In case you missed it last week, AR startup Tilt 5 raised $7.5 million in venture funding, a hopeful sign amid a rather bearish market for AR/VR startups. I've been following the underlying technology for Tilt 5's headset since it was spun out of Valve under the name Cast AR seven years ago. Founded by CEO Jeri Ellsworth, one reason her startup won backers is likely her focused approach to augmented reality — not attempting to make it the Next Great Platform For Everything, but starting first with a very specific use case. As she put it to me last year:
Wagner James Au / New World Notes
Author, strategist, virtual world reporter
Making a Metaverse That Matters
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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.
The Virtual Museum Team hosts several museums in Second Life, Wolf Territories Grid and Roblox. Check out all the teleport links here.
Breedables CoOp, helping the SL pet community grow through shared resources. Go here to get started.
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- Bonfire 2: A Society-Building Game That's Also A Meditative, Flow-State Relaxation Simulator For Our Stressful Era
- Should You Jailbreak The Oculus Quest From Facebook Control? EFF’s Cory Doctorow Has Advice — And A Warning
- This Halo Lights Up If A Second Life Region You Visit Has Migrated To The Amazon Cloud — Or Makes A Womp-Womp Sad Trombone Sound If It's Not
- If Games Are Art, And Second Life Is A Game, Then Second Life Is A Work Of Collective Art
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The Bonfire 2: Uncharted Shores, a new-ish game that I love for iOS and PC/Mac on Steam, is technically a resource-management civilization-building sim. But the gameplay itself is quite different from most any other game in that genre I've ever played. With vibey music and sound effects (the wind, the ocean waves, the ambient/folk loops), a leisurely pace, and visuals that remind me of medieval paintings, the game plays more like a meditative, flow-state, relaxation simulator.
In recent months, as the world outside became increasingly stressful, I've taken to playing Bonfire 2 just before going to sleep, because I find the game's rhythms and daily microtasks (build a hut here, harvest some trees there, and so on) help drown out the incessant, doomscrolling din of my social media-addled brain. (The first game in the series — The Bonfire: Forsaken Lands — is even more relaxing, and is basically a simpler version of its sequel.) After helping my little society flourish for awhile, I find it much easier to drift off to sleep. We still seem far away from creating a stable society in the real world, but it's somewhat comforting to know that the one in my hands is just a bit better for my having touched it.
Himanshu, co-creator and lead artist of Bonfire 2 from Xigma Games (a tiny indie studio based in Bangalore), shared with me some insights on the games creation — and offered some tips for players just starting out. (Minor spoilers ahead.)
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This gorgeously detailed rocking chair from famed SL brand Dutchie Design (who we're honored to call a sponsoring partner of New World Notes) is available to purchase this Sunday at the legendary FaMESHed shopping extravaganza that launches this Sunday (November 1st). It's integrated with the latest in Bento animations, including — I love this, because it's particularly challenging to animate every finger — knitting and doing needlepoint, and comes with many wood/color options. Available in Classic and Mid-century modern styles, they sell for L$398 each or you can buy both together for L$598. Here's all the official details:
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Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
Antisocial Darwinism is the best name for a blog ever! “Confession 316: Can You Make Things Alright?” has a lovely photo. Imogen Atheria is very open about how tough November is for her as her father’s birthday approaches and how his death makes it an emotional time. Many people find these milestones hard to navigate. I also love her outfit.
- Top || Irina Blouse | Salt & Pepper | Uber | new!
- Overalls || Irina Overall & Shorts | Salt & Pepper | Uber | new!
A great shirt is featured in the next post:
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Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
The third Lawrence D. Pryce Macabre Halloween Challenge began at the end of September and is still open until the end of October — here’s details for submitting your entry. The challenge begins with a selection of inspirations from real life photos shown here or in a larger size here on Pinterest.
The gallery of submissions so far is appropriately grotesque, macabre, and horrific. To scare yourself silly, just go to the official Flickr page. This entry from Jasmine Albright is striking and has a humanity to it that I like.
Okay, some more selected scary stuff ahead…
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While the Oculus Quest now comes with a mandatory Facebook log-in requirement, researchers have reportedly been able to jailbreak the VR product line — read the announcement here from project lead Kavya Pearlman, an award-winning cybersecurity expert.
While this project almost certainly violates Oculus Quest’s terms of service, Cory Doctorow, author and longtime Special Advisor to the Electronic Frontier Frontier, has a blunt assessment of its goal:
“If you believe in property rights, it's a no-brainer. You bought it, you own it. Whether or not Facebook is within its rights to brick your device, there's no question as to whether you're within YOUR rights to unbrick it. It's yours. What you do with it is none of Facebook's business.”
That said, Doctorow's advice on whether people should do so is much more nuanced — and very important for VR users considering their own involvement in Oculus jailbreaking:
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Second Life is finally, gradually being migrated to the Amazon cloud, region by region — but is your region part of that "Uplift"? Now available in the SL Marketplace, the free Fourmilab Cloud Halo cleverly comes to the rescue:
To use the Cloud Halo, simply add it to your outfit. It is an attachment, worn on the head, which has the form of a halo floating above it. The halo is not normally visible. When you arrive in a cloud region, a glowing gold halo will appear above your head, sparkling for a moment, and an ethereal harp will play a few notes. When you arrive back in a non-cloud region, a dull grey halo will appear and a “Sad Trombone” will play.
This is a seriously fun way of checking for cloud deployment across the virtual world grid, even turning it into a game. For server geeks, here's how the back-end works:
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Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
“1” illustrates how effectively Alexo Aries uses lines in his photos. The road leads our eyes forward to the mountains. The grass, the road, the vehicle, all in a line drawing us in, but not out. Notice how the road fades in the distance before it reaches the frame? Leading lines are a common tool to direct our eyes and Aries photostream is full of great examples.
Lines ahead….
