This summary is 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.
HTTP updates and Vivox RC viewer updated to version 4.0.2.310349 on January 27 – combines the Project Azumarill RC and Vivox Voice RC updates into a single viewer (download and release notes)
Catznip updated to version R10 on January 30th – core updates: major release bringing Catznip back to to par with recent LL viewer releases – release notes
V1-style
Cool VL Viewer updated as follows: Stable version to 1.26.16.10 and Experimental branch to 1.26.17.8, both on January 30th (release notes).
Mobile / Other Clients
Group Tools updated to version 2.2.36.5 on January 27 – no release notes available.
A new Christian-focused machinima series filmed in Second Life, has its première on Monday, February 1st 2016. BreakOut Joyful Noise will air on the gospel / urban Dynasty Television and Charter Cable 198.
The series “centres on the town of Release and its residents. A cosy community filled with societal issues that resident’s experience. This series will address those topics that individuals struggle with in life and provide story lines that will encourage viewers to face those issues head on through the way of Jesus Christ.”
The 30-minute pilot focuses on 24-year-old Joy Jamison who works in a high-end boutique who is struggling with matters of self-image and faith.
The show has been written and produced by Exquisite Xpressionz, a group of Second Life residents comprising Keyia Hynes, Twylitedawn Keng and Wisdom Price, who have set themselves the goal “to educate, inspire, and entertain all users of the secondlife [sic] community; bridging the gap by promoting real world awareness and positive change.” Filming is by Rockford Ewing / Double Trouble Video Productions, with music by Creative Nation.
BreakOut Joyful Noise premières via stream on Dynasty TV / Charter Channel 198 at 06:00 SLT on Monday February1st, and features its own page on the Dynasty TV website. A teaser / trailer has also been produced, and is embedded below.
This week marked a sombre period in the annals of NASA’s history. In a period of just 7 days – albeit spread across 50 years – America lost 17 astronauts in just three space flight related tragedies. Every year, the US space agency marks this loss of life – the results of the Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia accidents – with a special Day of Remembrance on the 27th January. This year’s event was particularly poignant in that 2016 marks the 30th anniversary of the Challenger disaster.
It was on January 27th, 1967, that NASA suffered the first of these tragedies when, during a pre-launch rehearsal of what was intended to be the first manned flight of the Apollo Command and Service modules, a fire broke out inside the Command Module as the vehicle sat on the pad of Cape Kennedy Air Force Station Launch Complex 34. A combination of a pure oxygen atmosphere at a high internal PSI, and highly flammable materials used in the vehicle’s interior construction resulted in the deaths of Command Pilot Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Senior Pilot Edward H. White II, and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee in just 16 seconds.
Apollo 1: (l-to-r) Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White II, and Roger B. Chaffee standing before the Apollo 1 launch vehicle, on January 17th, 1961
Nineteen years later, on January 28th, 1986, NASA suffered its largest loss of life in a space mission up until that point in time. It occurred when Space Launch System mission 51L, the 25th flight in the space shuttle programme and the 10th flight of the shuttle orbiter vehicle Challenger – regarded as the veteran of the fleet, having flown more orbital missions than the other three orbiter vehicles at that time – exploded 73 seconds after launch, resulting in the loss of all seven crew.
Tragedy struck the space shuttle programme again on February 1st, 2003, when the space shuttle Columbia broke-up following re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere at the end of mission STS-107, killing all seven crew. On board were Commander Rick Husband, Pilot William McCool, Payload Commander Michael Anderson, Mission Specialists Laurel Blair Salton Clark, Kalpana Chawla, David M. Brown, and Payload Specialist Ilan Ramon, a colonel in the Israeli Air Force and the first Israeli astronaut.
There have of course been other lives lost within the fraternity of astronauts and cosmonauts over the decades. However, these three tragedies perhaps stand larger than others because NASA has always undertaken its missions in the full glare of the public and media spotlight. Apollo 1, for example, was the headline mission for America meeting President Kennedy’s requirement for “landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth” before the end of the decade. Similarly, STS-51L, the Challenger mission, had been specifically engineered to be in the public eye, featuring as it did the first teacher in space, Sharon Christa McAuliffe.
McAuliffe had been selected from more than 11,000 applicants to participate in NASA’s Teacher in Space Project, initiated by US Present Ronald Reagan and intended by NASA to rejuvenate public interest in the space programme, which has been declining steadily since the first space shuttle flight in 1981. The gamble paid off and McAuliffe, became a media sensation, attracting world-wide public interest in STS-51L; so much so that it has been estimated that around 17% of Americans watched Challenger’s lift-off live on television as a direct result of McAuliffe’s presence on the mission, and that around 85% heard about the disaster within an hour of it occurring (and if that doesn’t sound unusual, remember 1986 was well before the Internet and media revolution what has placed information and news at our fingertips wherever we are).
It could be argued – particularly with regards to Challenger, and also with Apollo 1, that the disaster could have been avoided. Warnings about the precise type of failure which caused the loss of Challenger date back as far as 1971, which tests carried out in 1977 revealing the risk of what because known as an O-ring failure being inherent in the design of the shuttle’s solid rocket boosters.
Things are less clear in the case of the Columbia tragedy; while it has been suggested that a rescue mission might have been mounted using the shuttle orbiter Atlantis, which was being prepared for a mission due to lift-off at the start of March, 2003. However, in order to get the vehicle flight ready for a launch ahead of the February 15th deadline (the point at which lithium hydroxide, a critical part of the systems used to remove carbon dioxide from the air in a space vehicle, would run out aboard Columbia), was itself fraught with risks.
But whether they could be avoided or not, these three disasters remind us that the cost of becoming a space faring civilisation – something which could be vital to our survival – is not without risk. Which is why I’ll close this part of Space Sunday with the words of Francis R. Scobee, the Commander of STS-51L, written shortly before his death aboard the Challenger:
It’s time to kick-off a week of story-telling in voice, brought to our virtual lives by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library. As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s Second Life home at Bradley University, unless otherwise indicated.
Sunday, January 31st
13:30: Seanchai Crazy Eights Official Opening
Seanchai Library’s new installation at LEA 9, Crazy Eights will run through until the end of May and offer a range of reading, activities and events throughout. You can keep up with all that is happening via the Crazy Eights web page.
The path through the Story Forest at Crazy Eights will lead you to literary discoveries, courtesy of Seanchai Library
The formal opening features the first in a series of story-based (or story-inspired) art displays which will take place at the Crazy Eights East Meadow., Don Quixote – Words and Images.
Join Derry McMahon and Bear Silvershade beneath a windmill as they read from the story of Miguel de Cervantes’s Gentleman of La Mancha and surrounded by pictures by Derry inspired by Don Quixote’s adventures, which are simply superb (and which I had the good fortune to review in 2014, when some formed a part of that year’s Fine Arts Tour).
When running away, it’s always handy to have some idea of where to run to. In Claudia Kincaid’s case, the ideal place is the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. As her younger brother has money, Claudia decides he should come with her to help on the finances front.
The museum proves an interesting place to settle into, but when the museum purchases what appears to be an early work by Michelangelo, a statue of an angel, for the unbelievable price of $225, Claudia and Jamie, her brother, find themselves taking on the role of investigators.
Is the statue genuine? Has the museum bought itself a bargain, or is the statue something else? Digging into the matter, Claudia and Jamie are led to the remarkable Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, former owner of the statue and the owner of some remarkable files which promise to led Claudia into some discoveries about herself.
Monday February 1st, 19:00: Peter Robinson
Gyro Muggins returns to the universe of Larry Niven’s Man-Kzin Wars.
The Kzinti, are a warlike race Niven first introduced to the world in his 1966 story The Warriors. They permeated many of his stories set in the Known Space series, and well as appearing in his Nebula and Hugo award-winning Ringworld. In his stories, Niven references a series of conflicts between Kzinti and humans, but did not write about the wars himself. Such was the demand for more information on the wars, however, he allowed the Man-Kzin wars to become a shared universe series, with the majority of the stories written by other science-fiction authors such as Hal Codebatch, Poul Anderson, Dean Ing, Jerry Pournelle, S.M. Stirling, Greg Bear and others.
Peter Robinson is a short story written by Australian author Hal Colebatch, and forms one of 18 stories he has written for the series. It first appears in Man Kzin X: The Wunder War, and is one of four stories, all by Codebatch, which make up the volume.
In it, an expedition by the Institute of Knowledge on Jinx, funded by the Puppeteers sets of to explore a recently detected slaver stasis box, an artefact of the ancient Thrintun (Slaver) Empire. Arriving at their target, the team of mixed races, including human and Kzinti, discover that it is nine miles in diameter, the largest box ever discovered.
Tuesday February 2nd 19:00: Pearl
Faerie Maven-Pralou continue her reading of the first book in Lisa Pinkham’s the Doll Collection series.
Everything changes for Addy on her 12th birthday, when she receives a mysterious gift of a collection of dolls and an opal necklace imbued with magical powers.
Soon, Addy finds herself transported to a beach where she meets a mermaid, Pearl, and where she can swim with and talk to underwater fairies and enjoy the company of min-reading dolphins.
But all is not as safe as it seems; when Pearl vanishes and Addy’s magic necklace is stolen, Addy is left with no way home and without a friend – and she must confront the thief on her own, trusting that the magic which resides in her is enough to put things to rights.
Wednesday, February 3rd, 19:00: Silence of the Loons
While writers from the southern American states turn to tales of crime, inevitably the broiling heat of humid summer days is an ever-present backdrop. But when the stories of criminals and their ways are moved northwards to Minnesota, it is the brutal cold of hard winters which offers a frame for many of the tales.
In this collection, 13 of the state’s top crime writers present a series of tales of mystery, all of which are linked by the same 8 clues, which lead the reader through their dark twists.
Join Kayden Oconnell as he reads from this fascinating anthology.
Thursday, February 4th
19:00 On the Island
Shandon Loring opens the pages of the February book for Seanchai Library’s Crazy Eight’s Featured books reading, On The Island by Tracey Garvis Graves.
Anna Emerson, a 30-year-old English teacher accepts s position as private tutor to 17-year-old T.J. Callahan, a young man who has been undergoing treatment for cancer. For Anna, it is a plum assignment, requiring as it does travelling to the Callahan Family’s summer rental in the Maldives with the teenager. T.J., however, is less than happy; with his cancer in remission, he’d rather stay at home with friends, and not carted off half-way around the world with the dead weight of lessons to catch-up on.
Before they can reach their destination however, the pilot of the charter plane taking them to the Maldives suffers a heart attack, the ‘plane ditching in the Indian Ocean. Making it to a deserted island well off the beaten track, Anna and T.J. must work together to survive as days turn to weeks, and weeks to months without sign of rescue. As the time passes, Anna realises that her biggest challenge may not be caring for T.J. should his cancer return – but the fact he is growing into a young man.
Note: On the Island is also to be presented at Seanchai Kitely and Seanchai InWorldz. Check Seanchai session posts during the week for specific grid locations).
21:00: Seanchai Late Night
With Finn Zeddmore.
—–
Please check with the Seanchai Library SL’s blog for updates and for additions or changes to the week’s schedule.
The featured charity for January / February is Heifer International, working with communities to end world hunger and poverty and to care for the Earth.
The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer (TPVD) meeting held on Friday, January 29th, 2016. At the time of the meeting, Second Life was experience voice issues, and so the meeting was held in text. However, the meeting was still recorded and is available here. The following notes have been taken from the chat log of the meeting.
On Tuesday, January 26th, the Main (SLS) channel received server maintenance package 16.01.16.310114, previously deployed to the three RC channels, comprising a simulator crash fix and feature request OBJECT_REZZER_KEY) for llGetObjectDetails(), which returns the parent_id (object or avatar) of any task in the region. The function only works for those objects rezzed in-world after the code deployment (objects in-world prior to deployment will return NULL_KEY).
On Wednesday, January 27th, the three RC channels all received a new server maintenance package,16.01.21.310177, comprising Internal simulator fixes and a fix for BUG-1313 “LSL llSetPos in root prim of attachment behaves differently at high altitudes – viewer does not show updates”, which can cause attachments to fail to update correctly at altitudes over approximately 1500 metres.
SL Viewer Updates
HTTP / Vivox
The HTTP / Vivox RC updated to version 4.0.2.310349 on Wednesday, January 27th, which sees the addition of MAINT-5977, “Create a MailDrop event pump” to the list of resolved issues, and the removal of MAINT-6055, “[corehttp] Mac – voice does not stay connected on resume from sleep”.
Quick Graphics
The Quick Graphics RC viewer (currently version 4.0.2.310127, dated January 20th), is getting some fixes to more accurately account for Materials, and possibly some other tweaks to how Avatar Complexity is calculated. The update should be appearing in the release channel soon.
One problem yet to be fixed within this viewer is an issue whereby avatars will still appear as solid colour jelly babies even when the Avatar Complexity slider in the viewer is set to “no limit” (which in theory should render all avatars normally). Commenting on whether or not this will be fixed, Oz noted:
The problem with those cases is that there are 2 more factors that go into making the avatar a coloured impostor, and they’re not obvious enough. We will probably change the thresholds on those, and maybe make the response to them different somehow.
When asked if those who have suitable systems will have the means to disable Avatar Complexity from running in their viewer (i.e. never see jelly babies unless the capability is expressly re-enabled) should the above issue not be resolved, Oz indicated this is a possibility, but is still to be decided.
Maintenance RC
A further Maintenance RC viewer is on the horizon, with what is described as a “nice set of fixes”. This should also be appearing in the release channel in the near future.
Project Viewers
The Project Bento viewer continues to be worked on, and the Lab is trying to move things towards a “final” (for this phase of the work) selection of additional bones – see my separate report on the Bento project for details.
Work is all under way in updating the Oculus Rift project viewer, with an update expected in the near future. The indication is that this will be built to the 1.x SDK. Oz also indicated that the Lab is potentially looking at how many alternative HMDs they might be able to support with the viewer, including “taking a whack” at Google Cardboard support.
64-bit Viewer Builds
As noted in my last TPVD update, the Lab is starting work on 64-bit versions of their Mac and windows viewers. There is no time frame as to when the first project / TC versions might appear, but it does also mean that there will be a 64-bit viewer Havoc library made available to TPVs in due course. However, this may take a while to appear.
Mac Builds
Currently, the Lab is using OS X 10.10.5 and Xcode 7.x for Mac builds, but are working to resolve a cmake file issue in order to build on OS X 10.11.2 or greater. This requires the Lab to re-arrange the order in which the current build tests are run to ensure the required libraries can be located as the integration tests can be successfully run.
Vivox Exploits
There is still concern over Vivox voice exploits being employed by some users. One example of this is a user located on one region being able to listen in on conversations on another region without showing up on active speakers list for that region.
The problem here is that the weaknesses allowing these types of exploits tend to be within the code package supplied by Vivox, and over which LL has no direct control. They therefore require action on Vivox’s part to fix them. This is something Oz pointed out at the TPVD meeting, before going on to note that the Lab will continue to work with Vivox to get things corrected.
Other Items
Older Viewers
There are a number of changes which are being implemented throughout 2016 which will make older versions of viewers increasingly obsolete. These include further inventory improvements and the deprecation of outdated inventory messages which will impact older viewers and, most notably the switch to TLS 1.2, which is already available in the current release of the official viewer (and those TPVs adopting the CEF code base from the Lab).
As I noted (via a comment from Oz) in my last TPVD meeting report for 2015, this switch-over is being driven out of compliance requirements, rather than for any technical reason. However, what it does mean that once it occurs – mostly likely in the spring – any viewer which does not support TLS 1.2 will be unable to carry out any interactions with the SL Cashier or anything that involves money, as there will be no back-end support.
Third-Party Viewer Releases
Catznip updated to release R10.0 for Windows only (at present) on Saturday, January 30th. This release brings Catznip back up to date with more recent code releases from the Lab, and I’ll have a review available shortly. Catznip users should note that R9 will be blocked from mid-February
Alchemy will be releasing an update “imminently”
Firestorm’s next release continues to look set for around early March.
Dox Quixote – Words and Images opens Seanchai Library’s Crazy Eights series at LEA 9, 13:30 SLT, Sunday, January 31st, 2016
Opening on Sunday, January 31st is the latest chapter of Seanchai Library’s distinguished history of bring stories and literature to life in virtual worlds through the spoken word. Running through to May 31st, Crazy Eights is a full region installation located at LEA 9, where the Library will be presenting and hosting a range of special story telling events and readings from the world of literature.
The region has been beautifully landscaped by Caledonia Skytower with the support of Shandon Loring, to present a series of event areas, all distinct from one another but linked together and to the landing point by the Story Forest, where visitors walk between tall trees on a path apparently paved in the covers of books, and can discover more about stories, folk tales and more, as they stop at any of the 20 Story Stations lining the paths through the woods.
Crazy Eights: walk through the Story Forest to visit the themed areas of the region, stopping at the Story Stations as you go
The “eight” of the title Crazy Eights, refers to this being Seanchai Library’s eighth year of operation. It was founded in 2008 by Derry McMahon, a Master of Library Sciences in the physical world, after she toured Second Life’s existing libraries and found that while many were inspiring builds, most were empty and seemingly little used.
Derry realised that with all the rich immersive opportunities available in-world, people were unlikely to log-in simply to sit down and read a story or poem or extract from a novel on a note card or from a web page; reading simply doesn’t require a virtual space. It was from this realisation that she established Seanchai Library (“seanchai” – pronounced shawn-a-kee – being is a traditional Irish storyteller/historian): a place where people could come together and read and listen to stories from around the globe and covering all possible genres, giving literature in-world a voice.
Initially, Seanchai Library focused on gatherings which allowed this to happen, establishing a convivial atmosphere in which tales could be shared. But such is the nature of Second Life that it became obvious that more could be done to present literature as a living statement of the arts. Thus, Seanchai gave birth to Storyfests (now folded back into Seanchai’s core activities), which allowed staff and volunteers to organise special literary events, such as their Bard on the Beach and Halloween inspired Boofest series, without detracting from the Library’s core aim of brining stories of every kind to life.
Crazy Eights allows visitors to immerse themselves in both literature and traditional verbal story telling as an art form, and discover more about Seanchai Library itself. The Featured Book Area, for example, will be used to present a book a month through February to the end of May, using a 360-degree setting. The series launches on Thursday, February 4th at 19:00 SLT, when Shandon Loring, Seanchai’s Chief Storyteller, presents On The Island by Tracey Garvis Graves in a suitably tropical setting (see the image above).
Crazy Eights: Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson feature large, through Seanchai Library’s popular Tea Time at Baker Street sessions every Sunday at 13:30 SLT from February through until the end of May, complete with the opportunity to learn more about those who have played the leading roles in the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories on stage, film, radio, and television down the years
Crazy Eights also present the opportunity for visitors to attend one of the Library’s most popular series of readings: Tea Time at Baker Street. Here, in a setting inspired set of the ITV Granada (UK) television series The Return of Sherlock Holmes, visitors can enter 221B Baker Street every Sunday and hear of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson. The first story, selected from the series will be The Adventure of the Empty House, the first story in the volume The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes, at 13:30 SLT on Sunday February 7th.
Southward from here lies the Library Island, home to the Information Centre. Here visitors can discover more about weekly events at the Library’s headquarters at Bradley University, and about major productions such as Explore the Great Gatsby. Just a stone’s throw from this is the Storyteller’s Workshop, will hosts the first session on Saturday, February 13th, at 13:00.
Crazy Eights: the lounge at 221B Baker Street stands ready to receive guests
Crazy Eights officially opens, however at the East Meadow, an area devoted to stories based on or inspired by art displays mounted in the meadow.
Here, on Sunday, January 31st, at 13:30 SLT, Derry McMahon and Bear Silvershade will present Don Quixote – Words and Images, where guests are invited to sit beneath a windmill and listen to the story of Miguel de Cervantes’s Gentleman of La Mancha. On display around the meadow are pictures by Derry inspired by Don Quixote’s adventures, which are simply superb (and which I had the good fortune to review in 2014, when some formed a part of that year’s Fine Arts Tour).
Crazy Eights: the Story Forest path includes 20 story stations to be discovered by visitors
If you’re already familiar with Seanchai Library’s activities in-world, then you are going to enjoy exploring and spending time at Crazy Eights. If you’ve never attended an event or session by Seanchai Library, then Crazy Eights offers the perfect introduction to a group and their activities in Second Life and virtual worlds, as they keep alive the great tradition of story telling in voice.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 