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It seems like we just finished Burning Life 2009 and Halloween in Second Life but already it is time for Winterfest.
This means snowball fights, snowman building contests, ice skating, and Christmas decorations. And of course the Winterfest Spotlight is taking submissions. The deadline for sellers of virtual items is November 11, 2009 at 12:00 pm PST.
What are your plans for a Second Life Christmas?
The below video is a mixed reality bike chase. The rider is located in Second Life on a virtual bike but it is put on top of footage of Paris.
It is waay too long at 8 minutes but check it out below.
Below is a two part high definition video tutorial on creating Second Life sculpted prims using 3d Studio Max and the prim composer plugin. The two videos are ten minutes long each for a total of 20 minutes.
Check it out below.
The below high definition video is a tutorial of using communication in the virtual world of Second Life. Local chat and other communication methods in Second Life are covered.
The video is about 4.5 minutes long. Check it out below.
Linden Lab released the 3rd quarter virtual economy statistics. Highlights include a 54% increase in total transactions, and an increase of 27% in voice usage. Total user hours and peak concurrency was down. Linden Lab attributed this to a crackdown on bot usage. Trading volume on the LindeX was flat.
New aquisition Xstreet SL reached an all time high gross sale of $1.6 million USD which is a 13% increase.
Median concurrent users is down from 61,000 to 54,000 but a high point of 77,367 was reached.
International usage of Second Life continues to increase with the United States of America now accounting for only 37% of user transactions and 41% of user hours.
Stability and downtime have been holding steady.
Read more here.
There is a huge benefit to virtual meetings and 3d training. But even I was surprised to learn that the secure Second Life Enterprise version costs an astonishing $55,000. Of course this does include the hardware (two 1RU rack-mount servers) but the price seemed a bit of a shock given it can be obtained at a much lower cost in Second Life or even in OpenSim.
The Second Life Enterprise version was tested by 14 companies along with the Second Life Work Marketplace which is an app store. The Enterprise version should be available for sale in March with beta testing continuing till then.
Here is a list of some of the features included:
1. Two 1RU Rack-Mount Servers
2. Secure behind firewall
3. 3d modeling tools
4. 3d Browser client
5. 7 Virtual regions including conference centers, auditorium, sandbox areas, etc
6. Set of Business avatars
7. Import from main Second Life environment
8. Use real life names
9. Support up to 8 regions and 800 concurrent users
Read the press release here
Bettina Tizzy is shutting down the Not Possible in Real Life blog after almost 3 years (the Not Possible IRL blog was started on July 4, 2007). This blog covered Second Life and other 3d virtual worlds and focused mainly on art, fashion, architecuture and content in the virtual world.
Goodbye to the NPIRL blog and Bettina Tizzy. Good thing SecondLifeUpdate.com is here to stay.
Read her farewell post here.
Some people just know how to say goodbye in style. The below video was created by LuBu Jinx in the virtual world of Second Life.
The high definition video is about 5 minutes long. Check it out below.
Griefers can certainly be bothersome and tarnish the fun. But if you know how to deal with different griefer attacks you can easily deal with and ignore them.
The below video tutorials show different ways to combat griefer attacks in Second Life. You may also want to check out the Core Strength Anti-Griefing Tool.
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Below is a video trailer for the Machinima Expo 2009. The Machinima Expo takes place on November 22, 2009. A five person jury reviewed 153 films and selected 17 finalists. There will be 1 jury grand prize, 4 other jury prizes, and 1 Asian jury prize.
Watch the trailer below.
View the finalists here
