Avatar: The film, the idea and the word
James Cameron’s new film, Avatar, teaches us nothing about avatars.
Why? Well, let’s take a step back and look at the basic idea that already exists.
Most people are members of one of the 20 or so major religions, pretty much all of which have the concept of the avatar in common. Throughout religious philosophy and doctrine, [...]
Alter Ego on SBS, and thoughts on vocabulary, identity, truth and perspective
So, here I am, watching the Alter Ego documentary on SBS. Indeed, it is still running at the time I am writing this. I’m not really quite sure what I expected. Not the usual sense of regretful chagrin that I’d expect at a documentary on Second Life, because Writer/Director Shelley Matulick is basically a good [...]
Surfing the virtual world hype
Riding the hype wave of a new technology with a “world-first” isn’t exactly unusual. We’ve seen this a lot with Second Life, right?
But there’s actually other, more interesting lessons to be learned.
Firstly, the newspapers and magazines don’t really check if you’re first, so if you want you can just copy what someone else is doing. [...]
Linden Lab launches Second Life Enterprise beta today
Linden Lab will announce today that their second “work offering”, Second Life Enterprise, is entering an open beta period, prior to release. The preliminary beta for the Second Life Enterprise has been running since April this year; the open beta program will run through Q4 this year, and general availability will be announced during [...]
Class action lawsuit leveled against Second Life’s Linden Lab
Kevin Alderman’s Eros LLC, a Florida company devoted to mature content which started operating in Second Life way back when, has been the star attraction before. Alderman, also known as Stroker Serpentine in Second Life, has been well-known for his successful, adult business ventures, as well as two successful legal actions for virtual environment based [...]
Book Review: Dark Siren
Australian author Clifford Wycliffe’s new novel, Dark Siren, has an undeniably provocative cover. Coupled with quotes from Lord Byron and David Vaile, the Executive Director of the Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre at UNSW Sydney, Australia, I approached this virtual world novel with some trepidation.
The action commences with the attempted apprehension, in Sydney, of [...]
HTTP-in: a worthy addition to Second Life communications
Since HTTP-in was deployed in the recent Second Life server update, I’ve had a chance to bend, fold, spindle and mutilate it extensively. Essentially to use and misuse it in pretty much every way I could think of. And you know what? It’s nice, but it isn’t that big a deal.
HTTP-in allows an external application [...]
