Second Life Greets Increasing Numbers of Mac Faithful

Second Life Greets Increasing Numbers of Mac Faithful
By ETHAN THERIAN

Second Life's profile in the Macintosh user community was boosted on June 17th, when it was featured by Peter Cohen, "Game Room" columnist for Macworld Magazine and MacCentral writer, on his weekly segment on popular Macintosh Internet radio show Your Mac Life.

Cohen declared the recent beta-test release of Second Life for the Mac OS X operating system as "really damn cool," and described Second Life as "a cross between the Sims and a Massively Multiplayer Online Game, but it’s not as lame as I make it sound."

Cohen went on to describe Second Life as an "attempt at creating a virtual civilization" and "virtual reality without some of the heady trappings... such as headsets or data gloves." Cohen claimed to have become familiar with the product during a tour given to the columnist by Phillip Rosedale (aka Phillip Linden).

The mention on Your Mac Life arguably marks an increase for the world’s profile in the Macintosh community. Your Mac Life, hosted and produced by Shawn King, boasts the highest listenership among broadcasts aimed at Macintosh enthusiasts, averaging around 1,700 to 2,000 listeners to the live show and 160,000 listens via the archive per month. These listener figures do not include subscriptions to the program purchased through online audiobook and programming distributor Audible.com, which offers the program as well.

Since announcing the preliminary beta-test version, marked version 1.2, in December of last year, there has been a steady increase in the presence of Macintosh users immigrating to the Second Life community. One indicator of this growth is the new Mac Lover group, founded by Phoenix Linden -- a development made possible both by the release of the Macintosh client, and the increasing number of residents who have come to the shores of Second Life via the Macintosh platform.

The increasing numbers of Macintosh users to Second Life, as well as Second Life’s mention in Your Mac Life, coincides with a large influx of new residents sparked by recent high-profile mentions on CNN, C-Net and Slashdot, as well as the announcement by online world There that the company would discontinue further development.

Second Life requires the Mac OS X "Panther" operating system for Macintosh. Apple currently claims a user base of 25 million people for the Macintosh platform, of which over 10 million users currently has OS X installed.

New Media Consortium (NMC) Campus

New Media Consortium (NMC) Campus

The New Media Consortium (NMC) Campus (SLurl) is the largest educational prescence in Second Life and supports events, classes, demonstrations, art exhibitions and learning experiences.The NMC Campus has hosted a number of speakers including Howard Rheingold, author of Smart Mobs, who talked about The Pedagogy of Civic Participation; Henry Jenkins, author of Convergence Culture, who talked about participatory culture and Daniel Reed, Vice Chancellor for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, who gave presentation on Computing the Future: The 3-D Net (PDF).Additionally, the NMC have hosted a number of real life conference session and associated events in Second Life, using streaming technologies to broadcast real life proceedings in-world. These have included the NYLC National Service-Learning Conference (with the support of Global Kids), the TCC Online Conference, HASTAC's (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory) Integration conference and the EDUCAUSE Focus Session on Immersive Learning Environments.NMC Teacher Buzz: The NMC also supports Teacher Buzz, a series of regular, informal discussion sessions for practicing teachers using Second Life, and those interested in developing strategies for using Second Life in teaching and learning. Recent Teacher Buzz sessions have included Digital Storytelling in Second Life, Composing Second Life and Immersion in Virtual Morocco. Read transcripts of Teacher Buzz sessions on the NMC Wiki or reports on Teacher Buzz activities via the NMC Campus Blog.(Note: To visit the NMC Campus you will need to join the NMC Campus Guests Group in Second Life. This will allow you to teleport to their sim. See the Second Life Knowledge Base for further information on joining Groups.)

Second Life Writing: ENG104 at Ball State University

Second Life Writing: ENG104 at Ball State University
Sarah Robbins (Intellagirl Tully in Second Life) of Ball State University used Second Life to teach an English class focussed on writing for academic research in 2006. The course was a hybrid course with at least half of the class time spent online, based at Middletown (SLurl), which is sponsored by Ball State's Center for Media Design Educational Environments. Visitors were welcome to observe the class.English 104 applied the fundamentals of rhetoric to the research process, introducing students to methods of research. The many communities of Second Life provided students with rich opportunites for observation, research and interaction with other cultures, as well as many interview subjects for use in their writing.Read more in the article Ball State students immersed in virtual world to study cultures or on the class website ENG104 in Second Life.

Dear Avi:

Dear Avi:
Got a nagging question about building, scripting or clothes designing? Not sure how to handle that prickly situation with your neighbor? Or maybe that special Avatar unceremoniously dumped you and you just want to vent? Whether rant or rave, question, answer, advice, comment or just a simple “hello,” Avi wants to hear from you! Just send in your query to SecondLife Magazine, addressed to her column, Dear Avi at dearavisl@yahoo.com and you are sure to get a response. Feel free to send your name or be anonymous if you wish. Look forwards to hearing from you all soon!

Distance and Flexible Education

Distance and Flexible Education
Second Life provides an excellent platform for flexible delivery and online education. Students and facilitators can come together in-world to share information and resources via slides, audio and video, engaging in discussions, presentations, group projects and explorations.
Cyber One: Law in the Court of Public OpinionHarvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society presents a course on the creation and delivery of persuasive argument in the new integrated media space constituted by the Internet and other new technologies. The course uses Web 2.0 tools such as wikis and blogs and extension students meet in Second Life on Berkman Island (SLurl).The class has held mock trials in-world, including one based on the real life situation of Josh Wolf who was jailed for refusing to turn over videotapes he recorded during a street demonstration. (Watch a YouTube video about the mock trial).Watch the course introduction on the YouTube video - Harvard Extension School in Second Life, or a tour of the Harvard Extension School in Second Life on blip.tv or get more information on the website - CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion.

Free Swedish lessons

Free Swedish lessons:
October 12th, 2007 · 7 Comments

Join us at the auditorium of Second House of Sweden for free Swedish lessons on October 22 and November 5 — at 4pm Stockholm time.
Instructor Kvint Larsson will use voice chat technology and a live video stream to take you through basic conversational Swedish. There will also be an opportunity to ask questions about the Swedish language. The lessons take about an hour.
October 22’s lessons will take place at 7am Second Life time (4pm Stockholm time). November 5’s lessons will take place at 8am SL time (4pm Stockholm time), because daylight savings time will have ended in Sweden by then. Please calculate your local time accordingly.
Directions to Second House of Sweden: Second Life is not a physical place but a virtual 3D world that is accessed using a special viewer that you can download. Once logged into Second Life, you can travel to Second House of Sweden, which is on the “Swedish Institute” island. The lessons take place at the auditorium, near the main building.
To get started in Second Life, get a free account and download the software here. The first time you log in you will land at a special training area near the Second House of Sweden. Expect to spend around half an hour downloading the application and learning to use Second Life, so be sure give yourself enough time before the lessons begin.
To hear the teacher, you will need to turn on voice chat. You can do this in the preferences window of the Second Life viewer. You also need to have Quicktime installed in order to see the streaming video. If you have iTunes installed you have Quicktime installed. Otherwise, you can download it here.

Somewhere over the Second Life rainbow

Somewhere over the Second Life rainbow
By QUINN BUKOWSKI


If ever, oh ever, a wiz there was, then Baccara Rhodes, Fey Brightwillow and their merry band of mighty munchkins are it.



On Sunday at 7:00 PM sharp, Spellbound Events hosted the last of the Wizard of OZ themed events. The OZ build is an amazing and wonderful spin on the Wizard of OZ books and movie and is hosted on Evie Fairchild's private Caymen.

If you haven't gotten to OZ, you might want to call a friend who has and ask if they took pictures, because this was the last hooray for the Emerald Palace and Yellow Brick Road. As of the writing of this article, OZ was scheduled to be de-res'd by the end of day Tuesday, July 21. The event, which was widely advertised as Baccara's Rhodes thank you to Second Life for her one-year anniversary, took four months of planning, the combined efforts of more than 10 of SecondLife's most talented builders and scriptors and an incredible eye for detail that comes from a level of passion not easy to found in Second Life or the real world.

I had the honor of accompanying the charming and mysterious debutant; Ms. Olympia Rebus, to OZ (Cayman 37, 37) for “ask the wizard.” This being my fourth trip to Oz -- the first of which ended with me stuck in a Munchkin avatar while trying (unsuccessfully) to make time with Glinda, the good witch of the north -- I settled into the arched stone bench directly behind Ms. Rebus without the typical tourist gaze around my amazing surroundings.

Panthar Orlowski and friends did a credible job reenacting the wizard’s wish-granting scene.

The evening included an unbelievable demonstraition of generosity on the part of Baccara, Fairchild, Orlowski, Brightwillow and many others who granted a string of wishes that included everything from money to love and land.

I spoke with Baccara Rhodes and Spellbound’s chief scriptor, Panthar Orlowski about the OZ build.

QB: How is OZ different from other events that you have done?

Baccara Rhodes: the difference with Oz is that is was more interactive and had a level of detail that I don’t think is seen often. There were things to do and we held events.

Panthar Orlowski: Yes, this was really a combination of builds and events.

DQ: Yes I agree I was really blown away by the level of detail in the and interactive capabilities the build offered.

Baccara Rhodes: Quinn let me say something about Spellbound if I may. We work totally together, No tiffs, no prima donnas. Fey Brightwillow and I are partners. People always see me as the public face but without Fey I am nothing. This has been such a partnership. We only get stronger."



People always see me as the public face but without Fey I am nothing. This has been such a partnership. We only get stronger.


Did you miss OZ? or love it so much you would love to do it again? You can, Spellbound and company will re-res the whole kitten kabootal .. for a mere $500,000L ... The cost of the actual development of this version was secret. Sources put it at almost twice their asking event price.

VAT rule shifts land

VAT rule shifts land ownership away from EuropeansMon
Oct 8, 2007 1:10pm PDT
By Eric Reuters
Linden Lab CFO John Zdanowski (aka Zee Linden) shared new details on Monday about Value Added Tax (VAT) for Second Life customers residing in the European Union.
“We can’t really pick and choose which laws we want to comply with and which we don’t,” Zdanowski said at the opening of the hour-long presentation, held at the intersection of several sims to maximize avatar capacity. Although the talk was interrupted by frequent failures of Second Life’s voice feature, Zee pledged to respond to in-world instant messages asking questions about the tax.
Zdanowski acknowledged that VAT could send ripples through Second Life’s fragile economy. “It might drive people who own land now to rent land from people who don’t have to pay VAT,” he said. “There may be a reconfiguration of ownership.”
Brazil Comet, a land baron based out of Athens, Greece, is calling it quits. “I’m cashing out and reducing my land holdings to zero by the end of my tier,” said Comet, who declined to give his real-life name. “The land business is not for Europeans anymore.”
Comet and other Greek citizens pay a 19 percent VAT on Second Life fees. He’s already cut back his holdings from 20 sims to 7 since the announcement.
Pablo Cartier (Second Life: Pablo Sienkiewicz) of Madrid, Spain, had 65,000 m2 of mainland, an island, and a company listed on the World Stock Exchange. He’s sold off all of his mainland holdings and downgraded his account from premium to free. “Will you buy from me 16 percent more expensive or someone that has the exact product 16 percent cheaper?”
But neither Cartier nor Comet plan on leaving Second Life altogether. Cartier hopes he can run his business on just his island, and Comet is looking for new business opportunities.
While large European businesses downscale, some smaller EU-based operations, although unhappy about VAT, say it won’t affect them much. “It depends on how much land they own,” said Welody Lyne, an avatar from the south of France. “For someone who just has 1024 square meters for US$10 a month, adding 19.6 percent isn’t too much.”