Second Life Virtual World to Get Firefox

lecreuset writes "Clickable Culture has an article discussing the imminent wedding of Firefox and Second Life. From the article: 'The virtual world of Second Life will leverage an embedded version of Mozilla Firefox in a future release, supporting in-world web browsing and the display of web pages on the surfaces of 3D objects, according to developers at Linden Lab.'"

Comments

What will it be used for though?

[ZephyrXero]

That's great unless they start sticking advertisements all over the place with it...

Re:What will it be used for though?

[CatherineOmega]

According to the Linden Lab statement, it will be used primarily for integrating content into the environment. So yeah, it could be used for annoying "banner" ads, but the most useful applications would be for commerce or communications, or gaming. With the ability to generate HTML from a script running within SL comes all sorts of potential uses, everything from a complex web app to a quick and low-bandwidth way to render text on a sign, rather than forcing the client to download and decompress a texture.

Re:What will it be used for though?

[wralias]

That's great unless they start sticking advertisements all over the place with it...

Hah! Anyone who knows Second Life will know that it is already saturated with advertising. The problem is not advertising from the "first life" economy, but advertising from "companies" in the Second Life economy. Tringo, anyone?

More likely, I see people linking to their real-life websites from their virtual homes or stores. There are already some pretty cool web / Second Life integrations, such as the ability to purchase and deposit virtual money into your Second Life account from the web, or to buy virtual goods in real time on the web.

Also, this integration may allow people experienced with javascript and web application development to do some interesting things in SL (even though SL has its own scripting language already).

Re:What will it be used for though?

[Weeb]

Obviously you're not a resident. We already have advertisements all over the place. :)

Re:What will it be used for though?

[ZephyrXero]

I'm not.... From what I've been shown by my friend who is, people just have big virtual orgies there... Does a game really need the ability to customize your character's dick size?

Re:What will it be used for though?

[FidelCatsro]

I always thought that was what a new graphics card was for ;)

Re:What will it be used for though?

[Weeb]

I'm not.... From what I've been shown by my friend who is, people just have big virtual orgies there... Does a game really need the ability to customize your character's dick size?

Genitalia is not an included feature of Second Life's character models. Genitalia are created, scripted and sold by residents who don't mind making a buck on the more prurient interests in-world.

I think you'd better take a closer look at Second Life, though. There's a whole lot more to it than what you're describing. I've been a resident for eight months and that sort of thing isn't a scene I ever see. Then again, I spend my time mainly on product development in-world, so I guess I don't "get out" much! :D

btw, here is my latest product. The stories are true, too. You can make real money. :D

Re:What will it be used for though?

[_KiTA_]

I donno, I think a few silly billboards could be fun. Imagine if Thinkgeek / Penny-Arcade / Slashdot / etc put up pseudo-parody billboards on a secluded corner. Could be fun if it's the right company and done with tounge firmly in cheek.

Re:What will it be used for though?

[Gwala]

It already happens.

Difference is, it's advertising for inworld products and services. The 'Second Life' economy, is a fairly large one, there are people generating over $50K/year through inworld products and services (one such person reports they will be doing over 100K this year.)

But, one of the big problems is letting people know about your products and services. A person inworld setup MetaAdverse as a way of advertising your inworld products via inworld billboards - these billboards usually act as sponsorship for various events and locations which would be too expensive to maintain otherwise. Likewise, it provides a valuable method of advertising your products.

The other big method of listing items is to put them up at a site like SecondServer.net or SLBoutique, and let people browse them online. It's these sites which are going to benefit most from HTML-on-3D, since it will allow rapid browsing from a purely inworld enviroment.

(I've also done a really quick guide on getting SL under Linux running, which is accessible here)

-Adam

Re:What will it be used for though?

[Saeger]

I played a little over a year ago, but I'm wondering: did 2ndlife ever get the GPL-ish license for ingame objects/scripts? I quit before that was supposed to come into effect, but there were still tons of free objects being passed around (like the rocket fireworks) in the open source spirit. I'd hate to think the game went downhill to the point where the majority of objects were only for-pay & proprietary.

Re:What will it be used for though?

[Ugly American]

I foresee billboards featuring the goatse guy.

Re:What will it be used for though?

[MBraynard]

The html thing may limit users from being able to put up graphics.

Re:What will it be used for though?

[obeythefist]

Advertisements? We should be so lucky!

Remember kids, where there's HTML, there's goatse.
I can't wait to visit goatsehouse in Second Life.

Second Life

[sound vision]

I read this and I was like "Second life? What?" To save you lazy suckers Googling: http://www.secondlife.com/

Re:Second Life

[Solder Fumes]

If you've read Snow Crash, Second Life is currently the closest thing we have to Snow Crash's cyberspace. As time goes on, I only see it getting closer to that concept.

Re:Second Life

[Frogbert]

I just assumed it was a game that was at least four times as good as half-life.

Re:Second Life

[MisaDaBinksX4evah]

Hah, I'm already into my fourth life, as a cool person. Because... I'm cool. And... yeah. And why do I need that second life thing anyway? I have plenty of friends right here, in my mind.

Re:Second Life

[PReDiToR]

I think it is the 90s version of the 80s hit VZones, or something.

I remember trying it out when it first came about, thought it was another Alysma.

Although for all I know it might have been an attempt to take market share away from EQ?

Re:Second Life

[Catcher80]

you don't go in VZones anymore do ya Pred?

For Those Who Don't Know What Second Life Is:

[tquinlan]

http://secondlife.com/whatis/

"Second Life is a virtual world - a 3D online persistent space totally created and evolved by its users. Within this vast and rapidly expanding place, you can do, create or become just about anything you can imagine. Built-in content creation tools let you make almost anything you can imagine, in real time and in collaboration with others. An incredibly detailed digital body ('Avatar') allows a rich and customizable identity. A powerful physics simulation running on a backbone of hundreds of connected computers and growing with the population allows you to be immersed in a visceral, interactive world that as of April 2005 covers more than 12,000 acres and 20,000 owned plots of land. The ability to design and resell 3D content, combined with the ability to own and develop land and a microcurrency, which can be exchanged to real money means that you can build a real business entirely within Second Life."

Re:For Those Who Don't Know What Second Life Is:

[saskboy]

" An incredibly detailed digital body ('Avatar') allows a rich and customizable identity"

One word can sum this up:
Creepy.

Some people get way to involved in their "digital life", to the point where it IS their life.

Re:For Those Who Don't Know What Second Life Is:

[mikael]

Not as creepy as the Subservient Chicken.

(It's a fake webcam which plays precaptured frames of some guy dressed up as a chicken according to the command you type in. At least I think they are precaptured frames.)

Re:For Those Who Don't Know What Second Life Is:

[CProgrammer98]

Dud that chicken guy is funny! - try "clap" when he claps his lights go out!

Re:For Those Who Don't Know What Second Life Is:

[EnderWigginsXenocide]

almost as good as "DIE"

Re:For Those Who Don't Know What Second Life Is:

[mikael]

If you type in "hit the deck", chicken-person goes up to the screen and gives you a telling off - at least that happened once.

Re:For Those Who Don't Know What Second Life Is:

[coopex]

That's the default response to something that they don't have video for.

Popups

[maelstrom]

Wow can't wait to have 3-D popups hording my screen. I love the fact that unscrupulous advertisers have figured out how to game Firefox, I'm starting to see more and more popups again. I guess its time to turn off Flash.

Re:Popups

[Akaihiryuu]

Just get Flashblock + Adblock. Flashblock will stop any flash popups (unless you click on the flashblock icon anyway). If I ever get a popup from a flash that's clicked on, I simply adblock the entire server it came from and that puts a stop to it. This works with pop-unders too.

Re:Popups

[WhiskerTheMad]

This is the answer to your flash problems. Blocks *all* flash, if you want to see it, just click on it. Works great for sites that have a lot of annoying flash advertising, and simple to use :)

Re:Popups

[WhiskerTheMad]

whoops... guess I'm a little slow on the draw today :)

Re:Popups

[maelstrom]

Have some imagination and some sense of humor :) I understood exactly what this article was about, but I was just making an observation of what advertisers would love to be able to do.

Re:Popups

[Enrico Pulatzo]

Unscrupulous? And you think actively blocking the content that pays the bills of the people whose websites you frequent isn't?

Popups may be annoying, but they're hardly dishonest. Just because something opens a new window doesn't make it malicious. Unscrupulous would be more along the lines of the Gator people managing to get changes approved to Firefox to make their popups work.

Re:Popups

[Enrico Pulatzo]

You know I almost mentioned that (cuz I agree with you there about the faux-OS alert boxes), but I didn't think that actually commenting on the content of an ad was very relevant to the notion of popup blocker software being worked around.

Re:Popups

[nacturation]

Navigate to about:config, then right-click and add a new integer property. Call it "privacy.popups.disable_from_plugins" and set the value to 2. Voila! No more popups from Flash.

Re:Popups

[Heisenbug]

Here's my "moral" stance: when I load a url, I'm giving the site permission to do whatever they want -- within the bounds of the window. That means annoying overlapping divs are fine, but opening new windows, resizing the current window, playing sound, etc, are all out. If you want to do anything that doesn't fall within the confines of the window I opened the url in, you ask permission. As a simple rule of thumb, anything that doesn't revert simply by clicking the back button definitely crosses the line.

Is breaking that rule malicious, unscrupulous or dishonest? I don't know. I do know that I sure won't feel unscrupulous for enforcing it.

Re:Popups

[Osty]

Unscrupulous? And you think actively blocking the content that pays the bills of the people whose websites you frequent isn't?

You're not entitled to make a living. If you want to be guaranteed money for your content, go subscription-only (of course, your content better be worth it, or you're not going to get any money that way either). Otherwise, once the data has reached my local machine, fair use gives me the right to do anything I want to it so long as I don't redistribute your data (I can certainly redistribute the tools I use, since they're not circumventing a copy protection). Thus, I can apply an ad blocker, or a popup blocker, or a Greasemonkey script that adds links to other sites or rearranges or removes your page content, or anything else that I want. Even if your content is only available by subscription, I can still apply ad blocking, popup blocking (if you're premium content, why do you still have popups and ads? greedy bastard), or GM scripts to it with impunity. Paying your subscription fee allows me access to your content, which is then mine to do with as I please under fair use. You can't stop me legally or morally.

You have to figure that there's something wrong when the relationship between online advertisers and end users is escalating like a cold war weapons build-up. There's got to be a better way than pissing off your end user with bigger and more annoying advertisements (google text ads were a step in the right direction but way too little, way too late). The end-users will always beat the ad providers in the end. All the advertisers can do is make our lives miserable for short periods of time.

Re:Popups

[Enrico Pulatzo]

Sure, fair use and all is well and good, but I don't think you can argue that it's wrong for advertisers to get you to see their ads.

Considering there's no explicit agreement for browsing the web (which in this day and age I'm quite amazed that we haven't seen these yet) you can agree that the content provider has every right to distribute whatever content they wish to your machine, where you can then choose to disregard it or regard it as you want.

That being said, finding out how to get around a popup blocker isn't trampling your right to fair use (you just need to upgrade in the popup cold war).

As long as advertising is easy to ignore/disable, there will always be the back and forth (until some crappy future US law makes those things illegal).

I'm still hoping that micropayment technologies like bitpass work out, but am not holding my breath.

Re:Popups

[AntiCopyrightRadical]

Please, It is not the least bit unscrupulous to block popups. I have a right to keep my computer under my control.

This is the right that popup ads skip along the border of violating. Just because the my browser lets you do something doesn't mean you should do it. There's a fine line between using a feature and exploiting a vulnerability. In my mind, Popups almost constitute unauthorized access.
Generally I don't mind ads, usually I value them as entertainment or useful information in themselves. This isn't an anti-ad bias on my part.

My real problem is the general trend of people not really owning their machines anymore. DRM is high on the list of problems, but the very fact that popups could exist at all I think indicates a design philosophy that doesn't place a high value on the user.

Re:Popups

[Osty]

Sure, fair use and all is well and good, but I don't think you can argue that it's wrong for advertisers to get you to see their ads.

Not my assertion (that was the original poster calling them unscrupulous), but that might be part of a compromise. Then again, the attitude of many content providers is that the end users somehow owe them. I'll return to my original point: If you want to get paid for your content, make it premium (subscription or one-time fee, your choice). You can serve me ads and popups all you want, but you can't force me to look at them.

Considering there's no explicit agreement for browsing the web (which in this day and age I'm quite amazed that we haven't seen these yet) you can agree that the content provider has every right to distribute whatever content they wish to your machine, where you can then choose to disregard it or regard it as you want.

I'd rather there not be a EULA for browsing a web page. Consider how well those work today, with spyware even being mentioned in the EULA fine print and people still installing it anyway (because they don't read the EULA). If a site had a EULA that said, "You will not block popups or ads on this site," nobody will read the EULA and nobody will turn off their popup blockers or ad blockers while visiting the site. Oops, just violated the EULA. What are you going to do, mister site owner?

Push whatever data you wish when I view your site. My browser will render it or disregard it as I choose, not as you choose.

That being said, finding out how to get around a popup blocker isn't trampling your right to fair use (you just need to upgrade in the popup cold war).

Maybe we need a weapons dismantlement agreement. You agree as a content provider not to circumvent our tools (you can refuse to show us content if we use an ad or popup blocker, but you can't slip a popup through that intentionally bypasses our popup blockers), and we'll agree to stop using more egregious greasemonkey scripts, like rewriting links to yahoo searches to use google instead (just an example, no clue if such a script exists). Because you've already shown that you can't be trusted, we won't get rid of our own defensive weapons, but we'll stop creating offensive weapons.

As long as advertising is easy to ignore/disable, there will always be the back and forth (until some crappy future US law makes those things illegal).

As long as the end user has control over the browser, advertising will always be ignorable/disableable. You need a delivery mechanism like television, where the end user's part only consists of displaying electrons (DVRs are changing that, but until every TV is sold with a DVR it's not a huge issue). A browser is not this, because it has to interpret and render html. So long as the browser is interpreting and rendering, it can ignore or disable content.

Re:Popups

[gad_zuki!]

>Popups may be annoying, but they're hardly dishonest.

Actually, they are incredibly dishonest to the point that they would be illegal if similiar tactics would be used in a more mature industry, like in print ads or television.

Take a look at your typical pop-up. I collect ad servers for my ad blocking hosts file so I'm kinda a connoisseur of this crap. First and foremost, the current trend is to make the ads look like a windows system message. Not just any message, but mimicking the style of the security center and warning of 'unsafe computing.' There are many variations on this theme like, "you have new email," "your computer is unprotected," "click here for updates," etc.

We are way beyond the point of dishonesty, we are in the terrain of fraduelence.

As far as the 'people should learn to deal with the ads' argument goes, I'm all for it, but the first site that gives a 403 to people with adblockers will be replaced with another site that doesnt care. Welcome to the web, you have no contract with the webmasters the same way you dont have to sit down and watch TV commercials. Life is funny that way sometimes, but somehow we manage.

Take the moralist position all you like, but as long as you know the other side laughs at your "everyone place nice" attitude. Pardon me, but I got a pop-up telling me my IP address is exposed and I should buy SupersecurityMonkey 2.0 to fix this for only 39.99!

Re:Popups

[G-funk]

More importantly, why on earth can't I mute firefox? I don't want to mute my computer, but I don't want to hear a peep out of anything being spawned by firefox.exe.

Re:Popups

[DerekLyons]

Popups may be annoying, but they're hardly dishonest.

Actually, they are incredibly dishonest to the point that they would be illegal if similiar tactics would be used in a more mature industry, like in print ads or television.

Oh? Let's see...

First and foremost, the current trend is to make the ads look like a windows system message. Not just any message, but mimicking the style of the security center and warning of 'unsafe computing.' There are many variations on this theme like, "you have new email," "your computer is unprotected," "click here for updates," etc.

I guess you don't actually watch TV, listen to the radio, or read any print media. If you do, you'll note multiple advertisements that mimic other things - even if they do put a disclosure in tiny print or read real fast.

I note you said 'tactics', but that one pathetic, and incorrect, 'example' is all you have?

We are way beyond the point of dishonesty, we are in the terrain of fraduelence.

A claim unsupported by facts.

Welcome to the web, you have no contract with the webmasters the same way you dont have to sit down and watch TV commercials.

Welcome to the real world - where you do have such an implied contract. Here on the web, just like TV, you don't *have* to see the ads - but it takes your explicit effort to avoid them. (And out here in the real world, taking a service without paying the price is not regarded highly.)

Re:Popups

[NardofDoom]

I've solved that problem by simply not visiting sites that use pop-ups. Besides, running a site and making money by advertising has been shown to be an unprofitable business model.

Still arround?

[Umbral Blot]

I am surprised Second Life still exists. After all if I am going to pay a monthly subscription I would much rather have something that gives me content (W.O.W.) than something that asks the community to produce its own. Second Life sounds like something that should have been an open souce / free / funded by donations project.

Re:Still arround?

[ShawnDoc]

After all if I am going to pay a monthly subscription I would much rather have something that gives me content (W.O.W.) than something that asks the community to produce its own.

Um, Second Life doesn't require a monthly fee. There's a one time fee of $10 and after that you are free to play as much as you like. Now you do have to pay to buy properties and some other in-game items, however there are plenty of free "sandboxes" for you to use to practice creating things and show off your wares.

Re:Still arround?

[unixbob]

even if they aren't producing their own content, they still have hosting costs and development costs to take into account, which aren't free

Re:Still arround?

[Solder Fumes]

I'm perfectly satisfied right now with my $10 one-time fee. You can go anywhere, build stuff and sell it, basically anything except own land. It takes time to develop modeling skills, so if I'd purchased land I'd be wasting it.

Re:Still arround?

[cmacb]

Second Life sounds like something that should have been an open souce / free / funded by donations project.

There probably WILL be an open source system such as Second Life at some point. But that point might be ten years in the future for all we know. While there are a few Open Source projects that come up with something totally new, for the most part Open Source is a lot like Microsoft, wait for an innovation and then copy it. My feeling is that Open Source eventually does it better, but it rarely does it first. I'll settle for that.

The other good thing about that is that SL is supported on Apple computers and people are running it on Linux (though that isn't fully supported YET), so it's the only fully collaborative environment that I know of that is not OS specific. When Open Source gets around to doing this, the results will look a lot like Second Life. (And the price is right, as mentioned elsewhere)

Re:Still arround?

[Catcher80]

You obviously have no idea what a virtual community really is all about. Virtual communities aren't designed to be a 'game', with 'instant gratification'. They are designed to be a secondary life, where making your whole content is the whole idea. You can't compare W.O.W. to virtual online communities, they are totally different.

Re:Still arround?

[Luke-Jr]

I've had the basic idea used for this for a while, but it's not really a few-person project (especially without graphics programmers). Anyone want to help?

http://sourceforge.net/projects/moo3d/ for the engine
http://sourceforge.net/projects/tasogare/ for the core/environment

It wouldn't necessarily need to be free of charge, either-- something like this can easily fund itself similar to Second Life does, charging for services (virtual land, etc hosted on the server)

Re:Still arround?

[satoshi1]

That's how most online games are. In order to get the free trial, you need to input your credit card information.

Re:Still arround?

[Inverse Icarus]

It's a $10 one time fee, unless you want to own you own land. You can just drop the $10, and create your little machines in the sandlots, and then find friendly places where you can unleash them.

Re:Still arround?

[jerometremblay]

There probably WILL be an open source system such as Second Life at some point. But that point might be ten years in the future for all we know.

My favorite candidate on the Open Source camp is Croquet. It is designed by some of the early pioneers of the user interface such as Alan Key. It's goals are broader than Second Life, I hope it succeeds!

On the other hand, I think that eventually Linden Labs will open source it's own system, and simply keep control of the economy like they do right now.

Re:Still arround?

[hughperkins]

http://metaverse.sf.net/ is an opensource SL-like project under development.

It's using ode physics engine, Lua scripting engine, and it will shortly be using Python as a high-level glue language for the application development itself.

If you go to http://sf.net/projects/metaverse, you can click on Monitor to monitor the file releases for new file releases. The current ones are a little old, but there should be a new one out soon.

Hugh Perkins

already done for quake

[heatdeath]

iirc, there's a quake mod that renders html as textures, although it's not browsable. I couldn't access the site, though. It got slashdotted already. Does it just display the html as a texture, or is it browsable?

Re:already done for quake

[88NoSoup4U88]

I did a few searches on Google, but I can't seem to find that Quake mod you're mentioning (nor do I remember such a thing ever being announced) ;

Any more details you might remember ?

Re:already done for quake

[spydir31]

I don't know about Quake, but there's a patch for Crystal Space/Mozilla called Crystalzilla which does this.

Okay...

[fizban]

Wait a dog garn minute, let me get this straight...

I'm going to be able to slack off from my virtual life (and say, read slashdot) while I'm slacking off from my real life playing Second Life?

Okay, and meanwhile, in Darfur...

Re:Okay...

[EugeneK]

I'm just hoping they'll release a Second Life client application that runs inside the embedded Firefox browser. Then I can escape my humdrum, everyday SecondLife virtual existence and create a more exciting virtual virtual life...call it ThirdLife..

Re:Okay...

[GrubInCan]

Or even better, a real life client application that runs inside the embedded Firefox browser. Then you could escape your humdrun SecondLife by escaping into a new (and possibly different) real life.

Re:Okay...

[samoverton]

What would be better is if they create a client for Second Life that runs in a web browser. I think you can see where I'm going with this...

Re:Okay...

[Anonymous Writer]

I'm going to be able to slack off from my virtual life (and say, read slashdot) while I'm slacking off from my real life playing Second Life?

Yes, and you will be able to do it from your virtual mom's virtual basement.

Re:Okay...

[Lord_Dweomer]

"I'm going to be able to slack off from my virtual life (and say, read slashdot) while I'm slacking off from my real life playing Second Life?"On the plus side, you'll also be able to read Slashdot in Second Life.

Re:Nice concept, bad implementation

[Sephiriz]

I hate to say it, but you're not the target audience in such a case. Thousands of others take great pleasure in the 3D world, which allows for much more dynamic gameplay.

Re:That is a remarkably blank page

[LiquidCoooled]

If you lower your screen resolution, the large blank page will become somewhat smaller, and the text thats missing will become much larger.

That wasy, the nothingness will be easier to not read.

What if

[The Angry Artist]

This article certainly brings up an interesting topic: integrating different programs and making them work. It might be useful to have a media player that also acts as a web browsers or a file manager that autmatically downloads news from a website. I don't expect something like what I just suggested to catch on anytime soon, but multi-purpose programs would be nice to have -- after all, who wouldn't want a program that does everything?

Re:What if

[0racle]

Or like a web browser thats integrated into the underlying OS that also acts as a help file renderer and file manager. I can't believe that no one has ever thought of this before! You know what would be totally cool? Having a bar along the side of your web browser that could go out and get headlines from your favorite news sources. Damn I'm brilliant, I'm going to be rich.

Re:What if

[xenotrout]

It's called Emacs. Just combine it with Octave and Blender, and I think that will take care of the few missing loose ends--no need to run anything else. Ever.

Note: I'm a vim user, but I'm not a zealot about it--Emacs is good too, it just doesn't fit me.

Re:What if

[Derleth]

For one thing, it's difficult to design a program that does everything. This is because the complexity in software mainly comes from the interfaces between components, and the more your program does the more interfaces it has to have.

(Interfaces aren't always explicit, but the best ones are. Bad software is mainly characterized by fuzzy boundaries between functional units and promiscuous sharing of data between blocks of code that don't need to know it.)

The easiest program to design does one thing and hooks up to a simple API for its communication with the outside world. Unix command-line programs are built this way, and it has resulted in a lot of stable programs. Trying to expand a program is usually best done by splitting it and giving each part an easy way to talk with the other parts. This can be as easy as a bunch of subroutines that call each other or as complex as a client/server pair that send data to each other over the Internet. That way, each part can be reasoned about in isolation and ignored when you need to think about other parts, or the connections between all of the parts.

For another thing, it's difficult to change one part of a program. Making the boundaries between parts clear and strong helps, but it's never quite as easy as you first imagine. If you want to change the web browser component, do you really want to rebuild the entire project and try to integrate another browser into your framework? (If you don't have a framework of some kind, it would be easier to scrap the project and start again. An ad hoc communication system between components is usually impossible to change cleanly.)

It could be done. But I don't think it could be done well.

Re:Please

[LiquidCoooled]

Thats fine, you don't need a new graphics card just to browse.
This simply allows people ingame to use all the proper features (and I would assume your user profile settings) of a real browser.
If your not using the game, then this news isn't of use to you.

Re:Please

[Enoch Lockwood]

Here you go, sir. Pure open source goodness.

Virtuality

[Doc Ruby]

Yeah, why do I have to wake up from my virtual game world to reach for my iPod on my real desktop? I want all my virtual objects with me in my virtual world.

Huh?

[imroy]

Browsing the web inside a game? Somehow this reminds me of Penny Arcade comic. Yeah, I'm Karma whoring...

Re:Huh?

[gl4ss]

well, why not. imagine slashdot headlines scrolling on some display ingame. or current world news in the ingame newspaper.

with second life probably it's to allow the player to create something that displays something from the web though.

Re:Please

[ImaLamer]

Rude comment, considering this doesn't have anything to do with the browser. Moderators must be getting lazy....

Thank you to anyone who listens and relises I shouldn't need to upgrade my graphics card to check websites.

Well, that is the price of progress. I remember needing to replace my *CPU* to view websites (Java 3D modeling needed "MMX" or whatever...). Your complaint should be with the people who are building the websites. The browser is simple enough to put on screen - we've been doing that for years. It's your fault for wanting to do the latest, greatest thing.

I KNEW IT

[a_greer2005]

Firefox in the sfterlife? this confirms a lot of my thoughts:

Firefos IS heavenly!

if anyone from linden labs is reading this

[Edmund Blackadder]

Just in case anyone from Linden labs is reading this, I would like to say that I almost signed up for their free trial, but did not because they required me to sign up for an account in order to get the free trial.

I will never sign up for one of those "free trials" where you have to cancel before your free trial expires, otherwise you pay. First of all I tend to be forgetfull and I may not cancel at the right time, also god knows how complicated their cancelation procedure is.

I am disappointed that a computer game which slashdotters seem to would borrow a tactic which is mostly used by porn sites.

Re:if anyone from linden labs is reading this

[koreaman]

Porn sites, and AOL. We can't forget the atrocities of AOL.

Re:if anyone from linden labs is reading this

[Catcher80]

Maybe they expect more people to actually be responsible. What a concept OH WOW!!

I don't know how long their free trial is, I'm guessing a week maximum. It probably takes 2 days of being on there all day (basically all day) to determine if you want to stay. I'll go as far as to say 3 days. If you start playing in it and decide the place is the Suck, and you don't cancel right at that point, and you don't cancel the next day while you're deliberately Not logging in because you KNOW you're going to be bored to hell playing it, you deserve to be out 10 bucks.

You lazy bum.

Re:if anyone from linden labs is reading this

[cmacb]

They have very strict adult verification requirements (self imposed) and so you HAVE to sign up using a credit card (I know this isn't foolproof verification). So in theory there is no such thing as an anonymous user. They either know who you are or at least know who someone is that trusts you with there CC.

Nonetheless there are many people who have signed up for the $10 one-time membership who are regular users. There is only a monthly bill if that is what you select when you sign up. Monthly billing gives you ownership right, roughly equivalent to a web hosting service, but in 3D. You can also opt in or out of that level of service as your needs change. Don't want to own any virtual real estate? Then just pay $10 and you are done.

Re:if anyone from linden labs is reading this

[nacturation]

Wall Street Journal also does this. But if it's so offensive to you, write directly to Linden Labs rather than post on slashdot... that way you won't have to worry if they're reading this site. And how do you know it's a tactic mainly used by porn sites? Got burned a few times that way, did you?

Re:if anyone from linden labs is reading this

[Goaway]

So I get to PAY to make content for them? Well SIGN ME UP!

Re:if anyone from linden labs is reading this

[soundofthemoon]

You don't have to sign up for an account or pay anything. Before the end of your free week, you have the option to pay $9.95 once for a basic account, or $9.95/month for a premium. Your credit card is not automatically charged for anything if you don't cancel. The credit card is used to verify identity and age, as Second Life is for adults only. (There is a teen grid for those under 18.)

Re:if anyone from linden labs is reading this

[jafuser]

So I get to PAY to make content for them? Well SIGN ME UP!

Do you PAY a web hosting company to host content for the web?

SL's subscription model is much like the web. You pay a monthly fee if you want to persistently host content on a space that you fully own.

Alternatively, you can pay a one-time $10 for Basic membership and be able to do everything except own land outright. However, even a Basic member can still make friends with a landowner who will host something for them, or rent land from other landowners who pay for it at a bulk discount.

Re:if anyone from linden labs is reading this

[DrXym]

That's hogwash. You have no idea how hard it is to cancel, or that when you do that they'll acknowledge it. There have been plenty of horror stories from AOL and porn sites where once they've got your card it becomes a nightmare of phone calls to have it removed.

Perhaps none of this happens for Linden which is still irrelevant. Forcing someone to hand over their credit card number for a small amount of play is a tactic deliberatly designed to snare people who forget, who are confused by the terms and conditions, or who can't get through to the site in time to cancel.

There are plenty of free ways to encourage subscriptions that are much better than this:

1. Free code good for 2 weeks play. Star Wars Galaxies did that.
2. Free 30 day play. Puzzle Pirates.
3. Free play except for expansion packs. Anarchy Online
4. Free play with refer a friend. EVE Online
5. Free play that limits you to building / crafting newbie stuff. A Tale in the Desert.

None of these require CC numbers and all of them allow you to sample the game without paying first. I also assume that all of them generate more good will than some crowd who expect your payment details before you even know what you're getting.

Re:if anyone from linden labs is reading this

[Catcher80]

Your logic is incredible. Have you actually done any research into this, other than naming off how 5 other companies are promoting their 5 different ways? Astounding, my friend.

I did some actual work (plugged in 'how to cancel secondlife' on Google) and the first link was the TOS, or Terms of Service. What an odd place to look to see how things work....but I risked it.

Point 1:

3.7 Cancellation, Refunds, Reactivation. Accounts may be cancelled at any time, by going to the My Account page and clicking on "cancel". Upon clicking "cancel," your account will be cancelled immediately, but you will be allowed to use the remaining time according to these Terms of Service unless your account or this Agreement is suspended or terminated based on our belief that you have violated or acted inconsistently with Section 5.1 of this Agreement. THERE WILL BE NO REFUNDS FOR ANY UNUSED TIME ON A SUBSCRIPTION. At the end of a subscription period, your cancelled account will become dormant for 60 days. If during that time you want to reopen your account, you will be able to return to your My Account page and click the "re-activate" button at which time you will be prompted to review billing details to confirm that the plan you want is selected and that your credit card is still valid. If, for any reason, your credit card cannot be charged or payment is withheld, your account will become dormant as if you had cancelled it.

Go to the My Accounts page and click Cancel. Difficulty rating: A JILLION!!!!!!!!!!! Looks like you can actually go sign up for a free trial, cancel the account IMMEDIATELY, and still be able to use the account for the remaining time period per states in the Terms of Service, which is a week. Also if you decide within that week that you actually Like the service, you have the opportunity after the week subscription is up to log back into the My Accounts page and click the re-activate link. Another difficult task? Ok...

Another thing I noticed was:

3.4 Trial. After registering, you will be given a 7-day trial period beginning with your first login to Second Life. You may cancel your account at any time during the 7-day trial. If you want to change your account type you may do so at any time (either before or after the trial period - see Section 3.6 below). You are limited to one 7-day trial per credit card for any 3-month period. If you do not cancel your account during the 7-day trial, you will be charged based on the account type you selected during registration unless you have spent less than an hour in-world during the trial period.

If you don't even spend an hour in there, you aren't even billed even if you do forget. Smooth.

People who don't take the time to read the Terms of Service at places that might possibly be getting their money, intentionally or unintentionally, can't be helped. I know it happens too often, but this is just another point why people need to read their shit.

Also: "There have been plenty of horror stories from AOL and porn sites where once they've got your card it becomes a nightmare of phone calls to have it removed."

Just goes to show you how easy it is for any moron to have internet access.

Good-bye! :)

Re:Still Second...

[DrunkenTerror]

And I guess beyond that is Half Life?

Yet another thing to lag SL out.

[TwistedTR]

Wow, lets add another thing to second life to further lag things out. Recently an "update" was rolled out which added quicktime movie support to objects in game. Pretty nifty concept, except when people go outta control and put 20 automatically running Hillary Duff music videos inside the same piece of land, then its nothing but lag-fest.

Can't wait to see what happens with it when the HTML contains a ton of animated images, or annoying popups.

Re:Yet another thing to lag SL out.

[jafuser]

except when people go outta control and put 20 automatically running Hillary Duff music videos inside the same piece of land

You can't have more than one video stream going at a time, since video streams are one per land parcel, and your avatar can only be in one land parcel at a time. The streams for neighboring parcels can only play when you step into their land.

Besides, you can turn off streaming video in your preferences if it's a problem.

Second Life rocks

[John Zero]

I've seen Second Life mentioned on Slashdot around last summer, and I'm still in game :-)

It might not appeal to all -- it's not exactly a game, more of a virtual place, where you can live your imagination, build, socialize. Don't expect WoW-like quality and content, but you can get and do much more, many things you can imagine, can be scripted to an extent. Or you can make clothes, build houses, cars, etc.

It's a virtual world, and it's getting somewhat similar to the Metaverse (like in Neil Stephenson's Snowcrash novel), though it's way way far yet.

You can try it out free, and stay if you like it, nothing to buy, and also you can live with a one-time payment, if you don't want to spend monthly on it.

Yes... I AM an SL addict :-)

Re:Second Life rocks

[jafuser]

I think one thing that doesn't get mentioned about SL very often is that it isn't run by the company's sales & marketing department, like most games are.

The people at Linden Lab (the place responsible for developing SL) are geeks. They like Linux, they share opinions about languages, database, file formats, and protocols, they play the same games we play. They laugh at obscure geek jokes that we do.

And unlike any other MMOG, you *can* catch the designers, developers, administrators, and occasionally even the CEO in-world and have a reasonable conversation with them.

That's what impressed me the most about SL on my first day. In the "Welcome Area", I spent a few minutes talking to one of the lead developers, and I got reasonably technical answers to my inquiries, and was not treated like one unit of a herd of cattle like most game companies do.

Yes, SL doesn't have all the fancy flashy new graphics features you see in the latest games, but it's still a technically fascinating concept as it stands -- a completely dynamic, 3D, multiuser world that streams all updates (caused by users, their scripts, or the environment) in real time.

What is Second Life

[NitsujTPU]

The virtual world of Second Life will leverage an embedded version of Mozilla Firefox in a future release

I'm sorry, the links are totally Slashdotted... what is second life? Is that like another AlphaWorld?

Re:What is Second Life

[Catcher80]

http://www.secondlife.com/

Re:What is Second Life

[cmacb]

Here is a direct link to the item at SL. There has been voting going on for new features and this is one of the ones they accepted:

http://secondlife.com/vote/get_feature.php?get_id= 5

The Clicable Culture site has indeed bogged down. But all the info is on that SL page anyway.

You can have MORE!

[hey!]

Please can I have a simple web browser which blocks pop ups, ads and doesn't allow in spyware and other junk.

Why the lack of ambition?

Your virtual character can have a web browser that attaches not to a virtual server, but an actual one. The Second Life server.

If you have sufficient karma, you will be able to use your web browser to find out what virtual person sent you the spam/created the pop-up/whatever, and obliterate their existence. It'd be like have root access to God's server.

Re:Nice concept, bad implementation

[canwaf]

What is more dynamic than manipulating your world with the power of the written word? I never really understood why people want to see everything themselves, instead of using their imagination. I have found every attempt at a graphical role playing/virtual world game to be constraining and unpleasant.

Moving around in a pre-determined environment, and interacting with your world in only specified ways is hardly role playing/living a virtual life. It's unfortunate that the current trend has people who once would have picked up a book heading off to the movie theatre to see big explosions and horribly flat dialogue.

Well ok

[Daath]

Sounds nifty with an in-game browser. Almost all non-fps games I play, I play in windowed mode, so I can read mail and browse while playing. But ok, this is for advertising in-game, I would guess. There are probably also usefull things you can do with it in the game.

But many of us still need to get a first life, before we can move on to a second one ;P

Re:Nice concept, bad implementation

[MikeFM]

I think the real problem is that developers seem unable to make such games independant of their rendering model. Why not also have a 2D client or even a text client? It shouldn't be that hard to make different clients for the same server. Personally I think different clients could be a lot of fun. Maybe have one photorealistic client and one that draws everything in a cartoonish style.

Having users need to position elements precisely themselves indicates a lack of refinement IMO. User's should be able to create without mucking around with internal details.

At least Second Life is a bit interesting though. Games like Everquest that don't allow users to create content are sleepers IMO. So repetitive that I dunno how anyone stands to play them.

Re:Second Sense

[Solder Fumes]

The Metaverse in Snow Crash did not have physical feedback. The Metaverse was accessed via 3D goggles, with some of the input controlled by sensed body motion.

Re:Nice concept, bad implementation

[Luke-Jr]

I've had this idea for a while, but not being a graphics programmer, I can't really do much on my own toward getting something working. Anyone want to help? http://sourceforge.net/projects/moo3d/ for the engine http://sourceforge.net/projects/tasogare/ for the core/environment

Linux version?

[MarcOiL]

What about the Linux client they promised at start? If it's good enough to run their servers, it's good enough to have a client. Specially as they use OpenGL for graphics and already have a MacOSX client.

Re:Linux version?

[strredwolf]

Someone mod this one up, I was about to say it! As is, I tried running it in Wine and the latest version is a no-go!

Re:Linux version?

[Chris Ashton 84]

If you read the comment by the SL developer he mentions they need support for Win, OSX, and Linux. I already responded asking about Linux, hopefully it's a sign they've got someone working on it.

Re:Linux version?

[elrous0]

If you read the comment by the SL developer he mentions they need support for Win, OSX, and Linux. I already responded asking about Linux, hopefully it's a sign they've got someone working on it.

When you ask the Lindens about it in-world, they just give the standard "We're considering it" line that they've given for years.

It seems to be all they can do to keep a working version of the Windows client going. And they seem much more interested in added new "Whiz bang" features like in-world video and Firefox than doing any porting.

So, I wouldn't hold my breath.

-Eric

Second Mortgage Life more like it.

[aapold]

I tried this out after one of the ads for it. Free to get into. Crappy graphics, at that level why bother being 3D, but hey, at least its functional. You get your choice of a few starter outfits and things, all of which are the equivalent of the starter n00b armor in WOW or some other MMORPG because they immediately label you as such. To improve your gear, or hairstyle, or whatever... you don't quest for it like in WOW, you have to pay, as in real $$. Not to a real account, but I mean for the actual items. I think they gave you a pittance to start with. I didn't stick around long enough, but I thought there might be some other way to accumulate money, such as selling things to other players (again for real $$).

Re:frosty piss

[Catcher80]

GNAA sure is fucking stupid, but their trolls are funny

Re:Nice concept, bad implementation

[Catcher80]

Sounds like you might like http://www.vzones.com/ a 2D world with a lot to offer :)

Walking along...

[thomthom]

...lalala BOM! a popup window hits you! Literally.. Add a shotgun to the program as well and you'll have an instant shoot'em up hit.

Re:Don't need second life

[ccollao]

I already have a "L"ife... If it was second "W"ife...that is another story.

Na, if you're married, you don't have a "L"ife, your "W"ife owns two of them :)

Re:Nice concept, bad implementation

[Sephiriz]

Well, Second Life is all about imagination. Apparently, theres a plethora of tools that allow you to construct nearly anything you can imagine.

Your argument would kinda be like saying that a piece of art (say Monet) makes us less capable of using our imaginations. Instead, I think Second Life stimulates the imagination by showing you all sorts of new creations.

Display of web pages on the surfaces of 3D objects

[Fussen]

This is a freaking cool idea. My head spins with excitement on the prospects of this process. To integrate a web browser engine into a 3d engine so that games and 3d-interactive worlds can access the online information network of billions!

So freaking sweet. I want to be able to browse the web on the rippling drops of waterfalls in a Myst like setting.

And if it's Second Life that allows this bridge to be crossed, then Kudos to them and all the best to Firefox for making the claim to that.

But.. I still ain't up for paying real world dollars for 10 acres of polygons.

Re:frosty piss

[Catcher80]

Yeah man, its unreal.

But hey listen. Don't ever go into their IRC (irc.gnaa.us #gnaa). Well, do, so you can see what its like, and then run like hell at their sheer stupidity :P

so its only a matter of time until we see...

[slappyjack]

Crappily embedded midi files in elevators, bathrooms, and every virtual object "owned" by god-fearing midwestern housewives

Crappily embedded 6 meg bitmaps to wrap a virtual baseball

DoubleClick webbugs in your vitrual space to know who keeps peeping in your virtual windows so scumbags from South Florida can sell you virtual viagra, virtual calais, andd virtual farm animals fucking virtually knocked-up britney spears.

"Block Clothing from this server"

"NOTE: These virtual tattoos are optiimized for virtual tits of the size D cup or larger."

Re:Nice concept, bad implementation

[cowscows]

Second life is all about allowing providing a world in which people can easily create things. More specifically, three-dimensional things that can be experienced in a way somewhat similar to how we see the real world.

I'm guessing you haven't actually played it, because it's not moving around in a pre-determined environment, it's moving around in a pretty random environment, one shaped and changed by a whole bunch of different and uncoordinated people.

Games are like books/written words. There are people who are skilled and talented at making good stuff, and then the rest of the population who mostly makes crap. There are people in second life making incredible things with the tools that the game could provide. And I'll bet the majority of those people aren't partiularly talented writers, just because most people aren't. What's wrong with them having fun creating in a format that works for them?

Meanwhile,

[suitepotato]

some of us are busy doing things with our first life, like writing and supporting the code, installing and supporting the networks, that others wasting their first lives in favor of this second life depend on.

If anyone currently embroiled in that space wants to give up some excess first life, feel free to direct it to me. I'd love to take thirty or forty years at a time on and live for a few centuries.

(insert eye roll here)

Re:Meanwhile,

[ocelotbob]

So, let me guess, you are some humorless, lifeless cretin who spends all day in front of a terminal working 16 hours straight, eats, sleeps, and that's about it? Some people enjoy MMOs, MUDs, MUCKs, and other online games. It's a good way to spend a few hours, it's social, it's silly, and if you know where to look, well...

And no, that's not all I do. I visit museumms, I go out to parties, I live. Yes, I work, but there's more to life than labor; all work and no play make jack a dull boy.

Re:Nice concept, bad implementation

[AlexMax2742]

This is my main beef with it. Second Life, in my opinion, was a great concept, as was Active Worlds before it. However, it's bogged down by the fact taht I need to stand in an area for a few minutes for it to completely load, and if I walk too fast, I can outrun how fast it places things....though thankfully it seems to place a high priority on prim's clipping information, even higher than their textures, so you dont fly around and end up stuck in a wall. Sometimes it even seems like it stalls somewhere, and I need to walk around a bit to nudge it into completely loading it.

It has to stop implimenting all these new features and fix their content delivery system first. Do we really need more resources and bandwidth wasted on the old Yatta flash animation every ten feet (Quicktime support is already in, and Quicktime can play movies created with Flash 5 or earlier) when the infastructure isn't there to support it?

Thats good...

[RavenChild]

...at least they aren't using IE, their character could get a virus.

Virtual Virtual Skeeball (Oblig. Futurama)

[Dachannien]

Amy: I could swear I was really playing Virtual Skeeball!

US military overseas not allowed

[eagl]

I tried to join second life, but apparently US military members overseas are forbidden to join. The US military has used the same mail system for decades, yet second life insists on using a billing verification system that apparently does not allow APO/FPO billing addresses or non-US phone numbers. Almost every other retailer in the world knows how to bill and ship to an overseas APO/FPO address and online credit card verification is a fairly mature technology, so it is very strange that their system is completely unable to handle my credit card.

Ironically, the only other online retailer I've ever had this problem with was the "Motley Fool" investment advice service, which was equally strange. The 2 services that use billing and address verification systems that refuse to allow US overseas military members to join, are a "global" virtual world service, and a major financial advice service. You'd think they'd know...

What I really wanted to try was...

[eagl]

What I really wanted to try was to open a web browser inside second life, and use a remote PC applet to log onto another computer and log in to second life again. So you could be playing second life inside a browser inside second life. Or you could even do real work in the browser using workspot.

The question is, would other users be able to read and see what's on your screen?

Update from the Second Life dev team

[jncook]

Callum Linden and I are the two developers at Linden Lab working on Mozilla embedding. Some details:

Why bother? We want to allow people running Second Life full-screen to access our web site. Right now, if you want to bid on a piece of virtual land, or read the scripting language wiki, you have to either run in a window or switch out to your browser. That sucks, so we're fixing it.

The second goal is to get to third-party web sites. I want to trade SL currency on Gaming Open Market while staying in-world. Our internal scripting language supports e-mail into and out of the world, as well as XML-RPC. Lots of people have used this to build cool web sites that tie into the virtual world. See the postcards on Snapzilla postcards and the Second Life del.icio.us tag for examples. Getting these connected into the world would be a big win.

Why Mozilla? Could there be any other choice? :-) Our competitor There.com uses Internet Explorer to do their internal web browsing, but they only support PCs. We love open source tools and use LGPL stuff extensively in both server and client. Plus, we need support for Win32, Mac and Linux.

Working with the Mozilla codebase has been interesting. It's huge, and very complex. But I'm proud to say we've found and fixed a couple bugs in Mozilla, and contributed the changes back to the Mozilla folks. I'm looking forward to Firefox 1.1 and the potential for the new Cairo/OpenGL rendering subsystem -- that may really help with embedding for 3D worlds.

So despite the linked description, Callum and I are working on getting an interactive 2D browser working first. Web pages on the surfaces of 3D objects may not ship in the next version (1.7). It'll ship as soon as it's done.

As an aside, if any of the Mozilla developers are reading this, we could use some help with embedding, specifically how to post mouse-click events into an embedded instance, please send me mail.

Cheers,

James

Re:Update from the Second Life dev team

[jafuser]

or read the scripting language wiki

The scripting capability is what hooked my interest in trying SL, so I thought I'd link to the LSL Wiki here for others who might be curious. =)

Re:Update from the Second Life dev team

[Chris Ashton 84]

"Plus, we need support for Win32, Mac and Linux."

Does this mean there's finally a Linux version in the works?

Re:Update from the Second Life dev team

[Jesrad]

What about the existing possibility to open up links from a dialog in SL into local browsers ? Will this feature be modified to open the same links into a window within SL instead of opening the user's browser of choice ?

Coming Soon

[Quick Sick Nick]

Third Life, an alternate reality game withen an alternate reality game!

Re:Coming Soon

[ocelotbob]

Secondlife is kind of like that already. There are MMOs, FPSs, etc, coded using the game's engine, so in many ways, secondlife is already thirdlife.

Re:Second Sense

[ScytheBlade1]

I don't need to. The AC's owned you enough to make me content :).

Re:Nice concept, bad implementation

[mscdex]

Then try out Traveler. Requires no 3d accelerator card, uses CPU only, and has a great community with great people. http://digitalspace.com/traveler/index.html And find me on the Tech Worlds server :)

3D web pages...

[varslot]

I have always wanted to date a virtual girl with slashdot displayed on strategic 3D body surfaces...

in-world browser for free software

[reed]

http://interreality.org/projects/crystalzilla

"Proof of concept" using all free software (client and server): Free 3D engine, free web browser, free networking architecture. Pending changes to Mozilla will be integrated into user applications sooner or later. Hackers wanted...

Re:Second Sense

[Doc Ruby]

Moderation -2
50% Flamebait
50% Overrated

This thread really showed how Slashdotters would rather get in a flamewar about grammar than brainstorm how to make simulation games more like the fictional ones we like. I mention (and correct) a "common grammatical mistake", without further criticism, as a way to introduce a detailed discussion of VR. Practically no one says anything about the VR. Practically everyone flames me about "grammar nazi" content, when I didn't even focus on the grammar mistake. In fact, I sympathized with it, and indulged it as a pretext to examine the real issue. But I got flames, and that ridiculous TrollMod record.