1. The products they offer are really great, and to see something like that implemented into SL would be great, an I suspect..er.. speculate.. that they will try to improve the weather.
I guess this means for a nice day you'll have to do:
World>Force Sun> Noon
*and*
World>Force Weather>Sunny

I sure hope that if they do something like that, that Linden Lab includes options in preferences to turn them off completely. There are times when I log on that I wish SL would remember that I turned the clouds off the last time I was on.

The biggest potential problem I see with something like this is that Second Life is quickly outgrowing the capabilities and capacities of the average computer. People can't necessarily go out and buy a computer just to play Second Life, and if they want to get a large portion of the market, Second Life needs to run smoothly on your average store bought e-machine with only the video card upgrade option.
One reason people like Second Life is the basic account is Free. "Free" kind indicates that a number of users might not have money. So they are in Second Life. If the system is upgraded beyond their system capacity, we'll lose them. If they can't afford $10/month for premium, odds are they can't afford $100+ for a 512mb video card, or more memory, etc.

Posted at 1:08PM on May 21st 2007 by Neural

2. Speculation on next upgrade: Havok

(naaah that's a long shot)

Posted at 1:36PM on May 21st 2007 by Zak Escher

3. Adding cutting edge features should ALWAYS be a priority - but they should always be scaleable/switchable (preferably automatically), so no-one with an ageing PC or graphics card suddenly grinds to a halt.

Spec'ing everything to the lowest common demoninator is a recipe for stagnation, (ask Microsoft!) and that's the last thing Linden should allow to happen. Sculpted prims? WindLight? Bring it on!

Posted at 4:31PM on May 21st 2007 by Eri

4. What's even more interesting is that LL now has the wherewithal to acquire other companies in the quest to advance technologically...which will help reinforce public and media opinion of them as the current "strong horse" in the virtual-worlds field.

As for when we'll see specific improvements, and what they'll be...predicting when particular technical advances will happen in SL is always a risky business at best. But I would hope that things like LSL/Mono are nearly set to go...

Posted at 4:36PM on May 21st 2007 by Erbo Evans

5. I'll believe it just how I believed Havok 2/3/4, SpeedTree, avatar puppeteering, renderer 2.0 and HTML-on-a-prim "might be in place as soon as a couple of weeks" at one time or another.

Posted at 6:08PM on May 21st 2007 by Kex

6. The question is just HOW FAR back should they be writing their stuff to be compatible with old hardware? If you can't run DX9 right now, you REALLY need to upgrade to a Windows 98 machine.

I'm personally running a very nice machine, and I'm getting TIRED of options that would be nice for me being skipped because the software has to be written to be compatable on a 64mb ISA video card.

Upgrade your machines, people. They're CHEAP now.

Posted at 8:38PM on May 21st 2007 by Kahni Poitier

7. Back in 2005 there was a feature proposal in the voting system for weather. It was accepted and work started on that in late 2005/early 2006. From the scraps we've heard from Linden Lab, a full weather implementation has been in progress ever since and is getting closer.

Posted at 10:02PM on May 21st 2007 by Tateru Nino

8. Not forget to mention the current cloud particles in SL aren't any better than Nimble when it come to GPU benchmark. The current shows 20% decease in Frames Rate compared to Nimble PER PARTICLE. There's about 40 or 50 particle in the current version but should be much less when using Nimble due to fact that Nimble are kinda cheating by making the particle sprite about 2 times bigger than the current cloud or even more. Although, the size on Nimble can be changed. Just hope LL knows about that differences instead of how it looks. ...Ahhh who am I kidding, they know.

(visited Nimble's booth in IITSEC 2006.)

I have to say I'm surprised LL was looking into Nimble, it's about time! ;)

Still wondering how will they do snow, hails, morning dews(fog), rain and lightning bolts. You know... the real weather. Cloud alone isn't enough to be called Weather.

Posted at 2:28AM on May 22nd 2007 by Nacon

9. We'll see. Or we won't.

Posted at 3:16AM on May 22nd 2007 by Nobody Fugazi

10. Oh another pointer... when youre in a sim connecting with 8 sims around it (9 sims in total), the old current clouds bombard more particles for each sims in the client viewer. Nimble doesn't incease when viewing with more sims. They remains the same. Same as you see with the skybox.

That's a start for mainland/high-draw-distance players. ;)

Posted at 4:28AM on May 22nd 2007 by Nacon

11. instead of removing features or denying access for those with not enough money to upgrade their computer, those hardcore options should be made optional...

Posted at 5:42PM on May 22nd 2007 by TigroSpottystripes Katsu