The 2026 Second Life Hair Fair opened on Saturday, May 30th and runs through until Sunday, June 14th, 2026. As with previous years, it is being run to raise money for Wigs for Kids, with every purchase seeing a percentage donated to the cause while the Bandana booths and Donation kiosks donating 100% of all proceeds received.
As with recent years, the event takes place across six regions, appropriately called Blonde, Brunette, Foils, Noirette, Redhead and Streaks, all laid out in a loop around a central boulevard. So, no matter where you arrive or whether you head left or right, you can easily pass through all of the regions and pass all of the stores. The landing zones for the regions are located at either end of the the loop (Blonde & Streaks; Foils & Niorette), and towards the middle of the boulevard for Brunette and Redhead.
If walking isn’t your thing, signs along the boulevard allow you to rez and ride a “prim bus”: just click to rez, sit to ride and hop off when you see something of interest.
Hair Fair 2026As is usual for Hair Fair, the shopping regions are lightly decorated in order to minimise viewer-side lag that might otherwise be created by having a significant amount of extra object and texture rendering. The list of participating merchants can be found on the Hair Fair website, while for those who may not find something they wish to purchase, donation kiosks are available to help support Wigs for Kids, or there are the Bandana Booths mentioned above.
SecondLifeTime Premium and SecondLifeTime Premium Plus Membership Auction
Linden Lab has donated one SecondLifeTime Premium membership and one SecondLifeTime Premium Plus membership to Hair Fair 2026. These memberships are just that: lifetime access to all the benefits of the Premium or Premium Plus subscription tier for life – without any recurring subscription fees!
These two membership options are being auctioned across the duration of the 2026 Hair Fair event. To bid:
Make sure you read the auction notes in full and select the correct board.
100% of the proceeds of the auction will go to Wigs for Kids.
Hair Fair 2026 – SecondLifeTime Auctions
About Wigs for Kids
For more than forty years Wigs for Kids has been providing hair replacement systems and support for children who have lost their hair due to chemotherapy, radiation therapy, Alopecia, Trichotillomania, burns and other medical issues at no cost to children or their families. The effects of hair loss go deeper than just a change in a child’s outward appearance. Hair loss can erode a child’s self-confidence and limit them from experiencing life the way children should. With an injured self-image, a child’s attitude toward treatment and their physical response to it can be negatively affected also.
Wigs for Kids helps children suffering with hair loss look themselves and live their lives. Families are never charged for the hair replacements provided for their children; Wigs for Kids rely completely on both the donation of hair and / or money to help meet their goals.
On Monday, June 1st 2026 (SLT), Firestorm released version 7.2.4.80712 of their viewer.
This release brings Firestorm into line with most of the recent releases of the official Second Life viewer (SLV) up to and including release 26.1.0, with additional cherry-picked updates from upstream.
Note that the following is not a complete review of the 7.2.4 release and all the changes made therein; it focuses on the more visible and user-facing updates. Those requiring a list of all changes and updates, including all bug fixes, etc, should refer to the Firestorm 7.2.4 release changelog, which also provides all proper credits for the work.
Only download Firestorm from the Firestorm website. Do not utilise any other third-party site purporting to offer the Firestorm viewer, and remember Firestorm will never ask for log-in credentials in order to download a release version of their viewer.
There is no need to perform a clean install with this release if you do not wish to.
Do, however, make sure you back-up all your settings safely so you can restore them after installing 7.2.4.
Linden Lab Updates
This release brings Firestorm to full parity with the following recent official viewer releases from Linden Lab.
The ability to hide transparent reflection probes via Build Menu → Options → Highlight Transparent Probes or pressing ALT-SHIFT-T.
Quality of Life improvements:
Gestures (Comm Menu → Gestures or CTRL-G): now includes a sortable “Status” column. Click the leftmost column to move all active gestures to the top of the list.
New Gestures ordering column will re-order gestures for either active to top or inactive to top (requires Firestorm’s Show Active Only at the bottom of the floater to be disabled)
Camera controls have multiple improvements, including better aspect-ratio handling and a shortcut for panning the camera downward.
Improved outfit list performance, especially for larger wardrobes.
Restored support for avatar cloth: Developer Menu → Rendering → Render Animated Avatar System Cloth.
Bug fixes.
Elements already offered by Firestorm:
Re-implementation of Legacy Search, added to the World menu (Firestorm has been utilising a Legacy Search capability, however please read Search-Related Updates / Improvements, below).
Ability to search the Resident Chooser using Agent ID (agent key).
Ability to save Snapshot to Inventory at 1024×1024 as a selectable resolution.
Viewer 26.1.1 – Special Note
The Second Life viewer release 26.1.1.23806384790 (April 2026) implemented a new one-click installer feature for the official viewer.
Firestorm is not implementing this feature, so nothing from this release is relevant to Firestorm users.
Fixed WebRTC voice being muted after quickly toggling the Speak button – Github issue.
Fixed incoming WebRTC voice audio being disrupted after editing audio settings – Github issue.
Fixed voice-disabled parcel does not immediately transmit audio after joining a p2p call – Github issue.
Fixed P2P text chat timeout on WebRTC regions and delay voice renegotiation on disconnect – Github issue.
General fixes:
Fixed “Quick Jump” sometimes being enabled when it shouldn’t be (due to race conditions with AGENT_CONTROL_FINISH_ANIM when chaining jumps). This corrects a issue for the Ponygirl community, where use of Quick Jump is usually banned; see FIRE-34049.
Fixed alpha debug overlay blend and mask conflict – see FIRE-36474.
Fixed PBR materials with alpha mode BLEND and alpha value of 0 are not highlighted – see FIRE-36363.
Fixed the default save location on Mac is the Resources file of the current viewer – see FIRE-36609.
New Features for 7.2.4
Avatar Alignment and Facing Tools
To facilitate better alignment for facing other avatars for things like hugs and kisses – or simply as a courtesy when chatting – or for fine-tuning facing a specific direction, Firestorm 7.2.4 implements new tools and avatar alignment / facing options.
Avatar Alignment Compass:
Accessed via a new toolbar button.
Provides options for turning your avatar and facing specific directions (per the diagram below).
The Avatar Compass for aligning your avatar to a given point (or nearest avatar), and the toolbar button used to access the Compass
Face Nearest Avatar toolbar button
Face Nearest Avatar: a new toolbar button which will turn your avatar to face the nearest avatar to you within 20 metres. This is supported by the following Face Towards Avatar option found on the following menus / floaters (avatars must be within 20 metres):
Context / Pie menus: when right-clicking on a nearby avatar.
People floater: when right-clicking on the name of an avatar.
Radar avatar list: when right-clicking on the name of an avatar.
Minimap or Radar minimap: when right-clicking on the green dot for that avatar.
General Notes when trying to align your avatar with another for hugs, etc:
One person right-clicks on the other avatar and selects Face Towards Avatar.
The other person does the same to get both avatars initially aligned.
The first person right-clicks on the other avatar again and selects Face Towards Avatar to fine-tune alignment.
Region-Based Group Activation
Allows you to set a Group to become automatically active when entering a region.
Accessed via the Groups panel (Comm Menu → Groups or CTRL-SHIFT-G).
To set a Group to become active for a region whilst physically within the region:
Open the Groups panel in your viewer and click on the Group Titles button to display the Group Tiles floater.
Click on the required Group name in the Group Tiles floater to highlight it.
Click the This Region button.
To set a Group to become active in a region when not in said region:
Follow steps 1 and 2 above.
Click on the Type Region button.
Enter the exact region name in the pop-up prompt, and click OK to apply.
Setting a Group to become active on entering a region. 1) From the Groups panel (CTRL-SHIFT-G), click Group Titles to open the Groups floater. s) In the Groups floater click a Group name to highlight it. 3) If you are within the region in which the Group is to be active, click This Region; if you are elsewhere in SL, click Type Region and enter the region name at the prompt, then click OK
To remove Group selection when visiting a region:
Open the Groups panel in your viewer and click on the Group Titles button to display the Group Tiles floater.
Click on the required Group name in the Group Titles floater to highlight it.
When enabled, square-bracket links sent in chat, IM, group notices and object text from other Residents are not collapsed into a single labelled link – the actual URL is shown and linked.
This helps reduce phishing where the visible label hides a different destination.
Built-in viewer text (notifications, preferences, etc.) is not affected
Other Notable Updates / Improvements
Preferences Updates
Group IM Tabs by Conversation Type: it is now possible to order the appearance IM tabs in your Conversations floater by type.
Go to Preferences → Chat → Chat Windows.
Check Order IMs by Type and then select your preferred IM order from the drop-down, where:
Groups, Conferences, IMs will display all Group IM tabs first, then any Conference session IMs then any person-to-person IMs.
Groups, IMs, Conferences will display all Group IM tabs first, then any person-to-person IMs then any Conference session IMs.
And so on through the displayed drop-down list.
Once set, any incoming IMs will be appended to the relevant group of tab (so any new Group IM will appear at the end of the grouping of that type of IM), rather than just appearing at the end of the list of open IM sessions.
Alternatively, you can check Add New IMs First ad have new IM tab open at the top of their respective grouping.
Once set, the ordering will persist across log-ins until changed.
New Preferences options and drop-down for ordering the appearance of IM tabs in the Conversations floater
Updated options for de-selecting chat: you can now opt to de-select chat in third-person viewer and / or when in Mouselook after sending a message – Preferences → Chat → Typing → Deselect Chat after Sending Message + sub-options.
Sounds & Media:
The “Buttons” sliders in Preferences → Sounds & Media → Sounds and the volume control drop-down (top right of the screen) have been renamed to “Interface” for clarity.
Preferences → Sounds & Media → UI Sounds has been refactored from 3 individual panels (UI Sounds 1, 2, 3) into a single scrolling list of UI sound options. Also added to the panel is:
The ability to double-click on a sound entry to hear a preview of the sound.
The ability to right click a sound entry and Copy sound UUID
A new option to play a sound when someone uses nearby chat: Preferences → Sound & Media → UI Sounds → New Nearby Chat Message.
Viewer colours and Opacity: new option to set semi-transparent menu backgrounds:
This controls the opacity of context menus and top menu bar background where 0.0 = fully transparent and 1.0 = fully opaque.
Time format updates:
New Time Format drop-down in Preferences → General →Time Format to change the appearance of chat timestamps between 12-hour and 24-hour formats.
This option includes a link to User Interface → Top Bars → Time Format to direct those wanting to change the the format of the time ( 12-hour or 24-hour) displayed in the the viewer window’s clock display (top right corner of the viewer).
Preferences → User Interface → Top Bars → “Time Format” has been renamed to “Clock Format” to better indicate it refers to setting the clock’s time format.
Time / Clock Preferences options: Left – the new option for setting the format for time stamps in local chat, etc, together with a link to: right – the renamed option for setting for format of the clock in the top right of the viewer window.
Search-Related Updates / Improvements
LL and Firestorm Legacy Search:
Linden Lab’s implementation of Legacy Search is used by default in Firestorm 7.2.4.
To continue to use the Firestorm Legacy Search implementation:
Open the viewer’s Debug Settings floater (Advanced Menu → Debug Settings).
Enter FSUseFSLegacySearch into the floater’s search filter.
Enable the TRUE radio button.
Close the Debug Settings floater.
Close and re-open the Search floater if required. On re-opening Search, the Firestorm Legacy Search floater should be displayed.
To switch back to used the LL Legacy Search floater, repat the steps above, but set FSUseFSLegacySearch to FALSE.
The following have been added / ported to the LL Legacy Search implementation to offer matching functionality with the Firestorm Legacy Search:
An Open Profile button has been added to the People / Group searches.
Ability to search via Agent ID in People Searches.
There are multiple additional fixes and improvements to Legacy Search – see Legacy Search in the changelog.
Firestorm 7.2.4 uses the LL implementation of Legacy Search (left), with some additional refinements – such as an Open Profile button for People searches (ringed). The Firestorm Legacy Search, with numerous improvements and clean-up, can be used via the FSUseFSLegacySearch debug setting
Area Search: Copy functionality added to Area Search results using keyboard shortcuts to copy selected rows from the Area Search results list to the system clipboard in tab-separated format.
CTRL-C: copies selected rows to the clipboard.
CTRL-A: select all items in results list.
Copied information is in tab-separated format for easy pasting into spreadsheets, can paste directly in Excel/Google Sheets, and includes header row with column names.
Gesture floater: a Search field has been added to the Gestures floater (Comm Menu → Gestures or CTRL-G).
World Map Region Search: region maturity rating (G, M, A) has been added to the names of regions returned in a search.
Firestorm Animation Override and Avatar Poser
Multiple update to the above, for details please refer to the following changelog entries:
It is now possible to bulk apply Set Alias in Contact Sets. See FIRE-31777.
Contact Sets are now supported in the Avatar Picker. See FIRE-34809.
If an avatar is in one or more of your Contact Sets, you will see those Contact Sets listed below their Groups list when viewing their Profile. See FIRE-32401.
Quality of Life Contact Sets improvements and fixes.
I’ve been using the various beta release of this version of Firestorm – and most notably 80712 since it was made available and have found it as stable and reliable as the previous release version. While I’m not aware of specific performance boosts (and so this could be purely subjective). this version does appear to load my home location in SL a lot more smoothly than 7.2.2.80036. Of the new / updated features, I like the Firestorm implementation of LL’s Legacy Search – if only because I no longer have to click over the the People tab (my usual Search option) when opening the floater. The avatar alignment / facing addition is rather neat and the region-based Group activity is handy for making sure rezzing rights are maintained when hopping around regular haunts where I have said rights.
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates from the week through to Sunday, May 31st, 2026
This summary is generally published every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:
It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware), and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy.
This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.
By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
Outside of the Official viewer, and as a rule, alpha / beta / nightly or release candidate viewer builds are not included; although on occasions, exceptions might be made.
Official LL Viewers
Default viewer – One-Click Installer = 26.1.1.23806384790 – April 10 – No change.
Second Life Release Candidate (RC) viewer: Flat UI – 26.2.0.25386466510, May 14 -“flat” UI and font update – NEW.
Second Life Lua Editor Alpha viewer 6.1.0.23768336784, April 29 – No change.
The moment of total destruction: the complete New Glenn rocket “stack” is destroyed as 1,200 tonnes of propellant in the first stage tanks explode, send a mushroom fire cloud int the sky over the Florida Space Coast. Via: AP News
On Thursday, May 28th, 2026 the evening skies over Florida’s space coast were lit up by a massive explosion. Believed to be in the one kiloton of TNT range, visible from dozens of miles away and heard in Orlando, 90 kilometres from the coast, the detonation was that of a Blue Origin New Glenn launch vehicle. Not only did it vaporise parts of the rocket, it also dealt a significant blow to the company.
The New Glenn in question was a new vehicle, comprising a main engine system of 7 uprated BE-4 engines (currently the most powerful rocket motors in the world, rated at 2,844.5 kN of thrust each 100 kN more than the SpaceX Raptor 3) a new booster first stage called No, It’s Necessary (a reference to Christopher Nolan’s 2014 film Interstellar) and an upper stage and fairings, both without propellants or payload. It was undergoing a static fire test at Launch Complex 36 (LC-36), Canaveral Space Force Station, ahead of a planned launch scheduled for early June, New Glenn having been cleared to resume flights after being ground following the NG-3 mission in April, in which the rocket’s upper stage malfunctioned.
A static fire test is a routine in which a rocket is loaded with propellants, goes through a launch countdown and then very briefly fires its engines before shutting them down again. The intention is for the propellant systems and engines to “clear their throats” (so to speak), ready for the upcoming launch. To this end, the rocket was loaded with some 1,200 tonnes of liquid oxygen and liquid methane.
The vehicle explosion could be seen up and down Florida’s space coast, as was heard 90 km away in Orlando, Florida. Credit: various
The exact cause of the explosion has obviously yet to be determined. The first signs of trouble came as the static fire countdown reached its end. The water deluge sound suppression system was active, smothering the launch pad in hundreds of thousands of litres of water to prevent the acoustic vibrations generated by the seven BE-4 engines being deflected from the launch pad up onto the vehicle and damaging it. As a result, it is very difficult to see from the available video footage as to what happened next: whether the engines fired as expected with an explosion following, or whether the complete engine unit at the base of the rocket detonated on ignition.
What is clear is there was a destructive event at the base of the rocket giving rise to an initial fireball rolling flames up the sides of the vehicle. There was then a second explosion towards the top of the vehicle, roughly at, or just below, the bottom end of the upper stage – possibly an initial explosion of the liquid methane tank. However, both of these explosions were rapidly dwarfed by the vehicle’s entire first stage exploding, likely as a result of the liquid oxygen tank rupturing. This generated a mushroom fireball which rose into the evening sky with debris from the rocket being hurled up and outwards over considerable distances (so far in fact, that parts of the vehicle ended up scattered over the local beaches, caused fires in the coastal scrubland and came down off-shore, prompting several public safety warnings telling the public not to touch or move any debris they might find as it could be toxic).
The loss of a launch vehicle is obviously not an insignificant event – and fortunately, there was no loss of life. However, for Blue Origin, vehicle loss is somewhat secondary to the devastation wrought on LC-36.
This facility, leased from (at the time) the USAF in 2015, was completely rebuilt by Blue Origin at a cost of US $1 billion to be the only launch facility capable of handing New Glenn (a second launch facility planned for Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, has yet to break ground). With this explosion, much of LC-36 has been either completely destroyed or suffered significant damage, and until it is rebuilt New Glenn will not fly, no matter how quickly the cause of the explosion is identified and rectified (assuming it lies within the rocket).
Nor is this simply a matter of clearing the site and starting reconstruction. Rockets are nasty vehicles filled with things that can put a person in hospital – or worse – if not handled correctly. So before any reconstruction can begin, there will need to be a in-situ investigation across the site to clean it of any harmful materials whilst also looking for any clues as to what might have caused the explosion and recovering any surviving parts of the vehicle which might yield their own clues as to a possible cause. Such an investigation + clean-up is a non-trivial matter.
For example, in 2016, a SpaceX Falcon 9 exploded on LC-40 at Canaveral during a static fire test, completely destroying itself and its payload. It took over a year to get the pad back into operational order – the first 4+ months of which involved just such an investigation and clean-up. And that event was much smaller than the New Glenn explosion, with the pad and its infrastructure subjected to far less overall destruction.
Aftermath of destruction at LC-36: 1) the destroyed transporter-erector (TE); 2) the collapsed launch pad footing + elements of the water deluge system and the hydraulic actuators; 3) the collapsed 183-metre tall lightning conductor tower; 4 & 5) water deluge system feed pipes and other infrastructure stuck by the falling tower; 6) major damage or the corner support upright of the second, larger lightning tower (possibly requiring its demolition); 7) propellant tank farm – potential damage unknown; 8) water tower for deluge system, apparently undamaged; 9) (inset) a view of LC-36 as it looked sans the TE, before the explosion. Credit: Asher B.
By contrast and as shown above, the New Glenn explosion has completely wiped out the launch pad and its immediate infrastructure, brought down one of the two 183-metre tall lightning conductor towers and severely damaged the other, and utterly destroyed the transporter erector. The latter was the 1,800 tonne vehicle / platform used to move New Glenn rockets horizontally out of the vehicle and payload integration building a short distance from the launch pad and then, with the assistance of hydraulic actuators at the pad, raise itself, the rocket and the launch platform to a vertical position, and then act as the launch tower for the rocket.
In addition, it appears that the vehicle and payload integration facility close to the pad has suffered significant structural damage. Some reports state this damage extends to equipment and systems inside the building, including the twice-flown New Glenn first stage, Never Tell Me the Odds. However, this latter point was without formal confirmation at the time of writing.
Given all of this, rebuilding and recommission LC-36 is liable to be a lengthy process. Frankly, if all of the statements on the extent of additional damage are correct, it’s hard to see the complex resuming launch operations before the end of 2027 at the earliest.
A wide view of Launch Complex 36, showing the (undamaged) pad and infrastructure to the right, and the vehicle and payload integration facility built by Blue Origin to the lower left. Reports indicate that the latter may have suffered extensive structural and internal damage. Credit: Blue Origin
Impacts
If LC-36 is out of commission for more than a year, then the overall impact is enormous for both Blue Origin and potentially for NASA’s Artemis programme. As it is, it has already put paid (for now, at least) to a pair of vital precursor missions related to Artemis Blue Origin was due to fly later in 2026 and early 2027.
These are the Blue Moon MK1 Pathfinder missions. They were both intended to deliver science payloads to the Moon – in the case of the second, NASA’s VIPER automated rover (which is the unluckiest lucky rover NASA has built, having lost its ride, was then practically cancelled, then resurrected and now is once more without a launch vehicle for the foreseeable future, and so could face cancellation again). More particularly, both missions would have allowed Blue Origin to check-out systems critical to both the Blue Moon MK1 cargo lander and its “big brother”, the Blue Moon MK2 crew lander (called the Human Landing System (HLS) by NASA).
Blue Moon MK1 and Blue Moon MK2 are set to be cornerstones of the Artemis programme, and by testing the systems common to both – the BE-7 engine system, the cryogenic fluid power and propulsion systems, avionics, continuous downlink communications, and precision landing system with an accuracy within 100 metres – during the Pathfinder mission, Blue Origin hoped validate their use aboard both landers and specifically move development the MK2 HLS vehicle significantly forward.
Blue Origin’s 8-metre tall Blue Moon MK1 cargo lander (foreground) and the 16-metre tall Blue Moon MK2 HLS share multiple common systems, which could have been tested on the two Blue Moon MK1 Pathfinder flights had the explosion at LC-36 not occurred. Credit: Blue Origin
A further mission now impacted by the New Glenn explosion – and somewhat linked to the Pathfinder missions – is that of Artemis 3.
Due to take place at the end of 2027, this is intended to provide NASA astronauts with the opportunity to test one or other (or preferably both) of the HLS systems being developed (the other being SpaceX’s Starship-derived vehicle) and evaluate their use and general fitness for purpose. Taken together, the Pathfinder missions (if successful) with their testing of the systems mentioned above, combined with a hands-on test of the actual Blue Moon MK2 HLS would likely provide NASA with a degree of confidence in the Blue Origin lander, possibly to the extend of selecting it over the SpaceX HLS for Artemis 4, the first mission to return astronauts to the surface of the Moon.
Clearly, with things now being what they are, neither of the Pathfinder missions will likely to take place within the next year (at least), and Blue Origin are unlikely to be able to participate in Artemis 3. The first of these points means that Blue Origin lose a possible advantage they hold over SpaceX when it comes to vehicle selection for Artemis 4. In terms of the latter, NASA face something of a quandary: do they keep things as is, and hope Blue Origin can somehow meet the current Artemis 3 schedule? Or they seek to push Artemis 3 back to 2028 in order to ensure they can properly evaluate both HLS vehicles from the relatively safe location of Earth orbit, or do they go ahead with testing only the SpaceX vehicle and introduce the Blue Origin vehicle without any on-orbit with Artemis 5 or Artemis 6?
The answer to these questions is far from clear – although one would hope common sense would lean NASA (political pressure allowing) towards delaying Artemis 3 until 2028 to give Blue Origin the opportunity to partake in the mission. Indeed, given doubts the agency has voiced about SpaceX’s overall ability to have a HLS system ready for Artemis 3 (which led to Artemis 3 being moved from mid- to late-2027), moving the mission back to 2028 might be seen beneficial overall. However, such a delay will impact on Artemis 4, and any attempt to slip this back into 2029 could meet with significant political resistance.
There is one other potential – but significant, if it happens – impact that might be felt with the loss of the NG-4 vehicle, and it lies not with Blue Origin or NASA, but with United Launch Alliance (ULA).
ULA uses two 2,460 kN “standard” BE-4 engines on the Vulcan-Centaur rocket’s first stage. As such, if the cause of the the loss of the NG-4 vehicle is found lie within the BE-4 (and not restricted to the uprated 2,844.5 kN version), the FAA could order a grounding of the ULA vehicle until such time that Blue origin has rectified whatever the issue might be. Time will very much tell on that.
A (Very) Small Consolation?
An info graphic on the in-development New Glenn 9×4, including a scale comparison with SpaceX Starship, the Saturn V and the Blue Moon 7×2. Credit: Graphic News
There is however, one potentially small consolation for Blue Origin after all this.
In November 2025, the company announced it was to develop a very significant upgrade to New Glenn: the 9×4, which it was planning to test fly some time in 2027 (a rather ambitious time frame even considering the commonality of hardware and software between it and the current New Glenn).
This new version of New Glenn (called the 9×4 on account that it will use 9 BE-7 engines on the first stage and 4 BE-3Us on the upper stage)is truly massive, as per the graphic to the right. What is particularly significant about this vehicle is the fact Blue Origin plan to have it capable of delivering 14 tonnes of payload directly to geostationary orbit (GEO) or 20 tonnes to the Moon, both with the first stage reusable – capabilities beyond the reach of SpaceX’s Starship without it being “refuelled” in low Earth orbit.
And why is this a potential consolation for Blue Origin? Well, New Glenn 9×4 itself actually isn’t; it’s what comes with it that is.
In order to operate the new giant, the company needs to significantly upgrade LC-36 in several key areas – such as the pad itself and the infrastructure within / under it to deal with things like the vehicle’s increased mass, the significantly greater output from its engines at lift-off, the need for an enhanced deluge system to deal with higher acoustical issues, etc. This work would have had to be undertaken whilst the complex remained able to launch New Glenn 7×2 (with some 7 further flights originally planned for 2026, and another 4 in early 2027).
As a result of this incident, LC-36 can now be rebuilt from the ground up to fully support both 7×2 and 9×4 launches without having to juggle construction needs around launch schedules. True, it’s not that much of a consolation in the scheme of things; but at this point in time, I’m betting Blue Origin will take what small measures of comfort it can get.
The OSD meeting is a combining of the former Third Party Viewer Developer meeting and the Open Source Development meeting. It is open discussion of Second Life development, including but not limited to open source contributions, third-party viewer development and policy, and current open source programs.
This meeting is generally held twice a month on a Friday, at 13:00 SLT at the Hippotropolis Theatre and is generally text chat only.
Default viewer: Flat UI – 26.2.0.25386466510, -“flat” UI and font update, dated May.
Second Life Project Viewers – Lua Editor Alpha viewer 6.1.0.23768336784, April 29..
Viewer Notes
Per the above, 26.2 remains the release viewer.
26.3.0 – performance improvements – work continues on this, but it is not ready to be issued as yet.
The order of progress for all other viewers currently available (Lua Editor) or in development (Graphics Care Package; maintenance release) remains fluid.
Chat Modernisation – IM Conversation Histories
We’ve been working on improving text chat, especially as we have moved from a desktop-only to a multi-platform product. We’re making important improvements to how text chat works behind the scenes. One of the biggest changes: We’re improving how conversations are maintained across devices.
– Grumpity Linden, May 29th, 2026
The Lab is working to make person-to-person IM chat histories persistent regardless as to how they are accessed – whether switching from one viewer to another or from a viewer to SL Mobile and vice-versa – so that up to the full history of a conversation can remain available, making it easier to pick up conversations wherever you log-in.
For clarity:
Nearby Chat history is not a part of the work, nor (for the foreseeable future) is Group chat (although this may change at some point).
The core functionality of messaging will remain unchanged: how live IMs are sent and received via UDP pathways is not changing.
Nearby chat logs will remain available just as they are at present.
It is only how (and how much of) IM histories are served to the viewer that is changing.
This work is in its early stages, and some of it might change in view of on-going feedback, etc.
Under this changes:
IM histories will be served encrypted over HTTPs, and the data store will have encryption at rest — allowing your data to stay completely private and secure.
For security reasons:
Only users opting-in to the Lab’s Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) will be able to access their complete IM histories.
Those who remain opted-out of MFA will only be able to see the last few days of chat histories.
This is to reduce risks of privacy breaches if a non-MFA account is hacked. Additionally, the number of days back and history fetch will go, will be determined by the server.
Partially because of the MFA dependence, LL is intending to expand options for using MFA (e.g. e-mail, SMS, etc.). However, these new options may not be available prior to the new chat history capability going live.
During the meeting there were numerous security concerns raised – particularly around store IM histories as Personal Identifying Information under regulatory requirements such as the EU’s GDPR, the degree of access LL might have to IM histories, even if encrypted.
Some of these were addressed to a degree (e.g. yes, histories would be deleted along with other PII data in response to a request under GDPR).
Some questions passed unanswered, potentially because they may require further internal discussion at LL.
As a semi-side note, it was indicated that one potential outcome of the overall Chat Modernisation work is that a some point in the future, it should become possible to have simultaneous log-ins from different devices.
So, for example, someone could be logged-in viewer their desktop but need to go AFK from their computer. They could then open SL Mobile on their mobile device and continue to follow a conversation without going through a log-out / log-in situation. They could then switch back from their mobile device to the desktop on their return.
Other Items
The legitimate use of bots for grid data gathering was again raised, together with what data may or may not be deemed acceptable for gathering, and guidelines on how such bots should be used in order to avoid sudden bans.
Geenz Linden noted that in terms of making aspects of region data available more readily to assist with things like 3D terrain (region) map creation, etc., there is interest in trying to implement an engineering-based ability. However, this is not something actively being developed at this point.
A brief discussion towards the end of the meeting on EEP bugs (which are likely to be addressed in viewer 26.3), with a note that PBR Sun / Moon will be part of the GCP viewer.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery Annex, May 2026: Sienna Dust – Lacuna
Now open through until the latter part of June within The Annex of Dido Haas’ Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, is a series of haunting monochrome studies by Sienna Dust. Entitled Lacuna (meaning “gap”) it follows on directly from Sienna’s April / May 2026 exhibition at Nitroglobus, Illicit Glimpse.
I did actually get the time to drop in on the latter during its run, but didn’t actually get to the point of writing about it at the time – shame on me. However, given that the one does somewhat follow-on from the other, a knowledge of Illicit Glimpse is not a requirement for appreciating what is offered here; it is approachable in an of itself. However, given their intertwinement in terms of themes, I’ll be mentioning both here.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery Annex, May 2026: Sienna Dust – Lacuna
Illicit Glimpse offered a series of black-and-white avatar studies (Sienna’s avatar, I believe). Each piece, beautifully framed, sat as a study in sensuality and femininity which both invited the observer into them, but which also wrapped within them the idea that what the observer might be glimpsing is what the subject in each image wants to reveal; a mere glimpse of an idea or emotion, the rest remained veiled – or as Sienna describes it, withheld from the observer. In other words, there is something of a void, a gap between intent and response; between seeing and understanding.
With the images presented in Lacuna, it is this void, this gap, that we are invited to explore and debate with ourselves as to what is being revealed and what is being withheld; to look for what might hidden within shadow or etched in part in light, and what it might add to each image and what it might still yet withhold.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery Annex, May 2026: Sienna Dust – Lacuna
In this, I’d suggest that another meaning of lacuna could be used when visiting this exhibition: “deficiency”. Not, I hasten to add, on the artist’s part, far from it; but within ourselves. For these are pieces which both artfully reveal and veil, that we are left wanting in our attempts to interpret; we can never quite hear the whispers of intent that lay within them.
A genuinely exquisite collection of images; one very much worth the time taken to see and consider them, whether one views them purely in the context of a series of avatar studies or within the wider context offered by Sienna.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery Annex, May 2026: Sienna Dust – Lacuna
On Monday, June 1st 2026 (SLT), Firestorm released version 7.2.4.80712 of their viewer.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 