AjaxLife for the iPhone

If you are unfamiliar with AjaxLife it is described as followed: "AjaxLife is a web app that allows you to log in to the Second Life virtual world from almost anywhere."
Of course there are some limits to this, most notably that you don't see the 3D world. Functionally you can do lot, for example chat, teleport, pay and tranfer inventory. This is usefull if you need to login to SL from a computer that doesn't has or can't run the Viewer.

To bring this functionality to even more devices and locations a iPhone version has been released. Though this version does not has as much functionality as the web app yet. So far you can Chat, send IMs to your your friends List and recieve IMs. This is a cool and quick way to say hi to a friend or answer a customer while you are on the road, or when you are at a boring movie for example.

To use it you can browse with your iPhone or iPod touch to http://ajaxlife.net . Or if you don't have a iPhone you can use http://iphonetester.com/ (seems to work best in Safari) and browse to ajaxlife.net/?iphone in it.

Pictures of AjaxLife via the iphone tester

There was some trouble with posting this and had to redo it 2 times, my apologies for the repeats in your rss readers.

How to stop the Tools menu from Hiding

The tools menu gets automatically hiding in the 1.20 release of the Second Life viewer. This was done to reduce the number of menus presented to the (new) users. It only becomes visible when the 'Build' window is open.

I like the idea of removing menu items, to make SL looks less daunting for the new User. It seems though that the change is unpopular with and it is going to be changed back in the 1.21 viewer. For the people who can't wait to have it back, Jacek explained on her blog how to have the Tools menu back permanently with just some simple copy and paste.

This trick is a simple one. Since SL looks for the Tools menu by name to find which menu to hide, all you have to do is change its name, and SL won’t find it, and it’ll stay visible all the time!

The really easy way (download the replacement file):

1. Download my pre-chewed XML file to “Second Life/skins/default/xui/en-us/”, replacing the existing one. On OS X, go to Applications, ctrl-click on “Second Life”, choose “Show Package Contents”, then put the file in “Contents/Resources/skins/default/xui/en-us/”.
2. Restart SL, enjoy.

The slightly less easy way (edit the file yourself):

1. Open up “Second Life/skins/default/xui/en-us/menu_viewer.xml” in your text editor. On OS X, go to Applications, ctrl-click on “Second Life”, choose “Show Package Contents”, then open up “Contents/Resources/skins/default/xui/en-us/viewer-menu.xml” with TextEdit (or your favorite text editor).
2. Search for: name="Tools" (it’s on line 590)
3. Change name="Tools" to name="Toolz" or some other non-Tools word.
4. Save the file, restart SL, enjoy.

Voila, your Tools menu will now be visible all the time. Piece of cake

Google Lively

Google dropped a bomb on the virtual world market today by releasing a new virtual world called Lively. I'm not writing a deep review yet, my first impression is that it feels like IMVU. It is better then IMVU though, you can at least move your avatar around a room, but the best part is that it runs in a browser(via a plugin). Sadly there are no content creation tools yet, or the ability to upload models, I heard those are coming.

What I really am hoping for is some sort of scripting tools to make interactive objects. That would really open up the possibility space.

I'm excited though, some people see it as yet another dress up virtual world. But I think with Google backing it has a lot more potential by the simple fact alone of the amount attention this will get. Add to that possibilities of Google earth and Sketchup mashups.

The Vesuvius Room in Lively:

Going Loco With The Loco Pocos

Damien Fate and Washu Zebrastripe, both over 5 years old in Second Life, are launching a completely new experience in the Second Life® world. This time, they went for Extreme Cuteness and redefining the whole "tiny" experience.

Apparently, all tinies in existence use the same "avatar distortion animation" created years ago. They evolved over the years — from rounded prims to sculpties — and with more details like flexi tails, HUDs, and accessories that continued to improve. However, Damien got away with all that and created his own "tiny distortion avatar animation". One that allows Loco Pocos to sit properly on any "human-sized" chair without tricks. Combined with a HUD that allows avatar personalisation, lots of emotes (I won't call them "anims" or "Gestures" since they are so much more than that: they change the sculpties to show different emotions, they animate the avatar, they emit particles in 3D, they have sounds recorded by professionals, they're a completely different experience!), and even changing the attached clothes and accessories... it's something unlike every other experience in SL. Damien redefined the way you interface with your avatar, in a way that Linden Lab never imagined — a simple way, using icons and not text, and just clicking on them will do whatever you wish to do with your avatar, without needing to remember what command to type on your AO (or what AO to wear!).

The "store" that sells the Loco Pocos and their customisable accessories is not just a shop. It's an experience by itself! There are games and puzzles to solve, some on your own, some with friends together, and you can claim unique prizes (not available for sale) if you complete them. It'll take you several hours of fun to complete each one, and Damien promises to release a few more every month or so, as well as new items and accessories every week. This is something well planned and organised. A Renaissance in the tiny experience, which actually has little to do with the "fad" started two years ago. Loco Pocos are unique in the whole experience; in fact, like I often said to Damien, it looks like if Disney created a new virtual world. It's not SL at all; it's something magic and quite different from what you're used to! And, again, that was totally intended...

You can take a look at the Flickr stream for Loco Pocos, visit the website, but nothing will replace the experience of buying one of the cute Loco Pocos avatar for a mere L$350 and have fun on Loco Pocos Island :)

Lillie Yifu and Dizzy Banjo's "A Message in a Bottle"

As part of the SL5B celebrations, Dizzy Banjo and Lillie Yifu are creating “A Message to Second Life”.

We have created a giant bottle, which we want to fill with all your messages to Second Life. What would you like to say to the entire SL community on its 5th birthday ?

• What does Second Life mean to you ?
• How has your Second Life affected you ?
• What hopes do you have for the future of Second Life ?

You can submit your message in two forms :

• An uploaded audio recording of you speaking your message (PREFERRED OPTION! ! )
• A text based message in a notecard

Once we have recieved your messages they will all go into the bottle and spill out intermittently as part of a fun interactive sound and music installation celebrating the Second Life spirit!

At the end of the 2 weeks of birthday events the bottle will be sealed and cast off into the SL ocean, perhaps it will be found again at SL10B …

Vint Falken put the instructions for this initiative in multiple languages.

Paralysed Japanese man takes a walk in Second Life.

This is realy a great story:

A paralysed man using only his brain waves has been able to manipulate a virtual Internet character, Japanese researchers said Monday, calling it a world first.
The 41-year-old patient used his imagination to make his character take a walk and chat to another virtual person on the popular Second Life website.

The patient, who has suffered paralysis for more than 30 years, can barely bend his fingers due to a progressive muscle disease so cannot use a mouse or keyboard in the traditional way.

In the experiment, he wore headgear with three electrodes monitoring brain waves related to his hands and legs. Even though he cannot move his legs, he imagined that his character was walking.

He was then able to have a conversation with the other character using an attached microphone, said the researchers at Japan's Keio University.

This is very amazing news, and something many people have hoped that virtual worlds could be used for. I wonder if the man feels like he has gained some freedom back.

The AvaStar Becomes a Blog!

The popular tabloid "The AvaStar", which was released every week in PDF format, now turned into a blog, using Typo3 as the CMS engine.

Not only this will mean a more regular output of new articles — instead of having to wait a whole week for them to come out — but another interesting aspect is that the AvaStar is turning to other virtual worlds as well. One wonders if they feel the pressure from Massively, which, since absorbing Second Life Insider, also turned to other virtual worlds.

Their blog features a lot of new things to build up a "community of readers" — like so many "social Websites", it also has things like photo sharing (videos in the future) and an events calendar. It now has separate RSS feeds for its several areas.

One wonders if the future of all electronic newspapers is the blog format. Will the Second Style Magazine become a blog, too? :)

Free your hands

Mitch Kapor and Philippe Bossut from Kapor Enterprises designed a interface prototype that makes it possible to operate Second Life with out a mouse or keyboard, and called it Hands Free 3D.
3 months ago they started to work on this idea, they modified the open source client to support a 3D camera as a input device. This following YouTube movie demonstrates the possibilities:

It is pretty good what they already got done, but one does wonder how comfortable it is to navigate this way, it might be fun for a presentation, but I'm skeptical if this really is a superior control system. Besides they don't show a example of building, which I'm more interested in. I can envision something where you pick up prims and mod them with your hands.

They mention that 3D cameras aren't available for the mainstream yet, but I would think a larger screen or a beamer would be needed to, to better see where you are.

It is a cool development, and it is only the first phase. Now we have to figure out how this could be best used.

Second Life on The Daily Show

The Daily Show has a short piece about the congress hearing on the Virtual Worlds. Of course all the old old old jokes about virtual worlds and the Second Life name come by.

Disappointingly they didn't actually used Second Life for the in world reporter bit.

CSI:NY in Second Life — Here Comes The Second Episode Featuring Second Life®

Take your seats, grab your popcorn, it's time to leave your computer logged out of Second Life® and watch the second episode featuring your favourite virtual world on tonight's show of CSI:NY at 10:00 EDT (if you're lucky to be in the US to watch it, of course — the rest of the world will have to wait).

Dubbed "DOA for a Day", it should not only end the small two-episode series about Second Life® in CSI:NY, but also be the farewell of the long months of the CSI:NY islands in SL. Some observant residents have noticed that the Electric Sheep Company has once again increased the number of Orientation Areas for CSI:NY.

Let's hope that the rolling upgrade to Havok™ 4 that is currently going on will help out the many new users to feel comfortable with a (hopefully) more stable and improved Second Life®.