Second Life

Judge Sides with Tech Billionaires in California Forever Case Against Family Ranchers

The legal case has caused drama for the ambitious project, which seeks to build a new city from scratch on thousands of acres of California farmland.

Meta Avatar Upgrade Could Use an Upgrade

The company's alter-ego creations will soon come with more body shape options, sparklier eyes, and updated hair. It's still doesn't seem worth billions.

Why Meta Is (and Isn’t) Driving the Metaverse Conversation

In an excerpt from "Disruptive Technologies," Paul Armstrong examines Meta's rocky pivot and why it's still the central player in the developing metaverse.

The ‘Military Metaverse’ Calls It Quits

The company called 'Improbable’ worked to create a realistic training environment for military forces.

Intel Throws Cold Water on the Metaverse Happening Any Time Soon

We will only see a 10x growth in the next five years. So...

Someone Just Bought a Strip of Virtual ‘Land’ for Over $2.4 Million

The basketball court-sized digital plot will be used to showcase wares from fashion brands and major retailers.

10 Companies That Think Following Facebook Into the Metaverse Is a Good Idea

There's no shortage of companies expressing interest in the metaverse, but here are the top 10 that may make it past the hype stage.

I Explored Second Life’s Forgotten Worlds With an Oculus Rift

Don’t call it a comeback. Second Life has been here for years—eleven, this month—but after the virtual world’s much-vaunted debut, the online universe slowly slipped out of the cultural consciousness, now infrequently referenced more as a punchline than legitimate popular hangout. Unless you, like I did last week, have an Oculus Rift handy. You’d think…

Is Second Life About to Become a Ghost World?

Second Life, one of the most hyped virtual worlds in history, is heading towards ghost town status. Intrepid tech reporter Wagner James Au broke the story over the weekend, noting that Second Life makers Linden Lab are at work on a top-secret new virtual world. It’s possible that this new virtual world is part of…

Is Second Life about to die? Wagner James Au wonders about reports of the game world’s demise on his blog, while the rest of us wonder where we’ll go to act out Gor fantasies when all those Gorean islands are gone. Is it back to IRC?

This Second Life Ballet Is the Geocities of Digital Erotica (NSFW)

So many avatars. Such nakedness and stark beauty. Wow, and this goes on for nearly 10 minutes. Who does that, who has time?

Did Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash predict the world of today?

That’s what a number of venture capitalists and futurists told the Wall Street Journal recently. They cite Stephenson’s classic novel as a harbinger of many current staples, from World of Warcraft to Google’s search capabilities. As the WSJ writes: “We are living in Neal Stephenson’s story,” says Bijan Sabet, a partner at venture-capital firm Spark…

7 Virtual Reality Technologies That Actually Work

So far, virtual reality has mostly been a colossal disappointment. But VR has had its share of breakthroughs and innovative applications. Here are seven VR technologies that work, and that may yet point the way to truly successful virtual reality. https://gizmodo.com/7-failed-virtual-reality-technologies-5280347 Anxiety Therapy For years now, virtual environments have been used to treat anxiety problems…

Second Life Embraces Corporate America, But Is It Mutual?

Second Life! It’s not just for cybersex anymore… or, at least, that’s what Linden Labs is trying to tell the various corporations of the world, as they try to reposition their virtual domain as the latest and greatest way to commute virtually to the office. Linden’s CEO, Mark Kingdon, is eager to change the perception…

Is Linden Really Pushing Second Life Sex Away?

Is Second Life about to become the new Times Square? The virtual world is to be cleaned up, according to reports, allowing those who don’t want to see cyberfrottage to remain innocent and untouched. Legal blog FindLaw finds itself pondering how Second Life creator Linden Lab is going to try to do to take back…

What the iPhone Has Needed All Along is Coming: Sparkle, A 3D Virtual World

A company called Genkii is hoping to rope a chunk of the 40-million worldwide web-connected phones and iTouches into a new 3D avatar-based virtual world, Sparkle. Too bad virtual worlds died around 4 years ago. Genkii appear to have had Sparkle in the works for quite some time, but they must have spat out whatever…

City of Decatur, Georgia Mulling Virtual World Interface

Not one to be outdone by the likes of PlayStation Home, World of Warcraft, or even that cesspool of flying dildos Second Life, the city of Decatur, Georgia might be going virtual. The virtual city, or “Virtual Decatur” as the fine elected officials of Decatur are calling it, would be a networking hub for the…

Second Life Foresaw the US Banking Crisis

Yet another financial casualty: Citigroup just became the latest institution to come crawling to the feds for a bailout. Where will it all end? As industry experts become desperate for any kind of divining rod, some observers pointed out that the failure of unregulated banking has already played out — in Second Life. The rise…

What Happens in Virtual Reality … Probably Won’t Stay There

Cross Reality, Dual Reality, X-Reality: all of these terms describe the recent work of an MIT Media Lab team to bring the virtual into the real and vice versa. So far, the X-Reality group has focused their attentions on Second Life; last year, its Shadow Lab project allowed the game’s users to virtually check out…

Things Virtual Reality China Will Not Prep You For (And What You Can Do Instead)

The U.S. is injecting a good $1.25 million into a new “virtual training ground” for American diplomats who plan on working in China called “The Second China Project.” It’s a pretend city in Linden Lab’s Second Life that purportedly will help almost-expatriots get used to the environment in the world’s most populous nation. While some…