3pointD.com

If you’ve been confused as to why the “three-dimensional” virtual world of Second Life seems to appear on your flat, exceedingly two-dimensional computer screen, put your worries to rest. According to its Web site, the 3D Lab at the University of Michigan has finally pushed the virtual world out into true 3D — or at least, the kind of 3D that people used to experience via those red and blue glasses you’d get at the movie theater. The lab’s stereoscopic client was developed by Gabriel Cirio and Eric Maslowski based on the recent release of the client source code, and causes Second Life objects to pop out of the screen when viewed through a similar pair of specs. So okay, it’s not really true 3D (whatever that means), but it’s still cool and fun. I’ve just been reading too much of The Onion lately, I guess.

While Prokofy Neva, Tony Walsh and others wonder what will happen to Second Life real estate investments once it’s possible to run your own open-source server (i.e., create your own virtual land), someone has gone ahead and done just that. This thread over at the libsecondlife forums describes a Second Life server built by a user, a single sim that can be accessed using the standard client software. As near as I can figure, the server was built by examining the client code (and/or reverse-engineering it) along with the information that is passed between client and server in order to get an idea of what the server code would need to look like. What’s more, an early version of the server code has already been made available as an open-source project. While this doesn’t mean that people can immediately set about creating the distributed metaverse that 3pointD often likes to contemplate (questions such as where everyone’s assets would reside in such a place remain to be answered), it is a step toward a virtual world, solar system, galaxy or universe free from centralized corporate control, one that looks more like the World Wide Web of individually controlled sites than it does a contiguous grid such as exists in Second Life. (more…)

I have to say, I continue to be impressed with what Reuben Steiger’s virtual-world services firm, Millions of Us, has done for Pontiac’s presence in Second Life. Their Motorati Life project essentially gives users land to build projects promoting not Pontiac but anything related to Second Life car culture. Residents make project proposals, the best of which make it onto »Motorati Island« and are catalogued on the Web site. Users have created monstrous monster truck rallies, death courses, exploding and self-reassembling cars and much more. The latest sounds awesome. It’s Tre Ceres and Un4given Spoonhammer’s Drift or Die, in which you run down menacing zombies in your car, dodging exploding barrels (of course) and other hazards. What I love about the project — besides the fact that it’s almost completely user-created — is that it’s an excellent way to promote engagement in a brand in a manner that’s entertaining to an audience that’s never actually asked to buy anything. You could certainly argue that a more benign manifestation of this would be to simply give users land without the branding, but who’s going to pay for that? (more…)

Second Life resident Kitten Lulu amusingly points out that of the 10 locations in Second Life that Microsoft has chosen for Windows Vista’s virtual launch party (at 2pm SL time, featuring Praga Khan), around half of them are places frequented by paid cybersex escorts. Microsoft “Enthusiast Evangelist” Miel Van Opstal has more insight on just why the locations were chosen. The SL launch seems to have been arranged by a European agency (One Agency) that I can’t find a link for. In any case, if you’re interested in seeing how Vista-compatible your Second Life sex life is, check it out. (SLurls here.) [Via World of SL.]

The MTV Networks channel Nickelodeon is launching a virtual world for kids today, according to a press release. Known as Nicktropolis, the world will be in isometric 3D, and feature games and video content, branded Nickelodeon environments and characters, and the ability to interact with other users and construct one’s own 3D home. The site isn’t quite live yet, but the world looks to be browser-based, though I’m not entirely sure. Nicktropolis will launch with four main areas, described after the jump. These include the kind of gaming elements that arguably make getting into such a world easier than it often is in places like Second Life or There.com. (more…)