Tag: The Drax Files Radio Hour

The second broadcast from the attic studios of The Drax Files Radio hour kicks-off with an introduction by Strawberry Singh, before launching into a wide-ranging segment which covers news from SL and beyond, further feedback on the inaugural broadcast, including more on the Oculus Rift, some discussion on SL’s status as a niche product and the more, and a tribute to Osprey Therian.

Osprey Therian

It is with the tribute to Osprey that I’m choosing to start this piece, as it is the core of this episode – and rightly so.

Osprey Therian (Vivian Kendall in RL), artist, long-term SL resident and both a friend and inspiration to many, passed away in December 2013, much to the sadness of all who knew her. Her legacy is not just physical through her work in SL and RL, but also emotional, because she did touch so many and in many different ways.

Through a number of interviews and discussions, Draxtor reflects on the lives – real and virtual – of someone who, while she would doubtless be embarrassed at being called such – was very much an iconic figure where Second Life is concerned, and in so many different ways.

Through the words of Marianne McCann, Jim Purbrick (formerly Babbage Linden) and Salazar Jack (Justin Esparza in RL), Drax presents an engaging, uplifting portrait of Osprey and her approach to life, virtual reality, health and more. It is a piece which touches upon many different areas of the real and virtual, all of which Osprey herself no doubt would applaud and, were she able to, add her voice to the comments and the broader discussions which could so easily arise from the subjects touched upon. As a tribute, this is a beautifully handled segment, and full kudos to Drax as both interviewer and producer, for the overall scope of the piece.

Is SL nothing without Controversy?

Controversy is hard to avoid in Second Life, and not long after the initial episode of TDFRH was broadcast, the show was tangentially caught in some controversy over the interview with Ash Qin on the subject of the NSA and eavesdropping, etc., on virtual worlds (and the Internet as a whole), which prompted a response from Ash himself. This prompted Drax to point out that the show is “not the BBC”, and the intent is not to undertake investigative journalism, but to provide general news and commentary on the metaverse as a whole. Which is a fair point.

However – and while I certainly don’t expect either Drax nor Jo to have their finger on the pulse of absolutely everything that has happened in SL, past or present, a show such as TDFRH can only be enhanced by demonstrating aware of past history, where it is relevant. This is not to say I find the critique levelled at the inclusion of the interview with Ash Qin to be valid in and of itself, but I do applaud both Drax’s and Jo’s response to the criticism and their openness and willingness to seek support from people in ensuring critical bases are covered.

As an extension of this, episode 2 makes mention of OTR and its use (most notably within the v1-style Phoenix viewer) and how, apparently, there was pressure within the Lab to have the capability for OTR-encrypted person-to-person messaging “blocked” on the server-side, with the intimation that the overall pressure for this was coming from a government agency (the FBI being specifically mentioned).

The story comes via a former Linden Lab employee and makes interesting  – indeed, curious – reading; particularly given that the OTR system itself, as members of the Phoenix (now Firestorm) team have stated, was apparently deeply flawed in terms of how well “protected” IM conversations really were / are.

Continue reading “The Drax Files Radio Hour: Osprey remembered and the future of VR” →

With a familiar welcome from Torley Linden, the first segment of the eagerly awaited The Drax Files Radio Hour is now available for all to “tune-in” to.

The inaugural “broadcast”, transmitted from “an attic deep within the Berlin 1920s project”, covers a lot of ground: the ToS debate, an Oculus Rift update, Lily Allen’s confusion over L$ and Bitcoins and her regret at not having undertaken a gig in SL, the NSA and virtual worlds / games, fitted mesh  – and more.

Hosted by Draxtor Despres and Jo Yardley. The Drax Files is aimed at being a community show, driven by the community, for the community while looking at virtual environments from all sides, and input from SL users has been encouraged right from the start.

Oculus Rift

Given Jo’s enthusiasm for the Rift, it comes as no surprise that it features large in the broadcast – coupled with the news that the Oculus Team have been working on a new variant with head tracking capabilities and a low latency screen and which was unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

I’ve followed the Rift development for SL from a distance, both through what has been revealed by the Lab concerning their work at integrating it, and via Dave Rowe (Strachan Ofarrel in SL), who has been developing a version of his CtrlAltStudio viewer for use with the Rift quite independently of the Lab (Dave will also be a guest on an upcoming segment of TDFRH).

If I’m honest, I’m not altogether convinced that the Rift will be quite the “game changer” within Second Life some have been predicting – which is not to say I don’t think there will be applications in-world where the Rift will be put to very exceptional use. I just don’t quite see Rift-driven experiences becoming “the norm” in terms of how people engage with Second Life on a daily basis. What comes after the Rift, however (and indeed, Second life), may well be an entirely different story.

In this, I also tend to agree with ex Battery Street staffer Babbage Linden, as expressed by Drax during the show: I’m somewhat dubious about the Rift achieving the levels of “everyday” mainstream use some picture for it. This doesn’t – just to be clear – mean I think people won’t find uses for it outside of games and the like; rather, it’s that I think the uses that are found for the Rift will themselves be somewhat niche and not as all-encompassing as is being imagined in some quarters. That said, I’m looking forward to hearing Dave talk some more about his work with the headset, and seeing what does emerge from the Lab even if I don’t have an Oculus Rift myself.

ToS Changes

Having been entirely missed by all of us (myself included) when first released in August 2013, the last set of changes to the Lab’s Terms of Service have gone on to cause a considerable amount of upset and controversy – some of which was not helped by people getting hold of the wrong end of the stick.

This latter point perhaps most clearly demonstrated by Jo’s reference in the podcast to her situation with using third-party textures, and her conviction that it is down to the Lab to convince those third-party texture providers that they should allow their textures to be uploaded to SL once more. However, as attorney Agenda Faromet has commented, there is nothing changed in the updated ToS which drastically affects the texture suppliers concerned, or which should have caused them to react as they did – and so that actually isn’t, in fairness, the Lab’s problem to “fix”.

Continue reading “The Drax Files Radio Hour launches!” →