Category: News-Opinion

Ebbe confirms: “we’re working on a ‘next generation’ platform” (with audio)

Posted on by Inara Pey

Back in October 2012, I was pointed to an interview with former Lab CEO Rod Humble in Gamesbeat, in which he talked about the Lab’s (then) new products, the Lab and Second Life. In reviewing that piece, I picked up on a statement that Linden Lab is “still investing in 3D virtual worlds.”

Rod Humble first hinted that the Lab is looking at virtual worlds beyond SL
Rod Humble first hinted that the Lab is looking at virtual worlds beyond SL

In the middle of the comments following that article, Rod himself popped-up to reassure people that the Lab was (and is) still committed to Second Life. In this comment, he also acknowledged the use of the plural – “virtual worlds” – stating:

My comment about also investing in virtual worlds is correct. As you know I don’t like to detail things until we are close to something actionable, but we absolutely are investing in the large virtual world space which I think will make Second Life users, business owners and developers very happy…. but its a ways off 🙂

Making an unannounced visit to the TPV Developer meeting on Friday June 20th, Ebbe Linden (Ebbe Altberg, the current CEO at the Lab) went a lot further than hinting at “virtual worlds”. He made a clear-cut statement that not only  is the Lab working on a “next generation” platform, he’s been actively talking to the media about it, and that things have reached a point where they are ready for internal demos at the Lab.

Obviously, the idea that the Lab is working on something “other” that Second Life – particularly given it is another virtual world platform – is liable to cause a range of responses from excitement through to misgivings and outright worry (many of which were expressed during the meeting).

Ebbe Altberg popped-in on the TPV Developer meeting as Ebbe Linden, and spoke a little about the "next generation" VW platform the Lab is developing
Ebbe Altberg popped-in on the TPV Developer meeting as Ebbe Linden, and spoke a little about the “next generation” VW platform the Lab is developing

His comments on this platform can within a wide-ranging discussion on Second Life, issues of user retention, how best to tackle bringing new users into SL (including the role the existing user base can play, how users and Lab can support one another, etc.). I’ll have more on this in due course.

For the moment, I’m including an audio file of the conversation on the platform the Lab is developing, extracted from the wider discourse, together with some key bullet-points:

  • There are no clear details on exactly how the new platform will work and how it will be marketed
  • It is not going to replace Second Life per se, but will initially run in parallel to it. Second Life is still a viable product with a strong revenue stream. How long the two run in parallel and whether or not one or the other will eventually be closed down depends on a lot of variables, not the least of which will be the volume of users and the success of both in terms of continued revenue generation
  • It does not mean the Lab are stopping work on Second Life developments and enhancements – although it does mean that some projects (such as the introduction of a new scripting language or a complete overhaul of the avatar) are unlikely to go ahead within Second Life
  • The new platform is not Philip Rosedale’s High Fidelity, nor is it based on High Fidelity (although conceivably it could leverage some of what High Fidelity is doing  – and possibly vice-versa). As I’ve frequently pointed out in this blog, and others have elsewhere, High Fidelity is an entirely separate technology development being carried out by an entirely separate company (although the Lab were an early investor)
  • The platform may or may not have some compatibility with Second Life in terms of content, it is to early to definitively say which it will be. However, the direction which has been set is not to allow things to be constrained by ideas of backwards compatibility with SL or to become overly complicated as a result of thoughts about backward compatibility. Although there are some hopes for some levels of migration, given the new platform may well be revolutionary, rather than evolutionary, whether this will be possible , and at what level cannot at this time be determined
  • This does not necessarily mean there won’t be a means by which content can be exported from SL to the new platform, although the Lab is understandably concerned over the quality of content
  • It will initially be closed-sourced; whether this remains the case, hasn’t been decided
  • Resources at the Lab will be split going forward: Oz Linden will be leading a team of engineers focused on Second Life, and the Lab will use other resources / resources recruited into the company to build-up is liable to be run starting in late 2014 or early 2015, with people invited in to it under NDA.

The comments on the new platform grew out of a discussion about SL and the media, and the audio extraction picks-up from the end of the chat about PR.

Note that in the audio, questions are included from the 8:11 mark onwards, and Oz Linden adds a comment between 11:12-12:00. Following Ebbe’s comments on people accessing the new platform under NDA from the end of 2014 or in 2015, the conversation wound-down and he departed the meeting.


Speakers: Ebbe Linden, Oz Linden, Jessica Lyon, Latif Khalifa, Takoda (Lassie)

Related Links

Facebook and contests: the Lab comments

Posted on by Inara Pey

Following this and other blogs picking-up on the SL11B photo contest the Lab announced yesterday and the fact that it may be off-putting to some SL users (see: Lab launches SL11B L$10,000 photo contest), Pete Linden (Peter Gray, the Lab’s Director of Global Communications) posted the following comment on why Facebook has been used (which he also posted to Ciaran Laval’s blog):

 We realize that a number of Second Life users have reservations about using Facebook and other platforms. In this case, we chose to run the contest through our Facebook page simply because we have a tool on our page that facilitates running a contest with all of the legal stuff (technical term) we need in place to run something like this, and we thought it would be of interest to the more than 366,000 followers of the official Second Life page. Our aim certainly isn’t to discourage participation, and we’ll certainly explore alternative ways to run similar contests in the future.

The issue of “the legal stuff” is actually something I mentioned in my original post when ruminating on using alternatives such as Flickr, pointing out that “ensuring T&Cs are read might be a little harder.”

Given that the Facebook approach requires that people at least click-through the T&Cs prior to entering a contest does make the Lab’s position somewhat understandable. It doesn’t matter if people read them, the fact that they’ve clicked through them absolves the Lab of a degree of potential nastiness after the fact if someone decided to get severely upset (probably unlikely, but the kind of thing lawyers are paid to worry about and mitigate). Truth be told, a link on a Flickr group doesn’t provide the same level of in-your-face immediacy.

I did also flippantly mention the visibility aspect as well – particularly if a fair proportion of those 366,000 followers on Facebook aren’t active SL users. I’ve actually no problem with this; if the contest increases SL’s visibility among non-SL users, then so much the better. Particularly as we’re all pretty much agreed that SL needs more positive advertising, and a fun-looking competition among users does look and feel positive.

Nevertheless, it would be nice to see competitions like this, which are not constrained by external considerations (as was the case with last year’s Dell Alienware competitions), to be put forward in a way that encourages SL user participation, rather than potentially discouraging it. In this, it is pleasing to hear that the Lab is taking the feedback onboard and will seek alternatives for the future.

My thanks to Pete for providing the feedback.

Lab launches SL11B L$10,000 photo contest

Posted on by Inara Pey
SL11B contest
(image courtesy of Linden Lab)

On Tuesday June 17th, in the run-up to the SL11B events across the grid, the Lab has launched a birthday themed photo contest.

The blog post announcing the contest reads in full:

Starting today, you’re invited to take part in the Second Life: Celebrating Your Second Life Snapshot Contest, in honor of 11th Birthday of Second Life.

Participation is easy – submit your celebratory snapshots from inworld to the contest page on our Official Second Life Facebook Page. Click the contest tab, review the contest information and rules and start sharing. This year you will be able to submit up to one snapshot a day for the duration of the contest. Full rules, submission and voting dates, and details are all on the Facebook page.

Looking for some inspiration for pics? Then drop by Hairy Hippo Fun Land to grab your Limited Edition SL11B Robot Avatar. You can also get your free avatar off the Marketplace.

Browse the SL11B category on the destination guide to see what the community has planned to mark the event inworld.

Don’t forget that the Resident-driven Second Life 11th Birthday Community Celebration starts this coming Sunday the 22nd. Visit their website for the latest information.

You only turn 11 once, and we can’t wait to see what kind of celebrations and fun you create and share!

It is a shame that the Lab once again opt to use Facebook as the medium for a contest; doing so effectively slams the door on the contest for many who might otherwise take part, but who have no wish to be a part of the great Facebook machine.

Given other options are available which are not so controversial, it’s a shame that the Lab doesn’t give thought to them when running contests of this kind. Flickr, for example, would seem to be a suitable alternative. It already has a very large SL community, and establishing a group for competition entries isn’t exactly labour intensive, although ensuring T&Cs are read might be a little harder. People might also be more inclined to sign-up to Flickr if they don’t already have an account.

Of course, Flickr probably doesn’t get the same kind of visibility among non Second Life users that the SL Facebook page gets, but for the sake of encouraging more users to take part in something of this nature, does that really matter?

Lab announce Project Shining complete

Posted on by Inara Pey

On Monday June 16th, Linden Lab issued a blog post stating Project Shining is now complete. This is a major milestone for the Lab, with Shining representing some 2 years of effort and has involved significant work in three key areas:

  • Avatar baking (Nyx Linden) – also referred to as server-side baking or server-side appearance (SSA), which comprised a major project to shift the heavy lifting of avatar baking / appearance from the viewer to dedicated baking servers. for those need to know more, I offer the post I wrote back at the end of December 2012 as the project saw the release of its first viewer. Further information can be found under the Server-side Appearance tag
  • Interest List and Object Caching (Andrew Linden) – a project to improve how scene rendering is handled by both the server and the viewer, and improving the viewer to retain more information on regions in its cache and re-use that information more intelligently by the viewer
  • HTTP updates (Monty Linden) – a major update to SL’s communications infrastructure to make more and better use of HTTP in order to improve viewer / server communications and increase their reliability and their efficiency.
The state of play with some of the HTTP work in May 2013
The state of play with some of the HTTP work in May 2013

Each of these sub-projects have comprised various stages and releases. Interest List and Object Caching, for example went through several rounds of updates alternating between server-side work and viewer-side work, with the final round of work, focused on improving how the viewer caches and reuses information, reaching a release status in May 2014.


The Project Interesting video released by the Lab in May 2014

The reason for the Lab’s announcement about project Shining is that Monday June 16th saw the release of the final set of Project Sunshine viewer-side updates in the form of the new de facto release viewer, version: 3.7.9.290582, which also includes significant inventory updates and improvements which have been referred to as AIS v3 (Advanced Inventory Service version 3, although this requires additional deployment of server-side updates across the grid). This viewer also includes a number of viewer memory leak fixes as well.

While the implementation and deployment of some elements of the work did experience some hiccups, overall, each element of Project Sunshine was implemented very successfully and with little or no disruption noticeable to users. Each has already yielded significant improvements to both the overall service and in the user experience, and the Lab are to be congratulated in bringing all three of the Project Sunshine activities to a successful conclusion. Here’s to the next round of projects – such a HTTP pipelining!

Have a favourite SL location? share it with the Guardian, Lab suggests

Posted on by Inara Pey
Forgotten City
Forgotten City, click for full size

On Tuesday June 10th, and spotted by Ziki Questi, the Guardian Online in the UK carried an article about how modern urban design is influencing city game design in computer games – and vice versa. As a follow-up to that piece, the Guardian has invited readers to share their favourite virtual cities, and the Lab suggest this is the perfect opportunity for Second Life users promote their favourite Second Life locations.

The Guardian asks readers to upload screen shots of their favourite urban locations via a Guardian Witness page (user-generated content pages curated by the Guardian), which explains:

We want to hear about your best-loved virtual places – from a beautiful view in GTA V to that 20-million-strong SimCity megalopolis you’ve been building (or possibly destroying). What would be the best video game cities to live in? The worst? Perhaps you’ve designed one you think would be better than your own city? Share your screen grabs and we’ll feature the best on Guardian Cities.

To contribute, readers can log-in to the page using either a Facebook or Google + account and then upload a screen shot of their own with some descriptive text, and / or recommend those uploaded by others. There are several locations from Second Life listed on the page already,

Caelestivm, Palau, March 2014 Caelestivm, Palau, March 2014, click for full size

Quick to spot a promotional opportunity, the Lab has suggested, via a Featured News blog post, that more SL users should submit their own favourite locations to the Guardian’s page, noting:

This is a great chance to share some amazing Second Life locations with The Guardian’s readers. Whether it’s a place you created personally, discovered (maybe through the Destination Guide?) and love, or just a spot you always find yourself returning to, the Second Life locations that ‘wow’ you are great ones to share to help show off Second Life to the uninitiated.

Assuming the Guardian doesn’t get overwhelmed by images from Second Life and feel a little narked as a result (and keeping in mind they’re asking for city-like images, which the lab’s blog post tends to brush over in referring for “locations”), this might be a way to shine a little light on some SL builds and get a message out about the user-generated nature of SL.

As well as the pointer to the Guardian, the Lab is inviting users to share their favourite SL locations (city or otherwise) via a forum thread, and to submit any which aren’t already listed to the Destination Guide.

US Army targets Second Life and virtual worlds for healthcare

Posted on by Inara Pey

An interesting article published by the Official Home Page of the US Army came to light recently highlighting the use of virtual worlds as a part of studies into providing better healthcare and support to US soldiers and veterans.

For the last three years, Colonel Valerie Rice, Director of the US Army Research Laboratory’s Human Research and Engineering Directorate located at Fort Sam Houston, in San Antonio, Texas, has been spearheading a team studying the use of Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) as way of teaching army personnel and veterans how to manage PTSD and similar disorders which have resulted from their military service. The work is part of a broader series of research activities funded by the US Army aimed at providing suitable care and support for those afflicted by PTSD.

Colonel Vice Rice
Colonel Valerie Rice

Mindfulness –  “being in the moment” – is a means of stress and anxiety relief using age-old techniques such as meditation and yoga to help focus and clear the mind. It has become a popular means of therapy and support in many areas of life.

The studies being undertaken by Dr. Rice and her colleagues have a twofold purpose. Firstly, to determine the effectiveness of MBSR techniques in helping US Army personnel and veterans deal with PTSD and related issues. Secondly, to identify whether a programme using these methods could be reasonably and effectively adopted by the Army for widespread use.

In this latter regard, MBSR is seen as a particularly worthwhile means of assisting service personnel and veterans because not only is it a proven means of treatment in civilian life, but also because instructors do not need to be qualified healthcare professionals; they only need to have successfully completed a comprehensive training and certification programme. This significantly eases the challenges involved in leveraging it for more widespread deployment and use.

MBSR is also something ideally suited to leveraging the use of virtual worlds, notably Second Life and All These Worlds LLC, which bring with them unique opportunities and benefits which are not necessarily achieved with courses and therapy conducted in the physical world.

The Mindfulness studies take place as 2-hour weekly sessions over a period of eight weeks apiece, and involve some 66 participants at a time, 36% of whom were soldiers on active duty, and the remaining 64% veterans. Half of each batch of participants meet face-to-face in real life, the other half in a virtual world environment.

In both the physical and the virtual environments, sessions are experiential in nature; participants in the study meet, go through various exercises designed to focus the mind, ease tension, and reduce stress. Classes as cumulative, each building on and reinforcing the last, providing techniques participants can carry with them into their daily lives. There are also opportunities for discussion and feedback on individual’s experiences with the techniques, and so on.

Those participating in the virtual classes are encouraged to physically perform the exercises rather than just perform them with their avatar. There is a high degree of interaction between session leaders and participants, and courses include homework sessions – exercises participants are asked to carry out when away from the sessions.

A US Army MBSR session being held in All These Worlds (via alltheseworldsllc.com)
A typical US Army MBSR session being held in All These Worlds (via alltheseworldsllc.com)

Virtual world environments are seen as a particularly beneficial for conducting sessions due to the level of anonymity they offer. There is still something of a stigma attached to seeking help for disorders such as PTSD which can make individuals shy away from any involvement in actual behavioural health classes due to misplaced feelings of embarrassment, inadequacy or shame. The use of what is essentially an anonymous avatar in a virtual environment helps eliminate these feelings, and any associated stress or anxiety which might otherwise be experienced.

The multiple ways in which participants can provide feedback through a virtual world is also seen as beneficial. Giving voice to the feelings, responses and emotions one is experiencing when in a public forum is not always easy. But in a virtual environment, a participant can, for example, opt to give their thoughts and feedback via IM to the session leader, who can in turn relay the salient points to the class in a way that also doesn’t cause the individual any additional stress or embarrassment. Even the use of voice morphing is seen as advantageous, as it again offers participants relief from any fear that their voice might otherwise be recognised.

Participant in both the physical and virtual studies receive "homework" assignments (via alltheseworldsllc.com)
Participants in both the physical and virtual studies receive “homework” assignments (via alltheseworldsllc.com)

Additional benefits in using virtual worlds are those of accessibility and the ability to establish social networks among peers. Writing in Advanced Computational Intelligence Paradigms in Healthcare 6, Jacquelyn Ford Morie, the founder of All These Worlds, and who also one of Dr. Rice’s collaborators in the study, notes:

Today’s returning soldiers are most likely geographically dispersed, which may make it difficult to get to centres where medical help is typically aggregated. In addition, a social support structure may be lacking, leaving veterans unable to socialise with comrades in person on a regular basis … Online shared virtual worlds, however, are easily accessed from any personal computer, and can support the formation of social networks, facilitate access to care, and provide social activities between soldiers where geography is no barrier.

Jacquelyn Ford Morie. All These Worlds, her company, has also provided virtual environments for the US Army's MBSR studies
Jacquelyn Ford Morie. All These Worlds, her company, has also provided virtual environments for the US Army’s MBSR studies

She goes on to note that most service personal today are comfortable with using technology and in playing computer games, so accessing virtual worlds should not present them with significant barriers to entry or from engaging with online communities.

Dr. Rice and her team report that taken as a whole, the MBSR courses have seen positive results across both actual and virtual sessions, with participants registering lower blood pressure, reduced anger and increased calmness in their lives, as well as  exhibiting increased energy levels and faster reactions. Her team also note that anecdotal evidence suggests that those who have participated in courses are still practicing techniques six months later.

However, the team also acknowledge that further research into the overall effectiveness of MBSR with military personnel is required before any definitive findings on its overall applicability to widespread use within the US Army can be determined.

Even so, despite the fact that such formal determination has yet to be reached, the work carried out to date is encouraging, and stands as another fascinating example of how virtual worlds can be used for the betterment of our health and welfare.

Related Links

With thanks to Ziki Questi for the initial pointer to the US Army article on this research.