3pointD.com

Tony Walsh has a nice article up on his site about Vivox, a VoIP company that has designed a very cool application that interfaces with Second Life. The Vivox voice app runs behind the SL viewer, but residents can initiate calls from within the world, either via a heads-up display or via Vivox’s phone booths. Calls can terminate either at a VoIP client or at a land-line or cell phone, if you belong to a service like Skype Out. You can also place a “microphone” in-world that will add Vivox-enabled users to a local voice channel; move far enough away and you drop out of the channel. Move into range of a different mic and you’re automatically added to that channel. This adds voice to the Grid in a really seamless and comfortable (and opt-outable) way. I met the Vivox guys at South by Southwest and was very impressed by what I saw. Tony’s piece gives a nice look at the company, its background and what they’re offering. And he claims it’s been edited by yours truly, though all I really did was look the thing over and tell Tony I thought it was awesome.