Wagner James Au / New World Notes
Author, strategist, virtual world reporter
recent posts
- Welcome to New World Notes’ 2006-2025 Archive!
- Virtual World Usage Stats from S&P Global Market Intelligence — Plus VRChat & Second Life Specifics!
- Top Five Posts Including: Huge Rec Room Layoff & Meta Boots Neal Stephenson Off Facebook (Briefly)
- Four Glorious Second Life Sims to Explore — After Watching Sabina Valeska’s Machinima Tributes to Them!
- Virtual World Usage Stats from S&P Global Market Intelligence — Plus VRChat & Second Life Specifics!
about
Category: Blockchain
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Pictured at right: Top locations by usage of Bitcoin over the Lightning Network as of today. Three weeks after Bitcoin officially became legal tender in El Salvador, its President claims that 2.1 million Salvadorans — a third of the entire country's population — are "using" Bitcoin. And while it's probably true there's about that many…
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'I'm blogging Matthew Ball’s must-read, nine part metaverse primer over the Summer; my take on Part 1 (introduction to the framework) is here, my coverage of Part 2 (hardware) is here, with Part 3 (networking) coverage here, Part 4 coverage (computing) here, Part 5 (virtual platforms) here, and Part 6 (open standards) here. Part 7 of Matthew Ball’s Metaverse framework,…
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Pictured: Art by "Alejandro" on Open Sea Update, 9/2: Clarification via August Rosedale: The $250K worth in sales mentioned in this post were not directly, as originally reported, from art by AIs Alejandro/Taylor — they were "created" by Rosedale's new AI artist crypo-native, "a truly digital artist creating dynamically evolving art pieces in numerous styles."…
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Above: Art created by an AI called "Alejandro", and the AI-generated photo of "Alejandro" I told you last week about "Alejandro", an AI personality who is creating works of art, which entrepreneur August Rosedale is then selling as NFTs. But just how much of a personality does Alejandro actually have? Skeptical that the Turing Test…
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San Francisco HQ of Tilia owner Linden Lab already owned by an Upland high roller Let's briefly check in on Upland, the virtual real estate acquisition game that's sort of Monopoly meets a mirror world, where virtual real estate is registered on the EOS blockchain, and is the first paying customer for Linden Lab's Tilia…
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This looks like a first for the world of NFTs and for Second Life: French artist Patrick Moya, who's been creating virtual installations in SL for many years while also showing his works at many real world exhibits, is now offering works created in Second Life as NFTs here on OpenSea and also on Rarible.…
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I don't always get my metaverse news from Vogue Magazine, but when I do, I'm not surprised IMVU is involved: “Fashion is at the epicenter of why people create avatars and connect with others on IMVU,” says Lindsay Anne Aamodt, the site’s senior director of marketing. “Part of that is because dressing up an avatar…
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This Saturday Night Live segment pretty much reminds me of every conversation I've had with a crypto-evangelist except the question I keep asking him (and it's always a him) is, "OK if it's so important how come hardly anyone is using it to buy goods and services?" over and over again until the crypto-evangelist casually…
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Important comment/update to last week's post, when I cautioned against creating NFT from Second Life images. When the EFF lawyer I quoted referred to the "dark interesting mysteries" around IP ownership of user-created content in SL, Linden Lab had not addressed derivative works in its Terms of Service. Since then (in 2017, it looks like),…
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Setting aside Bill Maher's usual "Old Man Yells at Woke Millenial Cloud" tone, this is a pretty good and funny takedown of cryptocurrency hype, mostly hitting the right targets, such as its Ponzi scheme nature, for instance, and the absurdity of Tesla CEO Elon Musk promoting Bitcoin despite the fact that its environmental costs utterly…
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 