Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Author, strategist, virtual world reporter

Contact me!

Bio / CV

My Patreon Supporters

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.

  • Watch: Philip Rosedale & Me Chat About the Rise of AI, VisionPro, and Making a Metaverse That Matters

    UPDATE, July 28: Bumped up for weekend watching! And be sure to check out the interesting, somewhat ranty reader comments, and add some of your own.

    Recorded at Linden Lab last week Friday, I'm honored to be the latest guest in Philip Rosedale's new YouTube vlogast, where we do a deep dive on the past, present, and future of Second Life and other metaverse platforms. I have not seen Philip in person since the pandemic, so it was great to catch up, get a glimpse of his upcoming projects (more on those soon) and delve through Making a Metaverse That Matters and related topics.

    It was a thorough chat, much of it dwelling on What We Might Have Done Differently with Second Life, and touches on famous SL personalities like Blueberry, AM Radio, and Bettina Tizzy. Here's some other highlights:

    • 0:00 – Prologue
    • 1:50 – Will AI’s replace Actors?
    • 6:00 – Journalism in virtual worlds vs. IRL ?
    • 10:00 – Communicating with both text & voice
    • 11:58 – Would you say that you ‘lived’ in SL?
    • 13:50 – Walking through every SL sim
    • 14:45 – Second Life Mainland versus Islands
    • 16:50 – Would you have done SL teleporting differently?
    • 20:15 – What game does everyone want to play?
    • 25:15 – What did SL get right?
    • 28:14 – Are virtual worlds like Roblox good for kids?
    • 31:50 – Most interesting people and things in SL
    • 35:18 – What would you have done differently?
    • 43:34 – Can SL work on mobile?

    More after the break!

    (more…)

  • Fortnite Creative Plagued by IP-Violating Maps That Harm Devs Playing by the Rules, Says Top Metaverse Studio Head

    Screenshot (457)At right: Popular Fortnite Creative maps featuring Sponge Bob, Shrek, Minecraft without authorization

    Mackenzie Jackson, who leads a top Fortnite Creative development studio that's created Fortnite deployments for Doritos and other top brands, recently posted this viral rant about how companies like hers are having to compete against Creative maps with rampant IP violations. Pleading directly to Epic CEO Tim Sweeney:

    We deserve better that this. @TimSweeneyEpic I appreciate the world you have given us with Fortnite. I hold it so close to my heart, but I can’t keep silent on this stuff socially. Internal reporting isn’t working so I’m going public. You take to twitter to advocate for all the wrongdoings of Apple etc. I’m asking you to hear us out too.

    Only about 5% of Creative maps include IP violations, MackJack estimates. The problem is that they're unfairly pulling players away from professional studios like hers, and there's no way for them to do anything about it:

    "Apparently they will only be removed if the owner of the IP reports it with Epic. Epic wont take any action otherwise," as she puts it to in Discord. "Which just means for those creators following rules and not wanting to risk their reputation they will always be competing against the islands breaking the rules.

    "To be candid about it, it has affected my companies finances to the point where it is worth my time to try to reach out to the IPs myself and try to get them to report with Epic. The IP [violating] games are essentially clickbait that is working–driving a high percentage of our player base to maps that are breaking TOS, we are all competing for shares of the engagement. Our maps dropped out of discovery due to it. Effectively killing our player base and our engagement revenue takes an astronomical hit."

    Her tweet has been viewed over 100,000 times, pointing from her perspective to a groundswell of anger among Creative developers like her. 

    "I can assure you that every dev team has complained at least once," she tells me, laughing without mirth. "Every creator I have talked to is reporting these islands. I just wanted Tim Sweeney to see the communities frustration around it. He tweets about Apple and all those injustices [with App Store fees/policies] and I need him to see his community and do better."

    I've reached out to Epic about this and will post any reply I get here. My guess is Epic's hands are somewhat tied by lthe "safe harbor" provision of the US copyright law, but IANAL. I am surprised obvious potential IP violations aren't flagged before a map is published.

    Anyway, read MackJack's original tweet below:

    (more…)

  • Meta Smartly Ties Roblox Integration To Its Metaverse Strategy in Latest Earnings Call

    Portal Tribute Valve ROBLOX Metaverse

    Above: Tunneler, an amazing first-person Roblox game

    I was prepared to be snarky in response to Meta's latest earnings call, but if you read the actual transcript [.pdf here], it's notably less eye roll-ish about its metaverse strategy than previously:

    The metaverse content and software vision continues coming together as well. We recently announced that Roblox is coming to Quest with an open beta on App Lab. For Horizon, the team is focused on retention right now and we're making good progress on that. We've made big improvements on avatars* as well, and that’s going to be a bridge between our mobile apps and our VR and mixed reality experiences. We'll have a lot more to share on both our metaverse and AI work at our Connect conference, which we'll be hosting in Hacker Square at our headquarters on September 27th. It's going to be a good one, so tune in!

    We will, Zuck! Directly tying Roblox to Meta's metaverse vision is one of the few (only?) smart things I've seen the company do recently. The rest of the statement remains a questionable grab bag for reasons you could put in a whole book*, but connecting an actually successful metaverse platform to Meta's Quest is the best (last?) hope to give the device relevance. At the same time, Zuck and Roblox's CEO should also expect a government subpoena after the move. 

    *On the topic of "improvement on avatars", I wrote this in Making a Metaverse That Matters:

    (more…)

  • Today’s Flickr Pick: Oria Lionheart Roleplays Amazing Personae Across Second Life, Shares Location Teleport Link

    51695231542_1bb0a6181e_c

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

    Oria Lionheart’s photostream has some of the most unique role-playing pictures in Second Life. I mean, she’s role-playing a heliport marshaller in “On the Runway.” How fun is that! Did you even know you could roleplay a marshaller? 

    Back when there were still major airlines flying to small airports, my brother was a station agent and a few times he took me to work with him while he gathered weather for the National Weather Service and his airline, drove deer off the runway for planes to land, sold tickets, talked the plane in, and unloaded and loaded the plane. Yes, one person did everything from selling tickets to guiding the planes. He let me do everything except guide the planes and talk to the pilots. It would have been fun to wave those light cones around. If you want to do that, you can go to Eden Gateway. [To teleport, click here.]

    For more of Oria’s fun picks, click here:

     

    (more…)

  • Barbie Cosplay Photo Fun Sweeps Up the Second Life Flickr Community!

    53061985069_a647443584_c

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

    Barbie is everywhere it seems, but to be honest, PG Barbie is the exception, not the rule in Second Life. Happily, that still leaves plenty of cute Barbie-inspired photos like this one from ϯEmy Hexemϯ. Her “Hiya Barbie, It’s Ken” is delightfully lighthearted and it’s fun to see the Ken doll at life-size (if decidedly not very Gosling-like) though there are also some Ken avatars out there. 

    For more of Barbie Life in Second Life, click here:

    (more…)

  • Life by You Simulation Game Early Access Pushed Back to March 2024, Says Lead Dev/Ex-Linden CEO Rod Humble

    Early is later, sad to say:

    Life by You’s Early Access date has moved to March 5, 2024. We’re excited to take this time to continue improving Life by You, and can’t wait to continue to update you on our development! We appreciate everyone who has taken the time to Pre-Order, Wishlist, and leave us questions and comments! We’ve added an extra bonus for everyone for the start of Early Access, the Nightclub Vibe pack. If you previously pre-ordered, your pre-order will be automatically refunded by Epic. You will need to pre-order through Epic again to receive your pre-order bonuses.

    Originally set to launch in early access this September, lead developer (and ex-Linden Lab CEO) Rod Humble says the extra time will help integrate user feedback, add visual/UI improvements and gameplay tune-ups, enhance mod tools, and localization for Italian and Portuguese language users.
     
    That's the official explanation, at least! My guess is Humble and company are also hoping for some kind of major push during GDC 2024 in March. Anyway, here's my previous posts on this seriously impressive mega-simulation game:

    (more…)

  • Feeling Like an Xpat in Xile? Connect With Me on Bluesky & Threads!

    Wagner James Au Bluesky Threads

    In case you're feeling like an X-ile who's X-panding your social networks for completely X-cellent reasons, I would love if you connect with me here:

    On Threads, I'm "wjamesau"

    On Bluesky, I'm "SLHamlet"

    In fact, I have some invite codes to Bluesky to give readers. If you want one, DM me this week on Twitter (sorry, X) or Plurk or Discord at wja_hamlet or even Facebook. 

    Remember, it's not about giving up — it's about X-ecuting an X-orcism.

  • Today’s Flickr Pick: Dramatic Black & White Photos from Kayd

    EMPIRE STATE OF MIND

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

    Kayd, according to his profile, has been in Second Life for 15 years but only recently joined Flickr (although he was taking pictures all along). 

    And what pictures. Here is “Empire State of Mind.” I love the brightness of his shirt amid all the dark shadows. I love how the light picks out the curves of the car. It has a very raffish air. And he includes the SLURL. [Click here to teleport to TAMMAS HOLDINGS – CENTRAL MEET MARKET]

    For more gorgeous pics, click here:

    (more…)

  • Wonderful: ChatGPT Apparently Improves My Blog’s Comment Spam!

    ChatGPT spam

    One super-fun Monday activity i have is going through this blog's comment filter to confirm the nuking of apparent comment Spam. For the longest time (like the last 15 years), it's been quick and easy to spot the Spam comment, which is totally off-topic promotions with a link to a commerce/scam sites. In a recent innovation in Spam comments, a bot apparently mixes up the Spam text with garbled excerpts from the individual post, so it takes a bit more time to identify it as Spam.

    Now, evidently thanks to ChatGPT and other Large Language Models, blog comment Spam has taken a great leap in quality! 

    Pictured at right are a couple recent Spam comments, similar to several others that have been popping up on New World Notes recently. Unlike the Spam of the past, the comments are actually on topic to the specific post, and grammatically correct. (If totally bland.)

    It's only when you check the commenter's URL do you realize it's a Spam bot promoting gift cards and obscure software or whatever. (Don't bother looking for the actual comments, they've already been nuked.) Ironically, many of these Spam comments generated by AI are attached to posts about AI.

    So that's wonderful! It's great getting to waste an extra 5 minutes a week on comment moderation, so thanks for that, OpenAI. 

    There are some broader implications here:

    (more…)

  • Top 5 Posts Including the Problem With Synthetic Actors & An Artist Exports Second Life Continent as 3D Topographic Map

    SL Terrain Erik Mondrian