Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Author, strategist, virtual world reporter

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Hypnotic Romance, an SL sim with secluded spaces for couples. Click here to teleport.

“TV POWWW!” by Tom Boellstorff & Braxton Soderman. Read about the first televised videogame here.

The Fitting Room: Try out new SL fits in a secure, private space. Click here to teleport.

SL Friday Fashion: Halloween Styles from Flickr Blogger MarktheDark

October 27, 2023
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Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

MarktheDark fits the Halloween bill perfectly with his Flickr microblog. This is some spooky stuff. If someone came to my door looking like this, I wouldn’t be sticking around to hear the words “trick or treat.”

“Desbordamiento…” is overflowing with menace from the flames reflected in his coal-shadowed eyes to the phalanx of soldiers behind him. That double-sided Viking Battle Ax isn’t any slouch in the fright department either. I suppose the ax has a double bit so he can take a swipe at you coming and going. It is probably better balanced in battle than a single-sided ax, as well. Items:

@We Love Roleplay ends tomorrow – October 28th
- CHIMAERA – EVOX- Soot Shadow V1 85%
- Angelicus training set
- :ANGELICUS: Floor brazier
- :ANGELICUS: Dummie 2
- :ANGELICUS: Dummie Viking 1
- :ANGELICUS: Dummie 3
- GTS Battle Viking axe
- Drunken Brokkr [DB] – Huginn Harness – Legacy (male)
Lumberjacks, like my uncle, used a double bit ax because one edge was sharper for cutting down the tree and the other edge was duller for splitting off the limbs or splitting wood. A double bit ax is heavier than a single-edged ax, so they would never carry the extra weight unless it served a useful purpose whether in timber-felling or in battle.

For more unhallowed creatures, click here:

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Hilarious New Halloween-Themed Second Life Items from Bad Unicorn: Flyable UFOs with Real Pew-Pew-Pew Action & a Working Guillotine!

October 27, 2023

Bad Unicorn has a host of new Halloween items that are hilariously on-brand for the excellent New World Notes media partner — starting with these flyable UFOs with real pew-pew-pew action. Scripted Peregreen Storaro of By Pere, they cause an enemy saucer to wobble and emit a satisfying rumble sound effect when you make a direct hit.

Get your UFO Beamer at the Kustom9 sales event between now and November 10: Click here to teleport.

Also available from Bad Unicorn for Halloween fun — wearable unicorn heads (of course) and a working guillotine.

I'm not even kidding, watch:

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Meta Bragged AI Would Improve Quest 3 Tracking. But Many Quest 3 Owners Are Complaining Hit Games Are Unplayable Due to Poor Tracking.

October 26, 2023
Here's what Meta's CTO Andrew Bosworth bragged about in June, regarding AI improving the soon-to-be-released Quest 3:

Our decades-long work in AI is driving progress everywhere even in places you wouldn’t expect like Quest 3’s Touch Plus controllers.

No tracking rings—AI models for estimating their position got so good we don’t need them anymore.

Result is sleeker, more versatile controllers.

But here's the kind of complaints some Quest 3 owners are making now:

Quest 3 Controller Tracking Issues

It does not seem that the tracking system was thoroughly tested with some of the biggest selling games by people very skilled at those games, nor did they test much, if at all with controller attachments for various apps, which are hugely popular across all game genres including many of the biggest selling Quest games…

If whomever tested this opened up a golf or tennis game, played Gorilla tag or any number of other games (many of which are HUGE sellers) at the level of skilled players, they would have seen in short order that the proposed tracking system would be problematic.

Veteran VR fan Tim "FlipperPA" Allen, a longtime member of the hardcore Beat Saber community, confirms this with me first-hand:

"[I] noticed almost immediately how unusable the new controllers were. I've been fighting a pinched nerve in my neck, and was hoping the new slimmer design and even weight of the Quest 3 might help. But without usable controllers with decent tracking, it is a non-starter for my exercise routine, such as Beat Saber!"

To further validate that this is not just an isolated incident, he also sent along multiple comment threads of Quest 3 owners complaining about the same problem:
Someone from Meta tech support even replied to these complaints, saying:

We'll be working to improve performance, especially for competitive players in games like Gorilla Tag, Supernatural, IB Cricket, and Eleven Table Tennis. We expect to roll some of these improvements in the upcoming releases.

But Tim (and for that matter, me) aren't convinced software fixes will address the fundamental issue. Because the problem seems to reside with VR experiences like Beat Saber that require highly precise, high speed tracking — and apparently, the AI algorithm's inability to approximate those accurately:

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This Artist Uses Second Life’s Environmental Settings to Create Screenshots With Utterly Stunning Colors

October 26, 2023

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Ann Forbes is new to me, I found one of their pics in someone’s favorites and found so many pictures that I like.

This picture above, though, just blew me away with the bold colors. This shows you how fantastical you can make our virtual world by playing around with the environment settings. I love the color intensity and how the flowers in the foreground almost become one with the forest thanks to the sun’s colors. It’s a great picture but it is not indicative of what you will find in their photostream, mainly because nothing is. Each picture is sui generis.

For more of his unique vision , click here:

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Watch: VRChat Deaf Community Creates New Dialect of Sign Language to Accommodate Limited VR Hand Tracking

October 26, 2023

Challenge #1: VRChat's user base of some 5-10 million people are from all over the world, some of whom (probably 10,000-20,000 of that number) are deaf in real life, and so can't communicate through VOIP.

Challenge #2: Sign language "dialects" vary from country to country, with no one standard.

Challenge #3: VR-based hand tracking for most VRChat users is technically limited, especially as most VR users are on the Quest 2.

Solution: Create a new, international, VRChat-based sign language dialect that accommodates the most popular hand tracking options (i.e. for the Quest 2) — and a global community of deaf people and their supporters, to teach it to each other.

This is how both the affordances and limitations of technology create new forms of online culture, often for bad — but as here, sometimes for absolutely good.

Watch the full report by in-world reporter PHIA, and be sure to watch to minute 6:15 or so for the real hit in the feels. This community was also reported on by Syrmor in 2019, but it looks to have evolved quite a bit since.

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Connect With Me on Socials & Share Anything About the Metaverse!

October 25, 2023

Here's an open forum to please share anything even vaguely SL/Metaverse-related that's on your mind, the more opinionated, the better. I'm still recovering from the GamesBeat NEXT conference on Tuesday while Cajsa held down the fort, but should be back to normal by tomorrow.

Also please connect:

On Twitter/X, I'm "SLHamlet"

On Discord, I'm "wja_hamlet"

On Reddit, I'm "SLHamlet"

On Facebook, I'm "Hamlet.Au"

On Threads, I'm "wjamesau"

On Bluesky, I'm "SLHamlet"

And e-mail is wjamesau at gmail dot com!
Three Amazing Second Life Landscapes As Selected & Photographed by Jeff Goodnight

October 25, 2023

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Jeff Goodnight takes such sharply defined pictures that you can imagine zooming in and seeing a ladybug on the flowers. You can’t, but it sure seems like you could. Look at everything you can see in this picture. There’s a person up by the house, a chicken by the “bathing shed” and a bike by the outhouse. There isn’t, however, a person in the boat. Nor someone swimming near the boat which is what you would hope for. No matter how sunny the sky, when I see an empty row boat adrift in a lake, my thoughts run toward the morbid.

If you’re inclined to investigate the scene of the crime, to teleport, click here.

For more extraordinary landscapes, click here:

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Three Lovely Second Life Locations to Visit, Luminously Photographed by Shasta Laval

October 24, 2023

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Shasta Laval is delightfully clear when naming her pictures. Take this one that is helpfully titled “Visit Bella’s Lullaby.” It tells you what to do, shows you why you would want to do it, and gives you the tools you need, a handy-dandy teleport. What more do you want? To teleport to Bella’s Lullaby, click here.

Don’t you also get the impression this could be “Christina’s World” from a different field?

For more places to visit, click here:

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Top 4 Posts Including The Role of Remote Work At Metaverse Companies & Borges’ Infinitely Impossible Library of Babel Created in VRChat

October 23, 2023
Halloween & Fall-Themed Fashion Ideas from SL Blgger Luna Morineaux!

October 20, 2023

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Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Luna Morineaux has a self-named blog. This post, The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper, despite the magical items, feels so real. It’s messy, realistically messy. I love it.

My mom had a desk like this. It didn’t have a skull or anything magical, but I remember sitting there and picking up a hinge and wonder “why is this here?” The rest of the house was neat as a pin,, but that desk was the vortex where all the mess collected. Don’t know where to put something? Put it on the desk.

This particular desk features the materials for a magical psychic:

Psychic Set at Shop & Hop until November 5th and later at Mainstore:

..::thor::.. psychic bookstand

..::thor::.. psychic chair

..::thor::.. psychic sphere

..::thor::.. tarot deck – bonus

..::thor::.. psychic table

Cursed Cabinet at Access until November 8th and later at Mainstore:

..::thor::.. cursed book – psychic

..::thor::.. cursed cabinet – filled

..::thor::.. cursed cauldron stand

..::thor::.. cursed pentagram

..::thor::.. cursed potions

For more from Luna , click here:

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