most active grids, the none-Hypergrid worlds are still leading. In fact I have noticed a recent surge in <a href="http://inworldz.com/" target="_blank">Inworldz</a> traffic which is helping to keep the none-HG grids up above the enabled grids.<br /><br />The value of these metrics is questionable however and it has been pointed out that the closed grids display only unique logins while the open grids display both unique logins and Hypergrid visits which skew the figures. What they say is the same person might login at their own grid then visit other grids via Hypergrid thus pushing up the numbers if they get around a lot of them. On the other hand, people say the closed grid owners create large numbers of alternative name accounts and log them in just once a month which also skews their figures too. Other's just ignore all this and look at the trend which is generally positive in any event.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But today's figures were amazingly close regardless. They are as follows...<br /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">Total Active Grids:</span> <span style="color: #cccccc;">188</span></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GQIo5SOA-U8/VMvu_SPqXMI/AAAAAAAAIO8/B3SbeIl4-qE/s1600/gridsearch2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GQIo5SOA-U8/VMvu_SPqXMI/AAAAAAAAIO8/B3SbeIl4-qE/s1600/gridsearch2.png" height="217" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #ffe599;">Distributed Regions: </span><span style="color: #cccccc;">34879</span><br />
<span style="color: #ffe599;">Registered Users:</span> <span style="color: #cccccc;">415096</span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">Monthly Active Traffic:</span> <span style="color: #cccccc;">24802</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">Est' Daily Peak Traffic:</span> <span style="color: #cccccc;">886</span><br /><span style="color: #ffe599;">Hypergrid Traffic:</span> <span style="color: #cccccc;">12400</span><br /><span style="color: #ffe599;">Closed Grid Traffic:</span> <span style="color: #cccccc;">12402</span></span><br />
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You can take these numbers any way you like but they are drawn from the grid splash pages either manually or by our scraper program. <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span data-dobid="hdw">incidentally</span>, I recently made some code improvements so I could start to display individual regions of interest too and I will be looking at the code again with a view to increasing the number of splash pages the scraper can read so we can run it daily. Not only will that save me a lot of work it should be possible to show which grids are online or not.</span><br />
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Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-5025223854994137322015-01-14T09:04:00.000-08:002015-01-14T09:21:21.480-08:00Crowdfunding Opensim Development & Metaverse News!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">There have been many calls to crowdfund Opensim features the community would like to see implemented but no concrete proposals to date have been made. Crowdfunding is not new and has proved very effective in getting new projects and ideas developed. Oculus Rift came into existence due initially to Crowdfunding. The Mesh Deformer was also supported by Second Life merchants in a Crowdfunding call and, while Linden Lab rejected it, the open Metaverse Inworldz grid took it up and had it developed for their residents but also donated the code as a feature of Opensim Viewers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">A few days ago J.Duke posted a topic to OV asking when we would get Havok physics because he wanted to bring his articulated truck trail system to the open grids (see link: <a href="http://bit.ly/1DyaX15">http://bit.ly/1DyaX15</a> ) and, of course, Opensim is not going to get the Havok system because it's too expensive. However, Fred Beckhusen, the well known scripter in both SL and OS, said it's not the physics we need to change but <span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>llLookAt</b></span> and <span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>llMoveTo</b></span> are broken in Opensim code and need fixing if we are to see improvements in vehicle function of the kind J. Duke is looking for.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />I felt this called for a Crowdfunding solution to get Dev's interested in working on it so today I'm making a personal pledge of $200 ( and I might donate more if the the pledges come in) to launch the campaign to raise a bounty. Fred Beckhusen has also said he is willing to help fund this so lets get it started. Is our community committed enough to help raise this bounty? What about those who make money running a business on the Opensim platform code, the commercial grid owners and Hosting companies, will they pledge money and earn community kudos? <br /><br />Initially, I think we might set a target of $2000 which, if mostly funded, can be claimed by any developer, or dev's, that successfully solve the problems and submit effective code to the core Opensim team. I will keep the community informed both here and at OV.<br /><br />How will we do this?<br /><br />Keeping it simple. We can use the comments here or at G+ Opensim Virtual to discuss the project and make a pledge if anyone want to. Please don't pledge what you might not honor and not less than $10. Nothing will be collected by me but once we have the working code in Opensim and there are no issues (Members will test it for sure) then I will declare the bounty available to whoever is recognized as responsible for the code contribution. Those who made pledges will then be asked to send their donation to the named bounty claimant - probably through Paypal so the claimant will need to have an active account and let us know they have received the money. There maybe a better way to do this so I'm open to suggestions.<br /><br />So, there you have it. Money will be pledged and put on the table. If any Opensim developer is reading this wants to email me and make me aware privately of their interest then you can reach me at talla0adam|AT|gmail.com</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;"><b>Aviworlds Re-launched & Alex strikes back with Avi-Labs</b></span><br />The dramas surrounding the "bouncing" grid, Aviworlds might have settled down some now as Mike Hart has finally rested control from Alex Ferraris and re-launched it but not without Alex announcing the launch of yet another grid, Avi-Labs aimed mainly at his old following in the Brazilian community. Aviworlds, however, is making a strong pitch for the Brazilians by including greeters at their welcome region that speak the language.<br /><br />Presently, Alex Ferraris is not a member of OV having departed recently. Actually, he has been in and out of OV almost as often as he has opened and closed Aviworlds when he still owned it. Anyway, I have been urged not to let Alex back because people are saying he just gets embroiled in dramas which reflect badly on the Open Metaverse community in general. This does mean Avi-Labs may not be promoted at OV but I have now let Aviworlds be promoted here since the ownership issue appear to be settled. Alex Ferraris says about Avi-Labs, "steaming ahead for a place in the top ten most popular grids in the metaverse." It will be interesting to see how these rival grids measure up to each other in the traffic metrics.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;"><b>Breaking News: Zandramas Grid to change name to Zangrid</b></span><br />Making the announcement at their new <a href="https://plus.google.com/communities/103653211797397588590" target="_blank">G+ community ZanGrid</a>, Suz Blessed posted "Soon Zandramas will be ZanGrid :) Same grid just a different name, That is all :)". ZanGrid (Zandramas) is a grid people can join on invite and referral only. </span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Dy-vmnT5XEw/VLagQYAxbJI/AAAAAAAAH_E/x3RFdIomdLw/s1600/Teaport-Search.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Dy-vmnT5XEw/VLagQYAxbJI/AAAAAAAAH_E/x3RFdIomdLw/s1600/Teaport-Search.png" height="386" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;"><b>Finding Grids, Venues, Shopping and getting traffic</b></span><br />Opensim Virtual has its own Search Engine capable of finding most known grids. See the <span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><b><a href="http://metaverse-traveller.blogspot.co.uk/p/grid-list.html" target="_blank">Metaverse</a></b></span> link above for a demonstration of it in action on this blog. The Search can also be used in an Opensim Viewer such as Kokua to find and display the login splash pages of various grids. It may be used in-world too by opening a browser window in the viewer and searching for regions to visit. The Login link may also open a Landmark in-world which you can click to teleport or you can copy and paste HG addresses directly into the world map and TP from there. It works really well in Singularity but due to the V1 nature of that viewer it tends to open a web browser on your desktop which it shouldn't. The latest Firestorm viewer is currently broken too for opening landmarks and splash pages, so testing has proved. To use the engine in world call the address: http://www.x-retro-x.com/search.php<br /><br /> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Using Grid Search is easy. Just select a category and enter a search term and the engine will display a selection of grids and regions matching the search criteria. The displayed items also show the current traffic data and a popup preview with a brief description of the grid. If a grid is open to Hypergrid then the address is shown too for copy & paste.<br /><br />Gird owners who don't see their grid in Search can ask for it to be added by sending an email to </span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">talla0adam|AT|gmail.com</span>. Please note that the engine is designed to rate grids according to their traffic level so that busy worlds appear at the top of the display results. This means that grids which don't display traffic data on their splash pages will always be low in results and may not appear at all if they are off-line too much.<br /><br />Finally, I do aim to do more work on our search engine so it can more easily find what users are looking for but it works well enough even now.</span><br />
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Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-22547024637083089522014-07-07T06:59:00.000-07:002014-07-09T14:36:05.328-07:00Who will build the first billion user Virtual World?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Just recently we have learned from Ebbe Altberg, CEO of Linden Lab, that they has been quietly working on a new, more advanced Second Life. But the announcement comes not only after the much hyped High Fidelity already in development by former Lab CEO and SL inventor, Philip Rosedale, but also not so long after Facebook bought up Oculus Rift for 2 $billion as well. And so we now get the ground shattering news that Facebook's Oculus developers are part of FB's aim to build the first billion user virtual world!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Interesting that Ebbe has been saying something similar stating that Second Life Two (or SL2 for want of a name) will be aimed at a mass audience with the clear intention of breaking out of the niche corner it's been in for the past 11 years and try to get on the mainstream social network bandwagon. He is on record saying it's going to be "Multi-device from day one (including phones). "We're building the next-generation platform for hundreds of millions of people; not for millions of people." he said in an interview. So it probably is no coincidence either that Oculus CEO, Brendan Iribe mentioned the "Metaverse" specifically while speaking about Facebook's Oculus acquisition at the <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2014/05/06/tech/innovation/oculus-vr-billion-users/index.html?sr=sharebar_google" target="_blank">Techcrunch Disrupt</a> conference. He said his team were very surprised to learn exactly what Facebook's aims were which amount to nothing less than a massive Facebook virtual world with its own cities, entertainment venues, businesses including a currency and full commerce - not unlike the current Second Life model basically but more advanced and fully supporting aspects of virtual reality such as the Oculus Rift goggles of course. </span></span>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So it's clear the race is on and, arguably, Linden Lab has the experience and a good head start to launch the first of the next generation of virtual worlds where cartoonish avatars are replaced by life-like virtual representations of real people. The graphics will be stunning for sure and lag will be a thing of the past. The new avatars will work, play, shop and socialize online like never before. Imagine buying real world goods in a virtual Amazon store where you get to see demonstrations exactly what a product will do. Imagine too, dressing your avatar in beautifully crafted top brand clothes that are available for real by mail order. So long as you create an avatar that is an honest clone of your real self then you'll be able see how the latest fashions look on you as you strut your stuff in your Oculus goggles. Moreover, the next generation of virtual worlds will almost certainly be seen on a web page rather than downloading a viewer for, if you recall, Cloud Party, which made use of WebGL to render their world in a browser, was bought up by Yahoo very recently too. Firefox and Google Chrome are both planning to add special features in order to allow virtual reality support in their browsers which will advance this much further (<a href="http://blog.bitops.com/blog/2014/06/26/first-steps-for-vr-on-the-web/" target="_blank">see here</a>). What we are seeing now is that all the right peices are coming together and the big players are gearing up to take advantage of a true virtual reality revolution in the making.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">gears of war 2 ipad wallpaper via: <a href="http://static.idesignnetwork.com/images/size/616x/ipadwalls/media/00803_full.jpg" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">idesignnetwork.com</a></span></h1>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">You can expect the learning curve to be much lower too and it is probable that new ways to interact with the world like using head sensors that detect brain wave paterns (<a href="http://emotiv.co/" target="_blank">see Emotiv Insight</a>) so the user can literally think what they want to do or even use facial expressions to direct actions - no hands needed! Possibly there wont even be any building tools in the browser version either because it will be aimed at a mass consumer audience and the creative people and those who want to make money will be offered separate developer software at a high price no doubt thus ensuring the big players with the money to invest enjoy something like an exclusive developers club. In any event you can bet your bottom dollar all the big online stores will want a very prominent and focused presence and that will mean huge sums of money being invested in desgin and presentation not to mention the fees to the VW platform owners.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--zbH7PtQ0lg/U7p7jQrVw2I/AAAAAAAAGBY/DrYHp05KSVc/s1600/Lookbook.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--zbH7PtQ0lg/U7p7jQrVw2I/AAAAAAAAGBY/DrYHp05KSVc/s1600/Lookbook.jpg" height="262" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Iris Ophelia's <a href="http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/iris_ophelias_gaze/">ongoing review</a> of virtual world and MMO fashion</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>cutesy of <a href="http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2012/07/what-not-to-wear-in-sl.html" target="_blank">New World Notes</a></b></span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Identity and privacy are big issues for the current VW users and Facebook's refusal to allow pseudonyms could turn out to be its Achilles heal when it comes to trying to rule the Metaverse. Linden Lab policy is firmly rooted in respecting their residents use of pseudonyms and it's hard to see how that can change while, for Facebook users, they have been conditioned (some would say brain washed) to reveal all to the world so FB can exploit it for the benefit of the advertisers. It could happen though that if SL2 is to go mainstream as Ebbe hopes then the Lab policy might change on identity too. However, the Facebook virtual world even with it's real names policy is going to be a lot different from the current experience of checking FB 15-20 times a day to see what real world friends and relatives are doing but I doubt anyone really knows just how much of a difference it will be. People prance around in front of their Wii now to get fit and do sports so will they prance about wearing Oculus goggles doing similar things with their friends and relatives in a virtual space in stead? Will people be floating along in the new FB/Yahoo/Linden Metaverse while actually on some kind of tread mill? Mores the point will everyone want to look like super models because they can? And you can bet your life the Adult industry will wade in with every which way to enjoy virtual sex. I mean, think of </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="st"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haptic_technology">Haptic technology</a> that provides physical sensations</span> where </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"acoustic radiation" stimulates a sense of touch on the skin without the need for cumbersome gloves and body suits. There are so many questions one could ask about a Facebook virtual world but it's coming and I don't think Linden investors want to miss out this time round.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Now, we know that there is a lot of disquiet amongst Second Life residents on whether the Second Life they know and love will close after the new platform is launched and also whether or not the residents can take their names and inventory with them. Ebbe gave some</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oiMvX-jfQGw/U7qmZno-RbI/AAAAAAAAGCk/sPjWqLwAiCQ/s1600/EmotiveInsight.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oiMvX-jfQGw/U7qmZno-RbI/AAAAAAAAGCk/sPjWqLwAiCQ/s1600/EmotiveInsight.png" height="186" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Picture Credit: Emotiv Insight</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> rather mixed messages on this saying on the one hand you will probably be able to take your stuff but on the other hand he says they are not interested in backward compatibility. Linden Lab is a business after all so it’s not really surprising that the Lindens are saying they have no plans to close SL1 because it would be financial suicide to say otherwise. Ebbe Altberg just hasn't been choosing his words very well but there is enough in what he has said to suspect they are keeping the "antique" SL1 afloat while its high pricing model continues to finance the development of SL2 and their other products.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q0EaN-a_XCY/U7qnfzyfk9I/AAAAAAAAGCs/rGLKlD7fIEo/s1600/sinful-robot_babe03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q0EaN-a_XCY/U7qnfzyfk9I/AAAAAAAAGCs/rGLKlD7fIEo/s1600/sinful-robot_babe03.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Picture Credit: Sinful Robot</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So, the Lindens are saying they wont close SL1 but they are not saying too much about SL2 other than it will be a lot better but really a lot of this is all corporate double speak and the Lindens have a pretty poor record when it comes to dealing with their residents. The directors seem to care nothing for the fact Second Life is a social entity and huge passions are stirred up when changes are made. To the directors it's a business in which business decisions are made with all regard to what will maintain and improve the profitability of the company. Don't be surprised to be told SL1 is closing once SL2 is firmly on the road. It will just be a business decision that has probably already been taken but, for now, they have to keep the golden goose alive. Linden executives have their price like any other business the world over so don't be too surprised either if SL2 ends up another Facebook acquisition in its drive to become the ruler of the Metaverse.</span></span><br />
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Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-13728185436953891532014-06-23T05:38:00.000-07:002014-07-08T03:40:33.300-07:00Linden Lab CEO Promises a Brave New Second Life - Don't Panic!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So, Linden Lab CEO, Ebbe confirms the Lab is working on a new virtual world platform that may eventually replace Second Life but he proceeded to avoid giving detailed answers to questions about it on SLU. Well, I guess it's good PR if nothing else for a reigning Linden Overlord to even take the time to brave the SLU hoards to answer anything at all but, in the Lab's time honored capacity for doublespeak, he managed the Q&A rather well I thought even in the face of off-topic TOS questions thrown at him by Karl Karl Stiefvater, the former Lab employee known as Qarl Linden. Of course, Ebbe was just avoiding answering him and barely acknowledged his posts. In fact Ebbe's answers to most questions about the new platform were remarkably brief. The essence of what he had for answers was; it's too early to say what it will be or, in an actual answer to another question on SLU; "What can you tell us about the graphic engine? Home made, third party or mix?" Ebbe replied bluntly, "Secret for now..."</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #8e7cc3;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>The Sorcerer tricks Aladdin and offers "new lamps for old lamps". </b><br /><b>Robida Aladin (1848-1926) illustration from page4</b></span></span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br />One SLU member was moved to post, "I've seen chatbots that are better at engaging in conversations than Ebbe has been in this thread." So I think this Q&A is not going to tell us much but from what I gather, and going by what the last CEO, Rod Humble said in the past the Lab has been working on their new creative spaces - as Humble liked to call virtual worlds after he reckons to have finally got the idea of what Second Life is - which included Patterns and all the other video games released under his tenure. So, while Ebbe admitted the project has been in development for some time the best he can say is that it will be better than Second Life. Presumably that means it is going to be very similar to SL but built on a new server engine and platform code base that was confirmed in a roundabout way when Ebbe said, in answer to another question, that it was too difficult to upgrade the current SL platform saying "Too difficult and too time consuming." So it will be completely new and yet probably little different in business model and that is how I understood his reply to another question; "but we're thinking of it to be similar to SL in that way...but better."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="color: #f9cb9c;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">One wonders how much is this about changing the business model and how much about innovation. Too early to tell but Ebbe does seem to be more forthcoming on the business plan for SL2 and not a lot said otherwise about the platform.</span></span></span></b><span style="color: #f9cb9c;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />He did say, however, that, "We're early in our discussions about business models but I'm thinking lower land tax and higher sales tax and ultimately aim to make things up with volume...(charge less to many rather than a lot to a few). This is possible with better tech and making something more people want to be part of." So now I'm getting the platform will be better coded, new engine, and a new business model as well. The new revenue model Ebbe says he would like is probably what they are planning anyway and given that Rod Humble already bought up the video gaming site, Desura I kind of have an idea what might be on the cards. Well, it all goes back to the TOS issue really for the Lab has already given themselves the rights to take all that content the residents created and use it in anyway they want. Now think of how Steam profits from user content and my guess is something similar is going to happen with SL2. No, I don't think the Lab will sell our stuff but in the new system they will control the market much more than they can do now in SL1 and I suspect it will cost the traders a lot more to do business. Moreover, I doubt prim objects will have a place in the new system and the avatars will be a totally new model as well. Therefore the system will, I'm sure, only be compatible for Mesh uploads and probably voxels rather than prim's. Bottom line is the residents will need a new wardrobe and houses and furniture. Well, Ebbe said it would cost more for the many and less for the few. I can't see anyway that can happen if those who currently enjoy free entertainments and lots of freebies and low cost quality products aren't forced out or made to pay something towards the upkeep of the platform.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Is there a connection?</span></span></td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Desura From Wikipedia: </span></span></span><span style="color: #f9cb9c;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Linden Lab, the makers of shared creative spaces including Second Life, Patterns, Creatorverse, on July 10, 2013 announced that Linden Lab acquired Desura. The service would continue uninterrupted for current customers and the team and technology become a part of Linden Lab. After acquiring Desura, Linden Lab changed their Terms of Service to include the wording that they have future rights to use and adapt content from their virtual citizens. Speculation exists as to whether the acquisition of Desura is tied to this change in TOS.</span></span></span></span></b></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />Some might see it as a good thing but, personally, I reserve judgement until learn more about SL2. Right now it's all pretty vague but I'm pretty sure some panic will set in especially among the Land Barons. I mean, if it will cost the few less then the people that have been paying the most in SL1 the land owners and renters are looking at lower tier and with low tier and possibly a lower setup fee will almost certainly mean more of the renters will become land owners. The Land Barons might still get a deal but are they likely to get favorable enough reductions in setup fees in SL2? Considering they still hold expensive land in SL1 so what will become of that investment? Maybe the Lab will try to encourage take up with special deals from the start until the thing gains critical mass and then, yeah, you bet they will hike the tier anyway as they did in SL1 so, ultimately, the few will probably pay not much less and the content creators will pay a whole lot more. All the rest will still likely get a free lunch but they might have to pay a membership fee next time round. I really think the Lab should be wary of the Land Barons though. They could start sending powerful shots across their bows by dropping a lot of their most expensive none-grandfathered sims as they did after the Lab offered low cost setup's to residents one weekend a couple of years ago. The land model as it stands benefits the Barons and any threat to that could have damaging consequences.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="color: #f9cb9c;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">One SLU comment said, "I am glad the cat is out of the bag, we would have invested in a bunch of new sims soon. Of course all new projects have been cancelled now." To which a reply came, saying, "Or, you might want to milk the current land model for all you can while it's there. Ebbe mentioned earlier that he'd like to see the new thing's fee structure less dependent on land. It's quite possible that land barons will find themselves in a drastically different business, if there is a place for them at all."</span></span></span></b></span> </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="color: #fff2cc;"><b>How will this affect Opensim?</b></span><br /><br />Actually, I rather think Opensim grids will do alright out of it because if SL1 doesn't get much more development or new features because it is now left with just a caretaker team then this will give Opensim chance to overtake SL1 in terms of quality and innovation. In fact I think there is scope here to advance Opensim in new ways like adding new building tools and even voxels perhaps - especially if only to replace </span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">terrain hightmap since voxels have the ability to represent overhangs, caves, arches, and other 3D terrain features. I think the avatar might be improved too while the Lab has decided that SL1 is too much of a problem to change. There may not be an open source viewer for SL2 either so all the more reason for the TPV developers and Opensim developers to work closer together to bring on new features that benefit Opensim while not available to SL1. We have seen in the latest releases of Opensim substantial improvements and now with new physics and variable size regions it is already ploughing ahead anyway. And, as I already said, I seriously doubt it will be possible to upload old prim content to SL2 either. Ebbe said they didn't want to be constrained by backwards compatibility although Siana Gearz, commenting on Hypergrid Business insisted Ebbe said at the meeting that he's quite certain porting content over from Second Life into new platform by original creators will be possible, even though we know that the technical architecture of the content will be different. She then stated, "I was there for the whole duration of his visit, I know what he was asked and what he said. The content porting question came up multiple times and he finally said "I think it should be possible." However, given the vagueness of the Ebbe's answers to most questions I really think you have to take what he is saying at best with a large pinch of salt.<br /><br />I seriously doubt SL2, which is still a long way off, poses any near term threat to Opensim anyway and, if anything does, I rather suspect it will be High Fidelity since Philip Rosedale has stated it will be open source and embrace the Hypergrid concept as well as private ownership of the servers. But, of course, High Fidelity is a way off too and yet I see Kitely Virtual is already a contributor to the code base which indicates to me they are hedging their bets and that gives me reason to believe High Fidelity is the one to watch, not SL2. However, I still think Opensim has a lot going for it and the uncertainties and house moving pains the SL residents will have to go through in the next few years will just add to the appeal of the free Metaverse.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/general-sl-discussion/97035-linden-lab-working-next-gen.html" target="_blank">SLU </a></span></div>
Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-48962388884826087202014-06-21T02:49:00.000-07:002014-06-24T18:25:12.589-07:00Introducing Replex Viewer for Opensim & Second Life<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Maintained and packaged by Latif Khalifa<span class="proflinkWrapper"></span>,
the viewer developer also responsible for the <a href="http://radegast.org/wp/" target="_blank">Radegast</a> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">lightweight text client, the
viewer is based on <a href="http://www.singularityviewer.org/" target="_blank">Singularity</a> code with many new features including
object Import/Export enhancements supporting Materials (specular and
normal maps), Object Physics and Light Image. There is code merged from
<a href="http://ctrlaltstudio.com/" target="_blank">CtrlAltStudio</a> Viewer to support the Xbox 360 controller as well as added
support for Controller Keys, A = Alt, B = Shift, X = Ctrl, Y =
Escape, Back = Toggle Flycam mode (fun!), Start = Toggle Cursor mode,
Right Stick Click = Toggle Mouselook, Left Stick Click = Jump/Fly - all
of which gives this V1 viewer added support for <a href="http://www.oculusvr.com/" target="_blank">Oculus Rift</a> and virtual
reality. There is a lot more including options to change the buttons on
the UI and a handy option to enable an emergency teleport when you are
AFK during a region restart. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Image courtesy of Replex</span></span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">There is no formal release date yet but you can download the dev versions to test drive from the <a href="http://www.replex.org/wp/%EF%BB%BF" target="_blank">Replex</a> site.</span> </div>
Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-86085113730614985682013-10-17T09:51:00.000-07:002013-10-17T21:19:49.301-07:00Walking With Avatars in Virtual Reality<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Recently I posted a topic about virtual reality headsets and glasses to <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/116284417302234467612" target="_blank">Opensim Virtual</a>, the Google Plus community pages for sharing information about the free Metaverse and said I would certainly prefer these rather more stylish glasses illustrated on the cover of Clyde DeSouza book, <a href="http://io9.com/in-memories-with-maya-human-sexuality-gets-an-upgrade-1172882567" target="_blank">MAYA </a></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">than the </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Af3269LcY2g/UmAFF4DOGBI/AAAAAAAAD_M/HlAV0nubxYM/s1600/original.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Af3269LcY2g/UmAFF4DOGBI/AAAAAAAAD_M/HlAV0nubxYM/s1600/original.png" width="400" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">present Oculus Rift head set, and wouldn't it be nice, I added, if it was equipped to read the wearer 's brain wave patterns to enable hands free keyboard and mouse functions? Well, it so happens that brain wave readers, or <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/3001309/biohackers-and-diy-cyborgs-clone-silicon-valley-innovation" target="_blank">Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs)</a> have been around as long as those old cumbersome head sets used from the 1980's onward to explore virtual reality. Even back then great big expensive embedded electroencephalograph (EEG) readers were used in the laboratory to send neurofeedback to equally expensive mainframe computers for analysis. But now there are relatively cheap head sensors and software that could be adapted to work with the Oculus Rift and the other new headsets in development. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Emotiv Insight, developed by Vietnamese emigre, Tan Lee and funded by a hugely successful <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tanttle/emotiv-insight-optimize-your-brain-fitness-and-per" target="_blank">Kickstarter campaign</a> raising $1,643,117 recently, is a "sleek, multi-channel, wireless headset that monitors your brain activity and translates EEG into meaningful data you can understand" according to the makers. It is expected to start shipping in early 2014 and will be compatible with Android, iOS, Mac, Linux and Windows Platforms. The company will also be supplying an API and SDK for developers and researchers.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Picture Credit: Emotiv Insight</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Basically, the <a href="http://emotivinsight.com/" target="_blank">Emotiv Insight</a> can do exactly what I thought would solve the problem of hands free control while experiencing virtual reality. You just train the Emotiv Insight by thinking and making facial movements. The makers say, "the brainwear can understand and decipher basic mental commands. It can detect commands such as push, pull, levitate, rotate and even commands that are harder to visualize such as disappear. It also detects facial expressions such as blinks, winks, frown, surprise, clench and smile."<br /><br />Couple all this with advanced haptic devices such as <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb7DN3kpl2o" target="_blank">Fundawear</a>, the high-tech vibrating underwear developed by the Condom manufacturer Durex which stimulates intimate parts of the body at the touch of a button, and you have all that is needed to engage in long-distance relationships over the Internet in a shared virtual setting.<br /><br />In the novel mentioned above, MAYA, the author refers to Dirrogates, or Mesh-clad digital surrogates inhabiting a virtual space. They are not really the same as the characters from <a href="http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/books/neuromancer.asp" target="_blank">Neuromancer by William Gibson</a> who where cybernetically enhanced humans that could "jack in" to cyberspace and when you consider some of the technology I am discussing here you can't escape the cross over between what is real and what is virtual. I mean, some of the headsets do actually allow one to mix realities in that the real world is overlayed on the virtual to whatever degree the wearer chooses and we, as </span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Movie: Neuromancer. Credit: Interplay</span></span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">users of the technology, will be closer to Molly Millions of Neuromancer fame than the Dirrogates of MAYA. We are perhaps more familiar with the term "avatar" though which we use to represents ourselves when we don a Rift and an Insight sensor to experience virtual reality. Whether we are able or disabled we would now be able to interact on equal terms with anyone, anywhere in the world. We could work, live and play and even experience sexual pleasures with the aid of devices like Fundawear and, to some degree, a certain level of danger and shock horror too. With mind control, advanced visuals and haptic devices we can indeed sit back and inhabit the Matrix.<br /><br />This all holds out exciting possibilities for virtual worlds like Open Simulator or the many others. Opensim is, in my view, well placed and already feature rich enough to take full advantage of the virtual reality equipment that is fast becoming available and, moreover, anyone can pick it up and start to use it in anyway they want. No doubt, the online sex industry will take a lead and why not? Second Life was built on Adult themes. Educationalist that have flocked to Opensim since Linden Lab canceled the discounts they enjoyed may not approve of adult entertainment in Opensim grids but they lived with it in Second Life for years and had no control at all. At least with Opensim they can exercise a level of control unheard of in Second Life so they can isolate themselves much easier from it.<br /><br />The future looks exciting!<br /><br />The march of technological advancement is relentless and, judging by the truly amazing stuff in development mentioned above it remains only for me to list some of the headsets starting with the one's I think hold out the most promise... <br /><br />Former Valve engineers Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson have launched a <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/technicalillusions/castar-the-most-versatile-ar-and-vr-system" target="_blank">KICKSTARTER</a> campaign to fund development of the castAR, a 3D augmented and virtual reality headset. The castAR system bridges the gap between the physical world and the virtual world. The final retail glasses are expected to weigh less than 100 grams, which is only slightly heavier than a pair of </span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Credit: <span class="creator"><a class="remote_modal_dialog" data-modal-class="modal_project_by" data-modal-title="Biography" href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/technicalillusions/castar-the-most-versatile-ar-and-vr-system/creator_bio" id="name">Technical Illusions</a></span></span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">sunglasses, and requires no calibration or adjustment. If you wear prescription glasses, castAR is designed to sit easily on the outside of them. The aim of the designers is to make castAR the most versatile head-mounted display available. They also offer an attachment that transforms castAR into a true virtual reality system as well as a true augmented reality system. Whichever reality you prefer, there is now a single system capable of taking you there, they claim. The company, Technical Illusions, launched the KICKSTARTER campaign to raise $400,000 and it has already gained 1,086 backers pledging $260,821 with 30 days still to go at the time of writing this. <br /><br />The castAR system has been quietly in development for the past 18 months while Oculus Rift has enjoyed the limelight. However, castAR looks more sophisticated and, together with other headsets about to come onto the market in the new year the Oculus Rift team might be hard pushed to maintain their present lead. In any event I should watch this space because Linden Lab, owners of the Second Life virtual world, are keen to support Oculus Rift according to CEO Rod Humble and maybe are looking for a project to buy up themselves. Linden Lab has been busy diversify their product range in the past few years since Humble took over and has released a number of video games as well as adding video game development features to <a href="http://secondlife.com/" target="_blank">Second Life</a>. They have also bought up Desura, the game distribution site and my guess is they would surely like a virtual reality headset to add to their product range as well.<br /><br /><br />Not to be out done a bunch of students have demonstrated yet another virtual reality system which uses Oculus Rift together with PlayStation Move for positional tracking and Razer Hydra for in-game control. However, the weight load is high as demonstrated by Richard Mitchell at IndieCade 2013. "All the components are self-contained with a backpack and a helmet," he said,<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Credit: Richard Mitchell</span></td></tr>
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posting to <a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2013/10/14/project-holodeck-puts-you-inside-a-virtual-zombie-apocalypse/" target="_blank">joystiq</a>, "meaning there are no wires to trip you up, allowing you to actually 'walk' inside of virtual space. I took Project Holodeck for a spin," he went on, "trying my hand at some virtual zombie slaying, and the experience was certainly unique." So, the system needs a backpack, a helmet with huge post device on top which I'm sure dirty minds out there will find amusing, and finally Oculus Rift to provide the viewer experience.<br /><br />However, as I said, there are more headsets in the running now and Maria Korolov, writing in <a href="http://sco.lt/6CytZB" target="_blank">Hypergrid Business</a>, has listed a number including <a href="http://www.durovis.com/index.html" target="_blank">Durovis Dive</a>, which offers 3D Virtual Reality Gaming on a Smartphone, <a href="http://www.vrase.com/" target="_blank">Eyedak vrAse</a> who also ran a KICKSTARTER campaign to raise $55,000 back in August.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.avegant.com/" target="_blank">Avegant</a> which, they say, "your eyes no longer have to focus for themselves the gadget does it all for you." According to Avegant CEO Ed Tang, this effectively mitigates the problem of eye strain, and makes the device easier to wear for extended periods of time.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.vuzix.com/consumer/products_wrap_1200.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Credit: VUZIX</span></span></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />Finally, Maria lists three others which are aesthetically more pleasing but appear to lack the functionality that makes a true virtual reality headset. These include <a href="http://store.sony.com/gsi/webstore/WFS/SNYNA-SNYUS-Site/en_US/-/USD/Default-Start?affiliateCustomId=6150745&CJURL=http://www.store.sony.com/WFS/SNYUS/en_US/-/USD/-/cat-27-catid-3D-Personal-Viewer&camp=CJ_DF&clickId=10396361&affiliateId=1m4heywhsk7hh&XID=A:6150745:CJ%20Vuzix%20Wrap%201200AR" target="_blank">Sony HMZ-T3 Personal Viewer</a>, <a href="http://www.vuzix.com/augmented-reality/products_wrap1200ar.html" target="_blank">Vuzix Wrap 1200AR</a>, and the <a href="http://cinemizer.zeiss.com/cinemizer-oled/en_de/applications/gaming.html" target="_blank">Zeiss Cinemizer OLED</a>.<br /><br /><br /> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">If the free Metaverse takes your interest then find out more at Google Plus <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/116284417302234467612" target="_blank"><span style="color: #9fc5e8;">Opensim Virtual</span></a></span></span><br />
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Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-81947023275910942202013-09-28T20:14:00.000-07:002013-09-28T20:22:53.252-07:00Who the hell owns Second Life anyway?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In light of yet another Second Life TOS change which gives Linden Lab absolute rights to take content uploaded by their resident/customers and do with as they please for ever, it comes as no surprise to me that there has been a shock wave of protest working it's way across the Metaverse. I reported recently on <span style="color: yellow;"><a href="https://plus.google.com/116076567409171358560/posts/LWyq7vPEeoK" target="_blank">Opensim Virtual</a></span> that, <a href="http://www.cgtextures.com/" target="_blank">CGTextures</a>, which used to allow their free textures to be used in Second Life has now withdrawn license to do so and now <a href="http://www.renderosity.com/" target="_blank">Renderosity</a>, another free textures site, has issued the same ban (<span style="color: magenta;"><a href="http://www.renderosity.com/news.php?viewStory=16783" target="_blank">read here</a></span>). The Second Life forums are buzzing with complaint and the protesters are calling for content creators to turn their regions pitch dark!</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-L4XIYb_Mhqo/UkcN6-VWaTI/AAAAAAAAD0E/Zb3mSbUAzls/s1600/Renderosity2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="352" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-L4XIYb_Mhqo/UkcN6-VWaTI/AAAAAAAAD0E/Zb3mSbUAzls/s640/Renderosity2.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="center"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Renderosity follows CG Textures and bans </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">uploads of their textures and models to Second Life</span></span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />Shava Nerad, a well known Second Life content creator posted a topic to Google plus "Dear Linden Lab -- it's been a nice eight years but you just broke the social contract with me as a creator in Second Life. BG TIME." The full text and many comments expressing disgust at the Lab's TOS change can be read here but Shava Nerad ends the topic with...</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b>"What in the world are you thinking, taking my stuff like this?</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><b><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">We should be dumping tea in your harbor.<br /><br />No, never, mind. We should just pick up our toys, and leave. It's not worth it any more. So sad.<br /><br />FIX IT OR BE DONE. <br /><br />Oddfellow Studios has gone pitch dark, with nothing but a notecard giver with this essay on it.<br /><br />I encourage other creators to turn their sims dark too, nothing but black and a notecard giver explaining the new TOS and why we have left nothing behind but a protest.<br /><br />You really blew it."</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />Tuna Oddfellow has announced his studio will open a sim at <a href="http://inworldz.com/" target="_blank">Inworldz grid</a> and urges other content creators to do the same. On <a href="http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2013/09/second-life-protest-over-tos.html#more" target="_blank">New World Notes</a> a hot debate rages too and other SL residents are declaring their intention to leave. It has to be said though there are die hard's fighting off the discontented rants with apologetic comments of their own in support of Linden Lab while making outright attacks on Opensim. However, the fact remains that Opensim grids, which are of course free of Linden Lab TOS and more tuned to Creative Commons licensing, are not being included in the ban imposed by CGTextures and Renderosity.<br /><br />Will Burns writing on his blog, <a href="http://cityofnidus.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/modus-operandi_11.html" target="_blank">ANDROMEDA Media Group</a> has also joined the protest and laid into Rodvik Humble - CEO of Linden Lab - and puts the blame squarely on him, calling him Gaming Jesus as he rants, "Ever since <b>Gaming Jesus</b> took the wheel at Linden Lab, it’s been insult after mockery to everything that Second Life actually is and the community that literally helped create it. Every step of the way proclaiming he 'gets it' when in reality he doesn't have the single foggiest idea what the hell it is that Second Life represents or how to work within that ecosystem." <br /><br />Whether Humble actually cares about Second Life or was brought in to get the community under control - given his reputation at EA - and re-focus LL as a video games company is not easy to say for sure but it dose look like the Second Life community that created just about everything but the platform itself is just being dictated to by the changes in TOS. Certainly, I think there is a method in all this madness and I think Will Burns nails it somewhat when he mentions that Humble sees "a mountain of content, services and millions of years of man-hours put into the creation of a virtual environment that would have taken arguably billions of dollars had an in-house design team been charged to create it all." So, with that in mind, what was Linden Lab's latest acquisition?<br /><br />Yes, they recently bought up their own indie distribution site <a href="http://www.desura.com/" target="_blank">Desura</a> to rival Steam from Valve whom they initially flirted with. It was thought to be an odd pairing considering mod-friendly Desura which brought mods developed with player-created content and turned them into commercial video games such as Guncraft, but maybe not. "We're looking forward to growing both Desura's global community of gamers and its fantastic portfolio of thousands of games, mods, and other content," said Rod Humble in Linden Lab’s press release at the time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">One might be forgiven for thinking Linden Lab is genuinely trying to improve the lot of residents in Second Life and get the economy growing again with new opportunities related to their expansion into video gaming but, really, I suspect it is just about the Lab's own bottom line at the end of the day because, despite the controversy, they say they are happy with the TOS changes and have not said anything to clarify what the intentions might be regarding the Desura </span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="st">acquisition and how it might affect Second Life</span>. I mean, why would they change the TOS now right after acquiring Desura and give themselves total rights over the community's property for ever? Why did they feel the need to do that or was it just something the Lab planners did without any regard for the that troublesome community who really owns the content?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b>So who really owns Second Life anyway?</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">That is not easy to answer actually but anyway, Linden Lab owns the platform, the infrastructure and all web sites and applications software, and name undoubtedly. They own the company of course but the resident/customers made the bulk of the content, built the environment and gave it all the entertainment if offers. They own license, so we thought, to all the textures they uploaded, the mesh models and all the scripts they wrote to make things work. And the third party suppliers like CGTextures, Renderosity and a host of others all own copyrights on stuff being uploaded to Second Life so you could say the internal fabric itself is not owned by Linden Lab and the whole thing should be looked upon as a partnership between the resident community and the Linden Lab corporation and yet that is not the way the Lab or Mr Humble appears to see it. Granted, they have confirmed in one of their "no name" posts that the residents own their copyrights and are licensed to distribute their creations on the Second Life grid but they then changed the TOS without a by your leave and now we find Linden Lab has taken the right to use all that content in what ever way they choose for ever without having to pay the creators anything at all. And, presumably, they can sell all these rights with the company if they want to.<br /><br />You, the creators of Second Life are not the owners. Get use to it! Morally, you might be but you agreed to the TOS when the Lab said they can change it any time they wish and in any way they wish so you see, you had to sell out just to get onto the platform. End of story.<br /><br />Well, not quite the end of the story. There are always alternatives and the obvious one that is compatible with Second Life is <a href="http://opensimulator.org/" target="_blank">Open Simulator</a> or Opensim.<br /><br /><b>So who owns Opensim then?</b><br /><br />The Opensim virtual worlds are almost clones of <a href="http://secondlife.com/" target="_blank">Second Life</a>, the similarities are that close. Most of what works in Second Life works in Opensim grids and looks pretty much the same. But there are notable differences too like the fact Opensim grids are designed to connect with each other via the Hypergrid protocol which permits teleport's from one server instance to another thus forming a Metaverse of privately owned worlds all freely associating with one another in a global community unlike Second Life which is a monopoly owned by Linden Lab. Something else that is notably different and of special interest to us here is that the TOS - which the grid owners have to write for themselves. They are not subject to the Second Life TOS and the platform software is free to use under very liberal license terms granted by the <a href="http://www.overte.org/" target="_blank">Overte Foundation</a> which is a non-profit organization that manages contribution agreements for the <a href="http://opensimulator.org/" target="_blank">Open Simulator project</a>. The Opensim license grants permission to use the platform code to create both private or commercial worlds and allows one to change the code without any obligation to contribute your code back. Thus, anyone can take the code and build their own simulator. Educators effectively had Opensim forced on them when, in another policy change, Linden Lab withdrew discounts to education and none-profits and what they discovered was that they can protect students better than trusting LL and the US army likes the security the platform offers too. And for Merchants the new export perm will allow them to control where their products end up as well. There are lots of reasons to use Opensim and the low price point is just the obvious one.<br /><br />I think one can safely say that the free Metaverse is owned by its community right from the foundation code up. Individuals and companies might build on it but no one company can claim rights over everything as Linden Lab has done with Second Life. Yes, a company can keep code secret and build a community behind closed borders based on the Second Life model but no one grid in the Metaverse has managed to grow bigger than the connected grids as a whole. So, having said all that, I would finally say the community really dose own Opensim.<br /> </span><br />
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Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6880640158139598308.post-47840269068562999252013-08-30T05:52:00.001-07:002013-10-12T01:07:47.454-07:00Extreme Adult Virtual Reality, Oculus Rift & Opensim<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It would appear that Oculus Rift has attracted the adult sex industry, which could be taken as a sign that this new technology is definitely going to become big. Sex sells and without it <a href="http://secondlife.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ffe599;">Second Life</span></a> would probably not have done so well as it did. In fact, the adult section of SL still does appear to be the grid's main growth area while it steadily loses regions otherwise. On the other hand the free Metaverse is not attracting much in the way of adult grids yet but maybe <a href="http://www.oculusvr.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ffe599;">Oculus Rift</span></a> will help change all that in the near future as <a href="http://opensimulator.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ffe599;">Opensim</span></a> develops further and wily entrepreneurs realize the low cost and other advantages of Opensim to bring immersive virtual sex games to the adult market online.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><a href="http://www.sinfulrobot.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Sinful Robot</span></a>, which has become Wicked Paradise for Oculus Rift is one such game and is set in a world where all erotic fantasies are lived in the virtual at a much deeper physiological level due to the highly immersive nature of the technology. Opensim has features which, if properly exploited, could serve the adult trade in a variety of useful ways. Opensim has NPC (none-player characters) for example which are actually proving to be very effective with scripted AI giving them a life of their own. They are cloned from existing avatars so are indistinguishable from other avatars in the scene and, as sexual partners in an erotic fantasy, NPC's could be adapted for erotic purposes with very little extra work. In deed, NPC avatars might actually be more appealing to guys who worry over the true gender of the online partner they just met in a virtual world. They know, at least, the NPC words and actions are just pre-coded responses to what the user is saying and doing.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iMbSOVAFkrI/UiB_KnP7inI/AAAAAAAADew/MuF-QuXMRtM/s1600/SinfulRobot-OculusRift.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="253" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iMbSOVAFkrI/UiB_KnP7inI/AAAAAAAADew/MuF-QuXMRtM/s400/SinfulRobot-OculusRift.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="background-color: #76a5af;"><span style="color: #fff2cc;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: black;">Oculus Rift is funded by a very successful</span><span style="background-color: black;"> KickStarter cam</span><span style="background-color: black;">paign</span></span></span></span></b><br />
<span style="background-color: black;"><b><span style="color: #fff2cc;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">to the tune of $2,437,429 when the original </span></span></b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: black;"><b><span style="color: #fff2cc;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">goal was just $250,000.</span></span></b></span>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Van den Bosch, the man behind Wicked Paradise has said Storyline is very important. he told Oculus-Rift blog "We want to generate erotic tension between the player and the virtual characters. You need a solid storyline in order to achieve that. It will be a modern day setting, I think the best way to describe is like an adult version of Heavy Rain but completely designed for virtual reality." Van den Bosch let it be known he has wanted to bring an adult game to the market for a long time "but in the past playing strip poker with Japanese robots was as good as it got." he said. He noticed that there is a lot of fantastically crafted shooters so why not a well-designed adult video game? he thought, and it was when he got to test a very early prototype of the Oculus Rift which, he told OculusRift blog, "blew me away. I immediately realized that Virtual Reality is the perfect medium for a highly immersive adult videogame."<br /><br />Linden Lab let it be known earlier this year they want to support the Rift and enable the technology in their viewer which might happen later but <span style="color: #ffe599;"><a href="http://ctrlaltstudio.com/" target="_blank">CtrlAltStudio’s</a></span> David Rowe, an independent virtual worlds developer, has already released a forked version of Firestorm viewer for owners of the per-release development Kits to experience Second Life and Opensim worlds. However, Rowe told Hypergrid Business blog there are presently some limitations to overcome. "because users are wearing a headset," he said, "they can’t see their keyboard. Asking them to use arrow keys to move around is simple enough, but if they need to type, or enter keyboard shortcuts, it can be hard to do blind." Touching objects is also an issue and, because the viewer uses arrow keys to move, this presents some slight difficulty with the Rift which uses mouselook to change the viewing direction.</span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BElx3wOn7c8/Uh97CrQOEBI/AAAAAAAADcw/9yvLEFkAyrY/s1600/sinful-robot_babe03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BElx3wOn7c8/Uh97CrQOEBI/AAAAAAAADcw/9yvLEFkAyrY/s320/sinful-robot_babe03.jpg" width="245" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Whether the adult use of Rift will find serious use in <span style="color: #ffe599;"><a href="http://opensimulator.org/" target="_blank">Opensim</a></span> worlds is impossible to say at this stage but a lot also hangs on the quality of scripted objects in Opensim like sex beds and toys, and also personal wearables like slave collars, leashes and cuffs which form such a huge part of adult activity in Second Life. Up until recently scripted sex objects in Opensim were still troublesome and lacking the polish found on the Linden grid but there has been a lot or improvements in Opensim in the last year or so and the LSL functions are pretty much complete while Opensim also has it's own scripting functions in the form, OSSL scripting and more specialized functions for NPC's in the form OSSLNPC. In fact, <span style="color: #ffe599;"><a href="http://opensimulator.org/wiki/OSSLNPC" target="_blank">Opensim NPC's</a></span> are arguably more advanced than anything that Second Life has and users are making considerable headway with AI and ALICE bot to give the NPC'very life-like responses. I have bot's that dance on request and will hold a limited conversation and even recognize your avatar's gender provided you wear a simple HUD which the NPC can communicate with to obtain basic information. It will even remember you and your name if you tell it to the bot. It will also recognize some or your actions provided you use the "/me" function to describe them. I have one bot serving at a bar and another at a table who can actually activate a table function so a drink of choice - the drink you asked for - will appear. When the drink appears it can be touched and a copy is delivered to your inventory so you can wear it on the hand to simulate drinking, thus completing the picture. It doesn't take a big leap of the imagination to envisage much more sexual activity or even something like a casino croupier dealing the cards and taking bets.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bIARcsEWhBE/Uh-CQh8cmCI/AAAAAAAADdE/5v9Qja8iMw0/s1600/shepard_and_liara_kissing_by_eromaxi-d618crs.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bIARcsEWhBE/Uh-CQh8cmCI/AAAAAAAADdE/5v9Qja8iMw0/s400/shepard_and_liara_kissing_by_eromaxi-d618crs.png" width="290" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Wicked Paradise will be </span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">heavily influenced<br />by the erotic nature of the<br /> <a class="sbn-auto-link" href="http://www.polygon.com/game/mass-effect/2468">Mass Effect</a> videogame series. </span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Van den Bosch is developing an adult video game which has predefined aims and goals to arrive at some form of sexual gratification for the user and undoubtedly Opensim NPC bot's could do all that and look good too with mesh skins and clothes but Opensim, like Second Life, is much closer to social media than a video game. Generally, there are no predefined goals in virtual worlds and most things happen on the fly. People meet, socialize, possibly role play, then might engage in cyber sexual activity for which the Rift can add a deeper, more immersive experience. Presumably, some individuals can get close to a pretty NPC bot too. However, to date, attempts to get adult grids going in the Opensim worlds has not been greatly successful. Some have come and gone and most recently at least one Gay community opened </span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="http://virtualgaykingdom.de/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ffe599;">Virtual Gay Kingdom</span></a> and a femdom community, </span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.avalonia-estate.co.uk/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ffe599;">Avalonia Estate Grid</span></a><b> </b>where strong women dominate willing male slaves. There is also the moderately successful, <a href="http://www.worldoflittlefield.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ffe599;">Littlefield Grid</span></a> which started out in <a href="http://www.osgrid.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ffe599;">OSgrid</span></a> and the owner, Walter Balazic still has portal regions there. Littlefield is a BDSM community and stands as an example of development by getting involved with the wider Metaverse community. This is how you get more traffic and, while Second Life can and does provide a steady trickle of the curious which helps to swell the numbers, it would probably help a new adult grid to spend money on serious advertising on the net with targeted Google adds and advertising on the forums and social media that virtual worlds users tend to frequent.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Opensim is open source and so it is completely free to use but traffic will not come to your grid without you expend considerable effort in promotion and expense in advertising. But there are clear advantages in using Opensim and not just it's low cost. It is free from Linden Lab's Terms & Conditions which rule Second Life and has become increasingly restrictive. You set your own Terms or TOS and if you enable Hypergrid access the latest Opensim server code ensures avatars can travel from one grid to another with their full appearance. You will gain visitors and you don't even need to force everyone to registers. In fact, controlling registration while having open borders has special advantages in helping stop griefers.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Sex sells! That is well known and it
probably drives about 60% of Internet traffic. Oculus Rift looks like
adding an exciting new dimension to virtual worlds and video game
companies are getting seriously interested. Virtual worlds are well
placed to take advantage too and the cost is not that great. It is still
early days and the final production model is scheduled to go on sale in
the spring of 2014 so plenty of time to set up a grid and adapt
features suited to the use of the Rift, especially in the area of adult
entertainment.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NOIJ2XvYv-E/UiB3TVv0TCI/AAAAAAAADeg/pOEzHgMrCWM/s1600/stargate-5.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NOIJ2XvYv-E/UiB3TVv0TCI/AAAAAAAADeg/pOEzHgMrCWM/s1600/stargate-5.png" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><i><b>Into The Free Metaverse...</b></i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">If you are planning or contemplating setting up your own small world or full grid then look in on the Google Plus community, Opensim Virtual. There you can learn more about the free Metaverse and promote your grid free of charge. <span style="color: #ffe599;"><a href="https://plus.google.com/communities/116284417302234467612?partnerid=gplp0" target="_blank">Opensim Virtual</a></span> is a large community of Opensim users from across many grids and standalone worlds. They are a friendly bunch and very helpful to new comers. I set up Opensim Virtual at the end of 2012 in order to learn more about the Metaverse community and discover it's true extent. I must say, to my delight, Opensim Virtual has been very successful and presently the largest Opensim community on Google plus. Many grid owners promote their grids and tell us about events and role play they support. There is plenty of News to keep up on Merchants too tell us about their virtual wares. Some grid owners have their own G+ communities as well so we are developing across many grids which is in keeping with the whole idea of Hypergrid and a free Metaverse. Come join us. You'll be welcomed!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">See my top links for more pages of free textures, resources and vendors with both free and sale items on offer. Check out the <span style="color: #ffe599;"><a href="http://metaverse-traveller.blogspot.co.uk/p/grid-list.html" target="_blank">Metaverse</a></span> link to and search for grids and worlds of interest.</span><br />
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Talla Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125668800530203529noreply@blogger.com2