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Hypnotic Romance, an SL sim with secluded spaces for couples. Click here to teleport.
The Virtual Worlds Museum. Click here to teleport to their Second Life hub with tribute to sunsetted worlds!
“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.
Breedables CoOp, helping the SL pet community grow through shared resources. Go here to get started.
At the risk of stepping on Cajsa's elegant Flickr maven toes, I can't resist sharing this badonkalicious tribute to the legendary poster for the classic anime. (Compare with the original here.) Created by Juniper Mead, her whole photostream is worth a luminous perusing.
Thanks to blurple_rain on /SecondLife for the tip! Fashion/motorcycle credits by Juniper Mead:
In the future, everyone will make a Metaverse for 15 minutes. Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene is making one (or the starting layer of it, at least), and now it sure seems like longtime MMO designer Raph Koster is making one too — as he hints in a blog post last week on Playable Worlds, his new startup:
[D]espite what many may think, “metaverse” is not just a buzzword. It is different from an online world. But metaverses presume multiverses, and multiverses are built from online worlds. They are all in the same family.
What does this have to do with Playable Worlds? Well, the answer is pretty simple, given what I’ve said, and you’ve probably connected the dots already…even so, I think I’ll answer it next week.
I messaged Raph to ask when his post about making a Metaverse is coming out, and he only mentioned that his company posts usually run on Tuesday and Thursday. So let's check there tomorrow.
As for his own definition of the metaverse (versus a multiverses or an online world), that's worth reading now:
Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
Jorgia Prynce’s “The Breakthrough” captures the excited euphoria of discovery so perfectly. I love how her expression and pose communicate the emotions. Her outfit makes me think she has discovered a new spell at some magic academy rather than a new polymer. Also, science labs tend to be well-lit. I love the excellent story-telling! This is a link to the picture before and after editing.
For more fun roleplay pics, click here:
You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed with new ads to view from affiliates of WarnerMedia (a subsidiary of AT&T). You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and, well, pretty much the same thing happens.
Much has changed since The Matrix movies premiered: Now, instead of Philip Rosedale leaving the theater in 1999 and telling his colleagues at RealNetworks, “But that’s what I wanted to make!”, making alternate realities has become a booming business. And taking the Red Pill is no longer just associated with wanting to fight the machines, but also, wanting to fight women (?).
And finally, in a keen irony (as @Lenophie notes), the Internet now comes with automatic ad cookie notification pop-ups — effectively requiring us all to first click the Blue Pill of capitalism.
All that said, this is still a pretty fun teaser site for the upcoming Matrix movie. I’m curious how they accomplished the augmented reality aspect of the experience:
Really great comment from reader "Kyz", a 3D content creator who made an excellent living from the Second Life economy. Commenting on my take on Matthew Ball's analysis of payment options for Metaverse platforms (he basically lands on suggesting that blockchain-based payments may be the best or least worst alternative), Kyz says this:
I don't think the problem is traditional currency and payment systems, rather it's that all these companies develop models where virtual product is worth such small amounts that devaluation of labor is the actual problem. Magnified by some companies that are also using currency itself as product.
For instance, I did pretty well in SL riding on the coattails of the breedables craze. Enough for a couple of full time incomes. The pain point of making money was SL. Between limits, virtual currency converted to real money and the extra steps required.
I did the same at various points for selling content for game engines, just being able to find the trends and fill niches. These markets were much less painful because there was no virtual currency to deal with.
As an example of what Kyz's talking about, take a look at the Unity Asset Store, where creators sell virtual assets to developers across all budget ranges… for real cash.
The problem becomes even more clear, Kyz goes on, when one compares it to selling actual products:
Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
LeaOh’s portrait of two avatars shot back to back, zoomed in on their heads made me stop browsing and click through to see it full size. I love it. It reminds me of the beginning or ending of a dance piece on So You Think You Can Dance. You know if they start in that position, it’s going to be dramatic, sad, and modern. The next picture in her stream is the full body shot and sure enough it looks like the beginning of something choreographed by Mia Michaels.
For more romance, this time without dancing, click here:
Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
NatG’s [Hippo Ihnen] blog LJUS features a lot of decor with her fashion and it’s the kind of open and airy decor I love. In “September, My New July” she is referring for her clinging to summer by the sea and not to climate change. The post includes three pictures, but I was drawn to this by the pontoon raft. Ours was homemade, as this one appears to be, from old barrels and we would anchor it about thirty feet off shore. I spent countless hours enjoying the sun and diving off the raft. She has credits for everything from the trees to the flipflops on her blog.
For serious house envy, click here:
Citing The Information, Mac Rumors has a report that gives me some serious red flags:
The first AR/VR headset that Apple has in development will need to be wirelessly tethered to an iPhone or another Apple device to unlock full functionality… It will be similar to the WiFi-only version of the Apple Watch, which requires an iPhone connection to work. The headset is meant to wirelessly communicate with another Apple device, which will handle most of the powerful computing…
TSMC is manufacturing the chips that will be used in the headset, and mass production is said to be at least a year away. The first AR/VR headset could be released as soon as 2022, but the launch could also be pushed back if work on the device is not completed in time.'
Emphasis mine, because I'd be vastly surprised if Apple put out its headset next year. Or even the next next year. Here's why:
