Tag: Bright Canopy

A Bright Canopy set to open over Second Life and OpenSim

Posted on by Inara Pey

BC logoBright Canopy, the new streaming service, which allows users on low-end computers to access both Second Life and OpenSim has announced it will officially launch on Saturday, August 29th at a single monthly subscription price, which for the first 90 days (at least) will be $17.00 a month.

The service, which was established by SL users Bill Glover and his wife, Jeri (known in-world as Chaos Priestman and Beth Robbani respectively in-world),  arose directly as a result of the May 2015 closure of the SL Go streaming service provided by former on-line streaming games supplier, OnLive. What’s more, and on a personal note, I’m pleased to be able to say that this blog had a hand in bringing things about – although my involvement as a beta user hasn’t been as extensive as I’d hoped.

As a result of the cessation of SL Go as a result of OnLive’s decision to sell, I ruminated on the potential of the Lab running a streamed SL service through Amazon AppSstream. This caught Bill’s eye and imagination, prompting him to comment:

Let’s just do it ourselves! You really got me thinking. I’d can launch a service right now if I get enough folks for Beta.

Bill and Jeri Glover: heading the Bright Canopy team, and long-term Second Life users
Bill and Jeri Glover: heading the Bright Canopy team, and long-term Second Life users

Things further progressed when I wrote about Nebadon Izumi’s work in getting the viewer and OpenSim delivered over AppStream.  My article prompted Nikola Bozinovic, founder and CEO of Frame, a cloud-based service focused on delivering Windows applications to users,  to suggest his service could be used to deliver Second Life through the cloud.

Bill and Nikola quickly got their heads together, and within 24 hours, they had their own proof-of-concept running, delivering the official SL viewer over Frame via Amazon.

Bright Canopy streams SL and OpenSim directly to your web browser, offering those on low-specification computers to enjoy the full graphic richness of both platforms with (allowing for network vagaries) low latency
Bright Canopy streams SL and OpenSim directly to your web browser, offering those on low-specification computers to enjoy the full graphic richness of both platforms with (allowing for network vagaries) low latency – note the data, bottom left (via Bright Canopy)

Not long after that, and with the support of SL and OpenSim users, a small alpha test commenced, which expanded to an invite-only pre-launch beta, which again in turn gradually opened its doors wider and wider as time as progressed and issues dealt with.

Nikola Bozinovic, founder of Frame, who extended an invitation to try the service as a possible means of accessing Second Life (and other grids) from the cloud
Nikola Bozinovic, founder of Frame, who extended an invitation to try his service as a means of accessing Second Life (and other grids) from the cloud – and thus paved the way for Bright Canopy to deliver

While operating as independent companies, the synergy between Frame and Bright Canopy has been impressive, with the former working hard to ensure the latter can provide a scalable, robust service, as Bill has worked to ensure the viewer behaves itself when streamed and can support the services users expect – notably voice.

“Frame is excited to provide infrastructure support to make projects like Bright Canopy scale globally,” Nikola stated during the official launch announcement. “Bill has captured the imagination and the energy of the Second Life community. We’ve been impressed by the cooperative and open approach of the Bright Canopy team.”

One of the core benefits of running with Frame, is the company has an established track record in delivering Windows applications over cloud services (indeed, in June 2015, Frame closed a further US $10 million round of funding, such is the scope of interest in their approach). This means they have the technical expertise to be able to help Bright Canopy scale over time, and to offer the kind of delivery speeds users expect (local network vagaries allowing). The company already has a global presence itself, notably utilising Amazon’s backbone, with points of presence across the United States, Europe, Asia and South America.

Initially, Bright Canopy ran using only Frame’s presence in California. Even so, and for many in the USA and Europe, results were impressive. Later, Dublin was added to the mix, offering greatly reduced latency to beta users in Europe.  With the launch on August 29th, Bright Canopy will additionally leverage Frame’s presence on the US East Coast to again enhance the service.

One of the key aspects of Bright Canopy being partnered with Frame is that the latter already has multiple points-of-presence with Amazon around the world - so Bright Canopy can leverage these as global demands requires. At launch, Bright Canopy runs out of California, serving the USA, and Dublin, serving Europe
One of the key aspects of Bright Canopy being partnered with Frame is that the latter already has multiple points-of-presence with Amazon around the world – so Bright Canopy can leverage these as global demands requires. At launch, Bright Canopy runs out of California, serving the USA, and Dublin, serving Europe

The new monthly pricing plan, which will completely replace the hourly plan used during the beta period, has initially been set at US $17.00 a month for the first 90 days. However, Bright Canopy warn that this may be subject to increase – although they hope very much to avoid this.

The problem here is that Bright Canopy is currently being provisioned via Amazon’s Spot Instances. Normally, these are the most cost-effective way to deliver a service, but they have lately been subject to an insane bidding war, resulting in massive price spikes.

This means that Bright Canopy need to watch the situation very carefully, as Bill explained in the launch announcement:

Our early bird price is going to be an experiment for 90 days. If you’ve been following the blog, you know we’ve seen price fluctuations on the back-end, and we still need to watch actual usage of the service. $17 is a sustainable price if the instance costs return to their typical, historical values. It is not a sustainable price with the current spike in instance price. We may need to get creative with how we split instances, or we may need to raise prices. We intend to remain transparent as always and will keep you posted. Our goal is to continue to maintain a sustainable, affordable service.

If a price increase is required, it will be announced when Bright Canopy have had an opportunity to assess the best way forward, and with sufficient time for users to determine how they’d like to proceed.

Continue reading “A Bright Canopy set to open over Second Life and OpenSim” →

OnLive: “so long, and thanks for all the fish” as SL Go ends

Posted on by Inara Pey

Even ideas around offering Sl Go as a Premium offering, while simple in concept, are potentially less-than-simple to implementSL Go has officially gone. The service ceased functioning on Friday, May 1st, after some considerable speculation on exactly when the service would stop.

As most, if not all, SL Go users are aware, notice that the service – along with OnLive’s other cloud services – would be coming to an end was given early in April, after OnLive decided to sell its portfolio of patents to Sony Computer Entertainment America. Way this came about is explained in a blog post from OnLive’s main investor (and former Chairman), Gary Lauder, and I also covered the reasons in a blog post of my own.

OnLive gave notification that their services had come to an end with a message borrowed from Douglas Adams, seen by users as they attempted to log-in via the OnLive clients
OnLive gave notification that their services had come to an end with a message borrowed from Douglas Adams, seen by users as they attempted to log-in via the OnLive clients

While it has originally be thought that SL Go would be popular as a means of access Second Life from tablets and while on the move in the physical world, it actually turned out that the service gained significant traction among those users accessing Second Life (and OpenSim, with the arrival of Firestorm as a supported viewer within SL Go), from low specification computers and laptop, as it enabled people to enjoy the full graphical richness of Second Life in a manner that would otherwise be beyond the capabilities of their hardware, and with few significant issues.

So what now for those people?

At the moment, the most likely alternative on the horizon is Bright Canopy, which will allow users to access Second Life and OpenSim through a conventional web browser. Again, as many people who have used SL Go know, Bright Canopy is currently undergoing beta testing, and it is hoped that a broader, invitation-only  pre-launch testing phases will be starting soon, with a formal launch to follow thereafter.

Like SL Go from OnLive, it is important to recognise that Bright Canopy is not endorsed by Linden Lab, but is effectively a third-party viewer service. As it is also being streamed (via Amazon G2 servers initially), there will obviously be a cost involved in using it, and prices have yet to be confirmed. Also, the service is likely to take time to grow – initially, it will be run using Amazon’s servers in the USA, although the plan is to leverage other data centres as time progresses (Bright Canopy is facilitated by Frame, who already use Amazon’s data centres on both the west and east coasts of the USA, plus Ireland, Australia, Singapore and Japan).

Those interested in learning more about Bright Canopy can sign-up for news on the official launch via the website, and and learn more about the service via the Bright Canopy blog.

In the meantime, and once again – as an SL go user myself, particularly when my main PC was in hospital for an extended period earlier this year, my thanks once again to Dennis, Jeff, Shae, Jersey, Robby and everyone else at OnLive involved in SL Go – including Jane Anderson in the US and Mark Bevan here in the UK – for striving to make it an outstanding service.

In the interests of disclosure, I am involved in providing support to Bright Canopy and in helping to administer the Bright Canopy blog. However, I am not officially involved in the management and operation of the company itself.

Bright Canopy: first user group meeting notes published

Posted on by Inara Pey

Bright CanopyBright Canopy, the planned new streaming service for Second Life and OpenSim, hosted its first user group meeting on Saturday, April 25th.

The meeting drew interested parties and beta testers from SL and OpenSim, and was hosted by Bright Canopy founder, Bill Glover (known in-world as Chaos Priestman). As Bright Canopy will be running on technology provided by Frame (who are putting considerable effort into helping to get the service up-and-running and ensuring it can meet users’ expectations), they were represented at the meeting by Carsten Puls (Carsten at Frame in SL).

Held in text chat to allow those running on SL Go to join the session, the meeting was mainly focus on questions and answers to give people a chance to learn what they wanted to learn about the service, and ran to just over an hour.

The notes from the meeting have now been posted on the Bright Canopy website. Rather than presenting a formal transcript (because some questions were asked a number of times), the meeting notes group questions and answers in to subject groups.

While those interested in potentially moving to Bright Canopy when it does launch should read the notes directly in order to get the most complete picture of things, I’m providing a high-level key point summary below from the major topics discussed (note questions were asked about supporter viewers, please refer to the meeting notes for these):

Chaos Priestman, aka Bill Glover, Bright Canopy’s founder, at the in-world meeting

When will Bright Canopy be ready?

  • Bright Canopy is in closed beta,  right now. The plan is to move to an invitation-only pre-launch as soon as possible, to allow for more widespread testing; when this happens depends on getting a few more technical issues dealt with and sorting management and billing issues

How does it work?

  • Bright Canopy is like SL Go, but accessed via a web browser. Initially, for the pre-launch this will be Chrome, but support for other browsers will be there for the launch. Essentially, if your device can run a modern browser and is capable of viewing a streamed video, you should be good to go
  • Bright Canopy will provide the service, Frame will managed the underlying technology and Groove will provide support assistance

Accessibility and performance

  • Bright Canopy will initially be hosted in the USA. However, Frame utilises Amazon WAS G2 servers, so the aim is to support Bright Canopy as widely as possible. Frame already utilises Amazon data centres in Ireland, Tokyo, Sydney, Singapore, as well as both the east and west coasts of the USA
  • There may still be legal restrictions that prevent people in some countries from using the service (as we the case with Germany and SL Go); these will be looked into
  • In terms of connectivity, a bandwidth of at least 3 Mbps is required and latency of under 100 ms

Price and Payment Options

  • Pricing is not currently available. The idea is to make the service as cost-effective as possible while obviously meeting the costs involved in supplying the service
  • Stripe is being used for back-end payment processing
  • Payment options will initially be credit card and bitcoin for the pre-launch. linden dollars will be added after pre-launch, and PayPal may be offered as well.

For the rest, as noted above, please refer to the Bright Canopy blog.

If you have any questions on the service, please be sure to ask them on the Bright Canopy blog, not here, so that they can be fully addressed.

Bright Canopy: first in-world Q&A, Saturday April 25th

Posted on by Inara Pey

Bright CanopyBright Canopy, the company working towards offering a new streaming access service for Second Life and OpenSim has announced its first in-world meeting and Q&A session.

The event will take place on Saturday, April 25th, starting at 11:00 SLT, and will take place in Thorncliff, Second Life. The meeting announcement reads in part:

Please join us for our first in-world Q&A at our shiny new, Bright Canopy Meeting Hall.

How This Works: To make sure everyone gets a turn to ask their question, please take a seat when you arrive. When we get everyone settled, we will begin taking question. If you have a question, please stand and I will call on you. Please ask questions in text chat so that we can keep a transcript.

Please be aware that we will be keeping a log of the chat and will be posting it to the website. We respect your privacy, but want to share the discussion with people who can’t make it

Seating may well be limited, depending on the numbers attending, and will be allocated on a first come, first serve basis. All things being equal, I’ll be attending myself and will be producing a full transcript of the meeting, which will appear both in the Bright Canopy blog and here.

Bright Canopy launches new blog – and a competition

Posted on by Inara Pey

Bright CanopyBright Canopy’s new blog has launched, and with it a competition as well.

The blog, which will be used to keep people up-to-date with developments in the project and news on things like the upcoming pre-launch beta testing, is still a work-in-progress, and the introductory note indicates there may be a few changes as things settle down.

As well as the introductory note, the blog also carries a brief update, which includes some news on the forthcoming pre-launch beta programme, and also information on the aforementioned competition.

This is a photo contest, and on offer is a free month’s subscription to Bright Canopy once it officially launches.

Those interested in participating are invited to submit a snapshot, taken in-world, which can be used as the background image for the Bright Canopy desktop  – the screen users will see when they log-in to the service,  and which allows them to launch the viewer to access Second Life or OpenSim.

Snapshots must be at least 2000×1378 pixels, and must be PG in nature – so no nudity! The guidelines for the competition note that Bright Canopy are looking for images that will make a good desktop background; things like in-world landscape pictures. They note that avatars can be included, but shouldn’t be the primary focus.

Submission can be made via one of the following methods:

All entries should feature the hashtag #SLFreedom, and those entering via Twitter or Google+ message should also follow Bright Canopy, while those entering via Facebook are asked to Like the Bright Canopy page. In addition, all entries must be submitted through the chose channel no later than 23:59 pm PDT on Friday, May 24th, 2015. Please make sure you ready the competition notes and guidelines in the Bright Canopy blog prior to entering.

There’s currently no date for the official launch of the service, so the winner may have a short wait before the closing date and getting access to Bright Canopy.

Related Links

Disclaimer: I am actively involved in helping to manage and run the Bright Canopy blog.

Streaming the viewer: a Bright Canopy update

Posted on by Inara Pey

Bright CanopyNews is spreading on the efforts, spearheaded by Bill Glover, to bring a new cloud-based means of access to Second Life (and other grids).

Bright Canopy is the name of the project, and Bill was stirred into action following ruminations on this blog relating to Amazon AppStream, and more particularly as a result of Nikola Bozinovic’s invitation that people take a look Frame, the company he has established to provision Windows applications and web applications to a range of clients across the web, something I did couple of days ago when looking at one of the two options for Frame: that of a do-it-yourself option.

As mentioned in that article, while the DIY approach works, it is not ideal in some respects. Far better to have a fully managed service along the lines of SL Go available to users. As noted in my article, and in posts like Ciaran’s, linked-to above and in the SL subreddits, this is exactly what Bill is working towards.

Since word of Bright Canopy initially broke, the response has been overwhelming. So much so that the beta invitation has now been closed, as it was getting to the point where too many people were wanting to try things out. Those signing-up now will instead receive news on developments.

So, in the meantime, what has been going on? Well, in brief.

The project is on a solid footing, with a core group of beta testers; a Github environment has been set-up for issue reporting and tracking, managing code, and running the project’s internal wiki, and channels of communication established. In addition, the LL viewer has now been added to the project alongside Firestorm.

Testing has already raised a range of issues, and these are in the process of being addressed, with the Frame team are working closely with Bill to overcome some of the stickier issues around provisioning the viewer in this way.

Bright Canopy now runs both Firestorm and LL's viewer
Bright Canopy now runs both Firestorm and LL’s viewer

One such issue is getting viewer settings to persist across multiple sessions, another is upping the overall performance, and there are more. All are being looked at,  but it is going to take time to solve things, so it might be a little while longer before things can be opened-up some more and invite more people to try it.

In terms of performance, various options are being looked at, and one thing that may help is that Nikola informs me that Frame are working on a new set of native terminals covering OS X, Windows and iOS, which should be in their own beta soon.

Because there is a lot to be achieved, a work list is being drawn-up, and some key decisions for the short-term have been taken with regards to focusing efforts.

Bright Canopy now has LL's viewer enabled, and things like performance are very much being looked at (the 30 fp seen here is fairly typical of the upper end of the performance scale at present
Bright Canopy now has LL’s viewer enabled, and things like performance are very much being looked at (the 30 fps seen here is fairly typical of the upper end of the performance scale at present

This means, for example, that the current work is focused on getting a non-mobile solution working.This makes sense because the majority of people using the SL Go service did so from low specification computers rather than mobile devices, so ensuring there is a service which can fill the void for them is key.

A mobile solution also requires much more in the way of specialist work – such as providing an overlay to allow users to control things like avatar and camera movement via a touch screen (just as was the case with SL Go), and a means of interfacing with touch keyboards. While this work will be tackled, it is not on the immediate priority to get sorted. Having a service that works and provides the level of performance users will be happy with is currently key.

Also in the running is a new Bright Canopy blog, which we intend to use to help keep folks up-to-date on progress, offer screenshots of work (and maybe even a video or two), and more as time goes on. This will hopefully be up and running in the near future, and you’ll likely see me writing there 😉 .

There’s obviously a lot else to be sorted as well – including pricing. Right now, however, the effort is in exploring exactly what can be achieved and how.  However, this will hopefully give a flavour for what has been achieved in just a few days of effort. There will be more to come as more progress is made, and I’ll have a link to the Bright Canopy blog once it is up and running.

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