second life
Second Life used to train terrorists?
In one of today’s more weird articles, The Australian claims that World of Warcraft and Second Life are used to train terrorists. As an example, they report a “terror campaign” which includes attacks on a Nissan building, a Reebok store and an American Apparel store (all of which are, mind you, within Second Life):
This terror […]
Our Second Life book going into print soon
Together with Thomas Praus (aka DJ Stylewalker) and Max Senges I’ve recently got the chance to write a summer university school for Barcelona-based university UOC (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya), as well as a book to go with it. Both the course and the book are all about virtual worlds, particularly Second Life.
I’ve always had […]
Eve Online makes users become real citizens
Who rules a virtual world? We’ve talked about this quite a few times lately (like here).
Well, in one case that question has been answered: Eve Online will be governed by the users, says a New York Times article:
The kingdom is in crisis. After pledging to treat its citizens equally, the government stands accused of […]
Our UOC Second Life textbook: released under CC license
A few weeks ago, Max Senges, Thomas Praus and I got the chance to draft and write a summer university course about Second Life for the UOC (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, or Open University of Catalonia), a Barcelona-based university. Along with the course, of course, a textbook was needed.
Writing the book (”Virtual Worlds […]
We’re big in Japan!
Well, kind of. We are in Spain/Catalonia, though, that’s for sure: Between Max Senges, Thomas Praus and myself we’ve written a summer university course for Barcelona-based Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Open University of Catalonia), or UOC for short. The summer school course is about Second Life, and how it can be applied for all kinds […]
Second Life Machinima
Machinima, a technique (and style) for producing movies using the 3D engines of computer games, just got a little bit richer: Shot in the virtual world of Second Life (SL) by SL resident Lainy Voom, “Tale from Midnight City” is an amazing piece of art. It’s dark, it’s beautiful, and it’s fully CC-licensed.
Link, via
Interview: LindenLab founder Philip Rosedale about the state of Second Life
Linden Lab’s Philip Rosedale, the inventor of Second Life, spoke with alarm:clock and gave a little snapshot of what’s the status of Second Life right now. Also, there’s a bit of background on where Rosedale is coming from, which is always nice to see:
Ages ago, maybe 1994, we were making a living at the Red […]
Second Life goes open source (this time, for real?)
According to mashable.com, LindenLab will open up the source code for Second Life servers, too. (Awhile ago, the client software was open-sourced.)
As if there weren’t enough freedom on Second Life (letting avatars fly), now the virtual land will operate much like the actual Internet itself. Linden Labs, private owner of Second Life, is making […]
Rant: Why Second Life won’t make it (the way it is)
A word of warning: This is just what the headline says - first and foremost a little rant. A rant about what Second Life is, and what it could be.
Thomas Praus, Max Senges and I have been chatting about Second Life quite often lately. So we decided to each take a stand, and give a […]
Second Life Liberation Army (SLLA) demand basic political rights for avatars
The Second Life Liberation Army (SLLA), who have been getting plenty of coverage for their terror attacks virtual mock terror attacks, demands basic political rights for Second Life avatars. From their mission statement:
The Second Life Liberation Army (SLLA) was formed as the ‘in-world’ military wing of a national liberation movement within Second Life. The […]
Alternatives to Second Life
Recently, I’ve blogged a few times about the issues I see with Second Life, both technical and structural. (Here’s some of my SL posts.) On his weblog, Onder points out three aspects that are crucial to virtual environments. Since Second Life’s performance doesn’t seem to scale so well (i.e. it keeps getting real slow during […]
How Gaming Transforms (us & itself)
Lately I’ve been getting more and more into how gaming influences us, culture, our media consumption, user interfaces… - you name it. Partly this is because I’ve been involved in some Second Life stuff, partly because of the whole debate about out-lawing so-called “killer games” that had been clogging up German newspapers for quite a […]
John Edwards’ (unofficial) Second Life campaign HQ vandalized
John Edwards was, as far as I know, the first candidate in the U.S. presidential elections with a campaign presence in Second Life (if only an unofficial one). As of yesterday, he’s got another first: His Second Life headquarters became vandalized.
Techpresident.com spoke it over with Jordan Bigel (aka Dire Lobo in Second Life) from InWorld […]
Second Life to open up, slowly
In an interview with New York Times columnist David Pogue Phillip Rosedale, CEO of Linden Lab and the head behind Second Life, acknowledges that the software behind Second Life will have to be open sourced at some point. Second Life is so complex a piece of software that to keep growing “we have to really […]
Anti-Lock In Law for web apps?
The more web apps we use, and the better they are, the more we trust them with our data. Apart from all privacy issues: Lock-in is becoming more and more of a problem. What happens to your pictures (and the way you sorted them) when you cancel your flickr account? What about Gmail, Google Calendar […]
My name is Peter Bihr. I live in Berlin, Germany. As a freelancer, I consult on web strategies, communities, blogging and social media. In this weblog, I jot down random thoughts, ideas and news. Hopefully, you'll find some are interesting for you, too. 