VAT rule shifts land

VAT rule shifts land ownership away from Europeans

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.”

Twist and Shout: Version 1.5 is Here

Twist and Shout: Version 1.5 is Here
By ROXIE MARTEN


Second Life 1.5 has hit the world. Fraught with problems and a bugs it has slowly wobbled unto it’s own two feet.

The new version was plagued by frequent crashes, teleportation problems and dragging lag. Two upgrades later, it now runs more smoothly.

"Never thought being able to teleport was a big deal until it didn't work. It was like loosing a limb or something," Noonian Bard said.

Others said the new version rendered some previously created items unusable

Cubey Terra of Abbots Aerodrome said a feature involving using the cursor to make items rez faster caused some problems with the vendors some merchants used.

"For some reason they changed how mouse clicks work with transparency," he said. "That broke my vendor which uses a transparent surface between the buyer and the vendor model."

"To buy something from my vendor, the buyer would right-click the transparent surface and "Pay". But now When you right-click, it selects the model inside, which doesn't do anything"

Though many have complained about v1.5 and it’s faults, others, like Jamie Oits of The Learning Center, are less concerned.

"I really feel for the Lindens right now. It’s like having a new born baby with teething problems," he said.

From its shaky start, v1.5 has already evolved. It offers some noticeable improvements from v1.4.

New building features may stand out as an improvement to many. The latest version offers more ways to edit a primative and improves other editing features.

Prims may now be twisted a full 360 degrees in either direction.

"Torus is going to be on crack now," said Linden Lab programmer Don Linden.

On top of that a new prim has been added called circle.

Another new feature is "Live Help" from the menu bar. Clicking on it puts you in touch with real-time help for your problem. The Live Help line is staffed by Second Life residents culled from the mentors pool along with other residents who have been in world at least 90 days and have a clean record with the Lindens.

For more information about being a Live Help staffer http://secondlife.com/livehelp.

If you’re landless, a new feature in the Find tool is for you. It will allow you browse for affordable land that is available to anyone who has not owned land before. This replaces the current land for the landless program.

As in the past, parcels of 512 square meters may be bought for 150L.

With new features added some features have left. No more will the Lindens announce events. In it’s place the events calendar has added a notify feature. You may now select which events you want to know about. When the time for the event arrives, it will offer you the ability to teleport to that event.

Private island owners now can sell or transfer their island to another user for a 100L fee. The fee covers costs incurred by the Linden Labs to make the ownership change.

Private island owners also have more expanded controls on their island.

Use of Second Life for education

Introduction
The unique qualities of a 3D virtual worlds can provide opportunities for rich sensory immersive experiences, authentic contexts and activities for experiential learning, simulation and role-play, modelling of complex scenarios, a platform for data visualisation and opportunities for collaboration and co-creation that can not be easily experienced using other platforms.Second Life is completely user-generated 3D environment that comes with relatively easy-to-use building and scripting tools that anyone can learn. This makes it an ideal platform for engaging students in creating their own learning activities, experiences and environments, and not just be passive consumers of learning.



About this ResourcePLEASE NOTE: this resource is under development.This is an overview of some of ways Second Life can be used, and in some cases, has been used for educational purposes. See Further Resources at the bottom of this page for links to more examples and other resources.We have interpreted the term 'education' very liberally, since, like in real life, learning can occur when 'education' isn't deliberately happening. We see all of Second Life itself as a learning environment. Also, many of the projects listed are not educational projects per se... but point to ways that Second Life can be used in education.
Have a Suggestion?If you have a project or use of Second Life for education you think we should add, please email it to joannamkay@gmail.com for consideration.And keep coming back... this is a work in progress and we will keep adding new uses and examples as we find them (and as people develop better projects!).

Second Life Client software goes Open Source (1)

Now, what does this mean? Several things:

If they are open sourcing the Client, that means that anyone can see the entire communication system between the servers and the end computer. Expect that copybot in now not only possible, but impossible to really ever put an end to again effectively. I'm not saying the sky is falling, but I AM saying the market of SL is going to have to change and adapt.

We are going to see a LOT of bug fixes, and at first it's going to be uncoordinated and cross purpose. Don't worry. within a few weeks, a group will get together and start organizing the bugfixes and additions to the client aggressively.

Expect the Server software to follow suit, but probably not immediately. Keep in mind, running second life servers will never be as cheap as running a web server. The bandwidth is much higher, and you HAVE to have a dedicated server for it. Instant $99 minimum a month, if you get the worst/cheapest server you can find.

As it is, hacking attacks are going to get really bad soon, but LL will have a lot of time to work on the server software to harden it against the jokers...

Second Life Client software goes Open Source

Here it is, as written direct from the linden's mouths':

Quote
Also detailed on our blog:
http://blog.secondlife.comLinden Lab To Open Source Second Life Software

Creator of Leading 3D Virtual World Releases Source Code To Viewer Software

San Francisco, CA – January 8, 2007 – Linden Lab®, creator of 3D virtual world Second Life® (www.secondlife.com), is releasing the code of its Viewer application to the open source software development community. Developers can now access the source code to the Second Life end-user software in order to make modifications, enhancements and to add new features. The move marks Linden Lab’s continued commitment to building the Second Life Grid as an open, extensible platform for development, rather than a closed proprietary system.

The Second Life Viewer is used by subscribers or ‘Residents’ to access the virtual world’s Grid. Freely-downloadable from the Second Life website, the Viewer software enables Residents to control their in-world avatars, interact with each other via Instant Message, create content, buy and sell objects, access multimedia content and to navigate around the virtual environment. The source code for the sophisticated client software will now be made available to developers who wish to extend and enhance its functionality.

“We feel we have a responsibility to improve and to grow Second Life as rapidly as possible,” said Philip Rosedale, CEO and founder of Linden Lab. “We were the first virtual world to enable content creators to own the rights to the Intellectual Property they create. That sparked exponential growth in the richness of the Second Life environment. Now we’re placing the Viewer’s development into the hands of Residents and developers as well. This extends the control Residents can have over the Second Life experience and allows a worldwide community to examine, validate and improve the software’s sophisticationand capabilities.”




“Open sourcing is the most important decision we’ve made in seven years of Second Life development. While it is clearly a bold step for us to proactively decide to open source our code, it is entirely in keeping with the community-creation approach of Second Life,” said Cory Ondrejka, CTO of Linden Lab. “Second Life has the most creative and talented group of users ever assembled and it is time to allow them to contribute to the Viewer’s development. We will still continue Viewer development ourselves, but now the community can add its contributions, insights, and experiences as well. We don’t know exactly which projects will emerge - but this is part of the vibrancy that makes Second Lifeso compelling.”

Linden Lab intends to incorporate certain code changes and enhancements into the official version of the Second Life Viewer, which will only be available from the Second Life website. All code developed outside Linden Lab’s in-house engineering team will be thoroughly reviewed to ensure quality standards, stability and security. Support will continue to be given for the official version of the Viewer only, with third party projects unsupported by Linden Lab.

Initial projects may include: bug fixes; improvements to compatibility with less common hardware configurations; support for additional multimedia types; User Interface changes; and potentially new look and feel ‘skins’ for the Viewer itself. Timeframes for these enhancements will vary depending on the scale of the project and project team.The source code and additional information will be available from Second Life’s website at http://secondlife.com/developers/opensource.

Like a Version

Like a Version
Second Life v1.4 hits the scene, and Second Life may never be the same
By CALIANDRIS PENDRAGON

Second Life version 1.4, with instant inventory, streaming music and custom animations, has arrived in-world. Gone are the days of stuttering music struggling to load and dancing to silence. We are now in a world where anything, quite literally anything, is possible.

Within two days of its June 15 release, inventive Second Lifers made animations for lap dancing, symptoms of demonic possession and various bedroom sports.

However, some Second Lifers hint there is still room for improvement.

"I love the new animations. They bring a whole new dimension to SL, which was badly needed. On the down side though – boy, is it laggy," Cailyn Miller said.

The updated version will also change the way some common activities take place in Second Life. For example, many Second Lifers enjoyed group dancing with the aid of Kris Ritter’s Dance-o-matic machines.

How will the advent of 1.4 affect the machine?

"It will break it," said Ritter. "It will work fine as it is now, but it can’t be easily adapted for custom anims the way the Lindens have implemented it. I’ve posted a feature suggestion that would help me, but don’t know if they’ll listen. Until they do, it can’t really be done very practically."

Despite this, Ritter was enthusiastic about the changes in 1.4. "Yeah - custom anims are cool!" she said, "and I like the streaming sound thing, too. I can play my songs to my friends now."

There were mixed reviews from residents after a couple of days. "It’s much more fun than 1.3, and generally more stable," Strife Onizuka said.

Ratt Foo thought 1.4 may have been released too early: "It’s buggy. The ideas are good but it’s not ready," he said.

Others didn’t mind the occasional programming flaw.



"Sure there are bugs, but I’ve been here since 1.1. This is nothing. Besides, it’s well worth it for the benefit of having custom animations and streaming audio."


"I think overall it’s a phenomenal thing for Second Life," said Higbee Protagonist. "Sure there are bugs, but I’ve been here since 1.1. This is nothing. Besides, it’s well worth it for the benefit of having custom animations and streaming audio."





Anshe Chung demostrates a yoga position (above) and a stretch (below).





Higbee provides a guide to setting up the streaming audio on the forum. To some, the process seems a long-winded and time-consuming business, especially if they lack a static IP address. There are suggestions for simple ways of getting streaming music on the forum too.

Before 1.4, the main way of getting live music in-world was to employ a DJ using the Live Internet radio stations. Sukkubus Phaeton, one of the DJs in-world, said that she didn’t think it would affect her business too much.

"I don’t think it will be a problem," she said. "People like dedications and announced events still. I love 1.4."

Phaeton continued, "It’s made me enjoy Second Life even more and animations are addicting, the streaming music is fantastic, and I love flying around and hearing different types of music. They just need to work out the bugs ... but this has been the best online virtual world I’ve ever seen and will only get better."

Hank Ramos, an instructor at Second Life University, said he hadn’t been online enough to know the full extent of the changes in 1.4. So far, he was impressed with the speed of inventory load.

Some changes will take a while to understand fully, like the introduction of XML-RPC, which allows data and commands to be sent back and forth between things in-world and external computers.

The impact of the new profile option, which allows Second Life couples to make their relationships "official," also remains to be seen. As people already hold engagement and wedding parties, this may be just a formality.

Finally, 1.4 has brought changes to the building tools. New tools make it more difficult to swivel a prim in a wobbly way and much easier to see turn an object through multiples of 90 degrees. Builders now need to adjust their movements to 1-360 degree movement, rather than -180 to 180.

Most users asked said it is an exciting time to be in Second Life. The explosion of animations has made users anticipation of the changes they will bring. Sound has also burst forth into the world, tempered by the possibility of keeping noise to land borders.

Three mini-updates after the introduction of 1.4, there already appears to be more stability and fewer bugs. The possibilities could be endless.

Information on the update can be found at http://secondlife.com/download/guides.php

Leo Burnett is open! Now you can see what we've been up to!

Aye. Foolish has been quiet and well hidden. There WAS a reason for it, though:

A few months back, Kathleen Millionsofus came to me and asked if I would be willing to work with them to recreate a new version of the original Sim-Tree that was in Techra.

Well, I thought about it, and after a long 1.3 seconds, said "Oh HELL yes!" after i could get my mouth to start working again. I grabbed Botany Black, and we began on an adventure of building and fun that lasted over two months.

Now, the work is done, and the Sim is open. and I can show off with Kat's blessing.

I would like to point out that This was not MY project. It was a group project managed by MillionsOfUs, and worked on with a lot of new friends. Versu MOU and My MOU are two of the others who worked hard to make the Leo Burnett Sim a visual wonder.

You can find the Sim by typing "Leo Burnett" into the map and searching.

And as promised, images from the sim:

Lifer for life

Lifer for life
DIANNA Fredericks wins a lifetime membership

By LORELEI PATEL

DIANNA Fredericks has only been in Second Life for a short while, but she thinks she'll stay here a long time.

That's because Fredericks, a recent arrival from There, recently won a lifetime membership to Second Life.

The winnings include an allotment of 4,096 square meters of land. What does she plan to do with all that space?

"Have fun, what else?" she said, standing outside the Black Thong Mistresses clubhouse she created.

Fredericks found her way to Second Life after the infamous "failure to support" letter appeared on There. In it, There's owners said they wouldn't turn away members, but they wouldn't develop new features for them, either.

"I was mad as hell at there for doing what they did to us," Fredericks said.

So, she came to Second Life to start over.

Some parts of her new world took getting used to, but Fredericks quickly found her footing. She said she misses the voice enhancement available on There.

Fredericks also invited her There friends to come here. Each time a referral was accepted, Fredericks got entries in the Second Life lifetime membership contest. In the end, her name was selected at random from among the entries.

Unfortunately, Fredericks won just a few days after she paid for a year-long membership.

Fredericks said she might use the extra land allowance to build on Black Thong Mistresses, a leather-themed nightclub she and her friends created.

Don't let the dungeon scare you; Fredericks says the place is open to all.

"Fun, open-minded and great friends," is how Fredericks' friend, midnight Fredericks, describes the place. "It's just a great place to hang out.

Voice in SecondLife?

Voice in SecondLife?
Well, as seen in the Linden Blog at http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/02/27/bringing-voice-to-second-life/, seems that a voice chat system will be being built into the SL client. I myself have a few questions about this:
Will this inclusion complicate the open sourcecode model that Linden Lab has chosen for itself?What effect will this have on the fact that a significant percentage of SL residents have cross-gender avatars?
Will we start to see 'voice discrimination' in SecondLife?
The last needs a bit of explanation: What I mean is, will the sound of people's voices cause people to categorize them? The idea of a man playing a female is one version of this, but what about people with voices that don't carry into 'character'? A huge robot warrior that sounds like a perky young woman just does not bring forward the same image as it did when just using text chat.
Also, what about those who choose NOT to use voice? Will they be discriminated against as well? Will we begin to see clubs that say "Voice Only", or even "Text Only"?
Do we really care?
Not really. The fact is, none of it matters. It's a new technology. If you don't want to use it, nobody can make you. If a club tried to say "X Only", I can PROMISE you that they will only be hurting themselves, since the other side will just take their money elsewhere. People who claim "You don't voice! You must have something to hide!" will suddenly find themselves outed as a bigot.
So, my opinion? Just let it happen, and use it or ignore it as you like. It's really not anything more than another step in the evolution of SL.
And for the record, I would NEVER use anything other than voice for long technical explanations. I script, you see, and do quite enough technical writing as it is. I'm lazy that way.

BREAKING NEWS: Protesting the Linden Balloons

BREAKING NEWS: Protesting the Linden Balloons
By ETHAN THEREIAN


Hank Ramos, balloonist and resident since November of 2003, held a one-man protest in the Mainland Welcome Center at Ahern.

Ramos, who is well-known for building and flying balloons, protested because the Linden Balloon, designed to give tours to newly arrived residents, had not been functioning for some time. Ramos said the space where the unused balloon sits could be used by himself or
others to give balloon tours to "newbies" from an official, easy-to-reach spot.

"I'm fighting to bring something good to the newbie experience... to allow residents to give newbie tours." said Ramos, "In time honored fashon, like it used to be -- like we did when there was a huge influx of newbies. The Linden balloon just sits there most of
the time, doing nothing."

'The Infinite Mind' in Second Life - Through the Looking Glass

'The Infinite Mind' in Second Life - Through the Looking Glass
The Infinite Mind is a US-based weekly public radio program which covers a range of topics including the art and science of the human mind and spirit, behaviour and mental health. In October 2006, they produced and broadcast the first ever real life radio shows from a virtual world.Titled Through the Looking Glass, the 4 part series included radio/in-world presentations on Virtual Communities, Virtual Culture, Virtual Music and The Transmission of Experience. Each of the shows were taped (in-part) in Second Life in front of a live virtual audience at the Infinite Minds' Virtual Broadcasting Center (SLurl), which includes functioning recording studios, listening and screening rooms and an amphitheater where broadcasts were taped.Watch John Maeda in Second Life with The Infinite Mind (Part 1), watch The Infinite Mind & Suzanne Vega, or watch a video of author Kurt Vonnegut's appearance.