Category Archives: NEWS

Ebbe Altberg: For the People

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“We’re here, we’re willing to listen. We’re willing to engage in dialog and have conversations about what is the future and how do we get there. And that the doors are open now, again, and we want to talk to you, we want to understand you, we want to understand how to make you successful, whichever way you feel is required to make that happen. So that’s it. I’m here, I’m happy to talk to all of you, I’m gonna learn and listen and most of all, I want to make you successful, because that’s how we all can become successful.” ~ Ebbe Altberg, April 9. 2014

At a recent in-world conference for VWBPE (Virtual World Best Practices in Education), one of the keynote speakers was Linden Lab’s new CEO, Ebbe Altberg. This was a wonderful opportunity to really get to hear from Ebbe since he was installed as CEO of Linden Labs in February of 2014. You can see the video of Ebbe’s entire address here.

During his 84 minute keynote address, Ebbe touched on his thoughts for the future, gave updates, and answered questions from the audience. He addressed not only issues within the educational community, but also in SL and virtual worlds as a whole.

First of all, Ebbe feels that education is a very important partner with Second Life. He has already reinstated better pricing for educational organizations and nonprofits. He wants to reconnect with the education community and feels it is an important part of the virtual world experience. He is looking forward to education being an important part of SL from this point forward.

Another priority is working with the legal department regarding revamping the TOS (Terms Of Service) regarding content creation in order to mitigate the rumors that Linden Labs is into stealing the rights to user created content and selling it to benefit themselves. They are working to change the wording to reassure creators so they will feel confident that Linden Labs won’t steal their unique user created content, and wants to make it very clear that content creators are owners of their own creations. He is very interested in ensuring that creators can get their content both in and out of SL. Linden Labs is not trying to lock them in to SL only and wants to ensure people can export their items to the metaverse and open sim. Ebbe wants to see users getting the most out of SL.

Ebbe spoke about LL’s position regarding the metaverse and open sim. He feels that he’s glad that others, such as Philip Rosedale’s High Fidelity, are exploring this area, and that it is important for growth going forward. However, Ebbe feels that we need to get SL right first, and that we still have a long way to go. He feels that SL is too difficult for most people, and the learning curve is really steep. Ebbie states that he wants to make SL more user friendly and easier for people to use who are new to virtual worlds. Second Life needs to be easier to use and that we need to make improvements to the user experience. Linden Labs is working on this and they have developed some short-term goals, but most changes are long-term and will take time to develop.

A great deal of progress has been made over the last two years and most of these changes have been behind the scenes, such as a huge improvement to avatars and the ability to have lots of avatars on a sim without crashing. Change comes to SL like a slow drip — they’re constantly improving in small increments.

Future Technology
Ebbie touched on the fact that Linden Labs is actively in development on new technologies — specifically Occulus (a beta viewer has already been released, and an update is coming soon). One of the issues being worked on is how to interact in world without a keyboard and mouse.

Service
Ebbe has received many inquiries about whether or not the in-world Community Liaison between Linden Labs (LL) and SL users will be reintroduced, and the answer is “not at this time.” However, a very big priority of Ebbe’s is to reopen the dialogue between educators and Linden Labs, and to make sure that talk turns into action. Linden Labs wants to develop priorities and work on them to make progres towards those goals.

He is also encouraging employees of LL to go in-world as Lindens. He has lifted the rule against LL employees going in-world as Lindens, and wants to encourage them to get out there and interact with end users and really see what is going on in SL.

There is a perception that SL is nothing but a venue for gratuitous sex. Ebbe feels that there is a need to try and market SL better, so that we can improve the reputation and help people understand the breadth and depth of all that SL has to offer. The good and wonderful things in SL aren’t being seen outside the walls of SL, and that needs to change.

Strategy Going Forward
Some of the things that are in Ebbe’s top priorities in the immediate future include:

• Taking Linden dollars as a currency outside of SL. This is a massive undertaking, and getting RL bankers and so forth to go along with it is huge. They have to ensure transactions are safe and there is controls in place to avoid fraud and money laundering. It needs to be safe, legal and compliant. Ebbe compared this project to Bit Coin.

• Make SL and the viewer more intuitive and easier to use: There was an attempt by LL to simplify the viewer, and it didn’t work. Ebbe says that he is looking into why this didn’t work, because once again, SL’s learning curve is so steep it often chases off potential new residents before they can even get started.

• HiFi in SL: Linden Labs is working on making a richer avatar experience by bringing emotions to avatars. They’re in the early stages of development, but they want to make it so you can interact with avatars and be able to see their emotions, as well as hearing it in voices or emoting it in type. He wants to move avatars to beyond just being “dolls” and actually being able to see expressions of surprise, anger, happiness and have that transmitted visually.

Audience Questions:

• Will LL be working on the ability to export content out of SL?
Currently, Linden Labs isn’t actively preventing this from happening. Perhaps what is happening is that the way to export isn’t simple enough, or isn’t being communicated, but people currently do export content. Perhaps they are using a work-around, but LL isn’t actively preventing this. Which brings up another problem, where creators need to be the original creator of every single piece of the item in order to export it, and so if you’ve added a script or other component created by someone else, then you cannot export the item. And the reasons for this are simple: We need to make sure people can’t pirate your work by exporting it out of SL and into other platforms, but clearly LL needs to work out how to allow creators to export items with other user-created content and still make it so that your content cannot be pirated.

• There is a problem with schools and other groups in Japan, Australia and New Zealand having issues connecting to SL. Will it be possible for people in New Zealand to be able to connect to SL servers using their high speed network? And what can they do to expedite communications with SL more effectively?

Linden Labs is attempting to partner with companies in Asia to help understand what their issues are and how to fix this problem. How do we distribute hardware globally, and there will always be some users who are going to be far away from hardware and thus unable to connect to SL without some latency. The long-term goal is to invest in more hardware and distribute it globally as much as is feasible.

• How is Linden Labs addressing some concerns that educators have with allowing K-12 children onto the grid and still ensure their security and safety?

Linden Labs is attempting to make the main grid better, safer, and cleaner without restricting what adults can do, and then expand it to include children. LL is not currently planning on resurrecting the teen grid because it’s not worth it and it’s not a priority and it takes up too many resources for limited content. Right now, LL’s priorities are solving the problem of ease of use, solving quality issues, making technology more flexible. Then, down the road, we can offer more dedicated special interest audiences like that in a safe manner. But it’s not currently a top priority.

• Community Development — We want to see LL office hours in world back and more visible Lindens in-world.

Once again, the restrictions against allowing staff to go in-world as Lindens has been lifted. Staff need to interact with users, and find out what their issues are. LL would like to have meetings but there needs to be ground rules, such as keeping it calm, make sure actionable items come out of the meetings, and that they are not simply gripe sessions. Perhaps a good way to connect with special interest groups, such as E-sports, the bar association, music groups, machinima groups, etc. would be to create an area where these groups can post the dates and times of their meetings and informational get-togethers. Then LL staff can go there, find something they’d like to attend, and then be able to go there. Ebbe stated that he would like to be involved in that, too. Linden Labs is working towards more transparency, and they want to repair that communication. Special interest groups are welcomed and encouraged to invite LL staff to participate in their events and meetings.

In conclusion, Ebbe stated that he is excited to be here and being part of the cutting edge of this type of technology. The possibilities are endless. Advances need to continue to happen, and LL should be at the forefront of these advancements.

I remain respectfully yours,
~ Suzanne Piers
ZoHa Islands Social Media Manager

Heartbleed SSL Vulernability and SL

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Please read this important post by Linden Labs about the Heartbleed vulnerability and Second Life:

by Community Manager Linden Lab on ‎04-10-2014 02:45 PM

“Many of you may have read about the Heartbleed SSL vulnerability that is still affecting many Internet sites.

You do not need to take extra action to secure your Second Life password if you have not used the same password on other websites. Your Second Life password was not visible via Heartbleed server memory exposure. No secondlife.com site that accepts passwords had the vulnerable SSL heartbeat feature enabled.

If you used the same password for Second Life that you used on a third-party site, and if that third-party site may have been affected by the vulnerability, you should change your password.

Supporting sites such as Second Life profiles are hosted on cloud hosting services. Some of these sites were previously vulnerable to Heartbleed, which may have exposed one of these servers’ certificates. As an extra precaution, we are in the process of replacing our SSL certificates across the board. This change will be fully automatic in standard web browsers.

Thank you for your interest in keeping Second Life safe!”

I remain respectfully yours,
~ Suzanne Piers,
ZI Social Media Manager

SL Share’s Photo Upload Feature is Temporarily Down

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Hot off the SL Blog Presses regarding photo share and Facebook:

by Community Manager Linden Lab on ‎03-20-2014 11:29 AM

 

Facebook recently contacted us to let us know that the Photo Upload feature of SL Share is not permitted to automatically include location SLURLs in posts made from the application. We’re working with them to get a hotfix out ASAP, but in the meantime the Photo Upload feature in SL Share will not work, as Facebook has temporarily disabled that part of the application. SL Share’s Status Update and Check-In features will continue to work.

When SL Share’s full functionality is restored, SLURLs will no longer be included when you share a picture using Photo Upload, but you will still be able to let your Facebook friends know where to join you in Second Life by using the Check-In feature.

We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause you and are working to get a fix out ASAP.  We’ll use this blog to keep everyone posted with any updates and will of course let you know once the issue is resolved as well. Thank you for your patience.

Posted by: Suzanne Piers, ZI Social Media Manager

 

New JIRA Changes Are Now Live!

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Hot off the presses!
by Community Manager Linden Lab on ‎03-06-2014 02:52 PM

 As we blogged about last week, we’re making some changes to our JIRA implementation to make our bug reporting system a more transparent and productive experience. We just wanted to take a moment to let everyone know that these changes are now live!

One of the questions we’ve seen in the past week is how previously submitted issues would be treated – namely, will those also be viewable by everyone and open for comment prior to being triaged?

While we want to make issues visible for the reasons described in our last post, we’re not going to extend this to old issues, because at the time they were created, users knew that those reports would have limited visibility and they may have included sensitive and/or private information. We don’t want to take information that someone thought would be private and suddenly make that visible to everyone, so the new visibility settings will apply only to new issues.

Introducing SL Go from OnLive!

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Have you wished you could access SL from your tablet, and been frustrated with the chat-only client? Have you been out somewhere, or  simply sitting all comfy in your recliner and wishing you could pick up your tablet and get in-world? Well, now you can! SL Go,introduced in beta format, is an SL client that allows you to access SL with full 3-D graphics. This is hot off the presses:

by Community Manager Linden Lab ‎03-05-2014 09:05 AM – edited ‎03-05-2014 09:45 AM

OnLive, the leader in cloud gaming, today released an exciting new service for Second Life users. SL Go, now in open beta, is a mobile Second Life viewer for Android that delivers a fully immersive desktop-like experience on tablets.

With SL Go, you can experience Second Life from anywhere you have Wi-Fi or 4G connectivity, with ultra high-quality graphics, full shaders, shadows, and the Advanced Lightning Model on Android devices. Not only can you get high-quality graphics on a low-powered device, but you also don’t have to sacrifice frame rate or draw distance for high fidelity inworld explorations. Thanks to super-fast gigabit connections with OnLive’s high-performance gaming servers, objects and textures rez quickly when logging in and teleporting. OnLive has clocked the SL Go viewer at upwards of 200 fps set to Ultra with Maximum Render Distance, allowing people to participate in events, engage in combat games, and generally enjoy immersion in Second Life at a level never before possible on a mobile device.

With SL Go, OnLive has brought touchscreen interaction to the Second Life experience, but if you prefer keyboard and mouse, you can opt to connect these devices and interact with your friends in the same way you always have. SL Go gives you access to edit menus, inventory, preference settings and chat management just like the Second Life Viewer on your home computer.

 You’ll need an OnLive account to launch the app, and then you’ll log into Second Life with the same credentials you’ve always used. To learn more, register, and get started with a free trial now, visit slgo.onlive.com.

 For the time being, SL Go is available to users logging in from the US, Canada and the UK. OnLive plans to expand the service to other locales in the future, so if you are interested in having SL Go in your region, sign up here. The company is also pursuing an iOS version of the app. You can sign up here to be notified when it is released.

Thanks, and I always remain respectfully yours,

~ Suzanne Piers, ZI Social Media Manager

 

 

ZoHa Islands Expansion – 151 New Regions!

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Change is in the air and boy have we seen a lot of that this 2 weeks! We are happy to announce that we have added many more people to our ZoHa Community, both residents and staff. Pup Witherspoon and Milano Ferrentino, who owned and operated Bonaire Estates since 2008, have sold the estate to Zoha Islands effective February 5, 2014. In addition to this we also added a new gay-friendly, 5 sim community to our estate the week before. It features some beautiful shops & shop space availability as well as a friendly neighborhood atmosphere, and also some awesome roads connecting the regions. Both estates offer sailing waterways and gorgeous landscaping. So not only did we acquire 146 new sims but we are proud to be adding 5 new staff members to the ZoHa Islands team from both buy-outs.

Pup and Milano started Bonaire estates back in 2008 with 1 full sim and 2 homesteads. In the past 6 years they have build up Bonaire to the beautiful estate you see today. Sadly though some of the best things have to come to an end. As a number of Bonaire residents know, Pup has been struggling with a chronic and debilitating disease for many years and it has become increasingly difficult for her to handle the 12 to 15 hours she has been working each day in running the estate. Of the several generous offers received for her gorgeous estate – she decided to go with ZoHa Islands – making Bonaire’s beautiful sims a part of the ZI Family. Several large estates were at the negotiation tables bidding on the Bonaire estates. They out bid us but we offered something they wouldn’t. We offered to keep the estate intact and honor the tiers of the current residents. So even though we offered Pup and Milano less money we won the bidding in the end. You may notice a few slight changes here and there in the sailing land but we assure you we are keeping the pristine waterways open and accessible to everyone. We have added a few more islands to the waterways leaving plenty of room to keep the watercraft traffic flowing just as it always has. Sailing isn’t for you? No problem, there are plenty of beautiful parks and even horse riding trails on a few of the sims that you might enjoy. We have kept the parks and trails just as Pup had left them, stunning scenic views was something she seemed to have excelled in. Pup, Milano and the rest of the Bonaire staff have worked hard to provide a beautiful paradise for their residents and we feel honored to be able to carry on that tradition.

If you’re a current ZoHa Islands resident and you’d like to relocate to the new sailing sims – stop in and contact a ZoHa Islands Representative today and we can help to accommodate your requests :).

We added another community to our islands the week before the Bonaire deal. A set of 5 sims we bought from Starra Resident. She owned the gay friendly community over on the Pinewood / Folsom sims. She started in the land business about 9 months ago when she went into business with a friend of hers named Damian Tar, who own 3 sims and she added to it. She ended up with 6 sims that have beautiful landscaping, charming shops and a sailing area. Out of those 6 sims she sold one off privately and 5 were sold to ZoHa Islands. Starra did this to free up some time for other commitments both RL and SL. Now similar to what happened with the bidding on Bonaire, Starra had several other higher offers but went with ZoHa because he agreed to keep the sims the same for her residents which was really important to her. Since she sold her sims she has been very busy with other projects here in SL. She still sells land from time to time through ZoHa Islands as a sales agent but she is passionate about her ABC horse breeding and racing. I am really glad I got to take a few moments to talk to her about this and I am happy to work with her here at ZI .

New land isn’t the only new thing around here. We have some amazing new agents and managers that we have added to the team in the last few weeks. JasonX Baxton came over from Bonaire estates and is now one of the night Estate managers. He has worked for Bonaire for a bit over a year doing various things such as sales, decorating, and customer support. He started in the land business back in 2008 and been loving it every since. He loves meeting a lot of interesting people and getting a whole new prospective on things from working here. We also have 3 other new sales agents coming over from Bonaire as well, MidnightReign Leistone, Wade Resident & Crazed1247420 Soderstrom. I am proud to be able to work with all the new people that have been added to the team in the last few weeks. They have helped make the transition move along smoothly and the work day more enjoyable. They are a valuable asset to the company and to our residents with their knowledge and commitment to our growing community.

So is this it? Have we stopped growing and expanding? I sure hope not. I love working with all the wonderful people on our team and helping all the amazing residents we are proud to call our own. Who wouldn’t want more of that? So from all of us here I would like to thank you for your continued commitment to a place I am proud to call my home….. ZoHa Islands.

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