Over at Tech Digest, Stuart Dredge makes his case for 5 companies who ought to have virtual worlds of their own. It's an interesting list, and one could argue back and forth the benefits of any of the 5. Being a fanboy, I'll admit to being excited by the thought of a Nintendo space, and an Apple space.

In fact, the Apple thing could be its aborted 'eWorld' with a new lease on life. Nintendo could have a ton of different areas themed after any number of their more popular franchises: Mario, Metroid, Pokémon, Zelda, etc. Google is something I think everyone's curious about, and Microsoft is fearful of. The BBC has been interested in the whole virtual worlds topic for a while now, witness their various SL events. Nokia? Ehnh. Any companies we should add to this list? Send 'em in!

Chopsaw, named after the mainland sim it's located at, is the collaboration of sculptie master, Aminom Marvin, and skin goddess, Gala Phoenix. Their current offering, modular furniture, has three components to it - a 3-prim couch for L$500, a 3-prim loveseat for L$400, and a two-prim armchair for L$250. All items are no mod/no copy/transfer.

One of the features that makes this furniture unique is that you can change the sit pose for each individual seat. The main feature that sets it apart from the rest, though, is the ability to configure your furniture with a couple of mouse clicks. The armchair becomes an ottoman, the couch sprouts a corner piece that lets you put another couch or loveseat next to it. The possibilities are almost endless!

IWOOT is not a new Apple product. As seen previously, it's an acronym for I Want One Of Those, a new store within SL in which you can shop for RL goods without ever leaving SL. The IWOOT folks have announced a new contest for residents: "Things we didn't know about Second Life", where the winning resident who sends in either a fantastic location, interesting object, or hilarious story about SL will win 100,000L!

The entry page can be found here; good luck citizens!

(Thanks, Ceeq!)

Commenter Benjamin Duranske put us onto his great article on trademark infringement in SL. It may seem that these knockoffs are harmless; it's all in good fun, right? Nobody really believes that they're receiving anything like the real deal, it's just a crafted object. Yet that object is trading off the cachet of its RL progenitor, so if nobody cared about such things, nobody would bother to buy these copies.

However, if/when, say, Apple decides to develop an in-world presence, would residents be more likely to buy their versions of virtual iPods? Let's face it: legality aside, knockoffs that come preloaded with mp3s are going to be infinitely more attractive to residents than Official Apple iPods, which won't be preloaded with anything. As always, the unsatisfying answer remains "Time will tell."

(incidentally, the Akela Snarls are trademark Jakkal Dingo -- don't sue me!)

(Via virtuallyblind.com)

This is the thirty-third (and a third?) in a series of mini-interviews with the residents of Second Life. For the most part, I'll try to leave the responses unedited, except where editing will grant greater clarity.

I have been an admirer of Gwyneth Llewelyn for quite some time; ever since I found SL, actually. The level of intellect displayed on her blog is rather mighty indeed, and I read it often, frequently having to mouth the words to myself in a vain attempt to understand. This also marks the first time a Resident Snapshot has gone longer than one page!

SL name:
Gwyneth Llewelyn

How did you first come to SL?:
In mid-2004, I was looking for some 3D environment on the Mac, just to have a bit of fun, after being bored with The Sims. There are very few ones, and World of Warcraft was not available for a "trial download". I came across SL which at that time had a special feature announcement on Apple's website. So, it was mere luck. Most "games" tend to grab my attention for about 15 minutes; they're simply not compelling enough ... although "building" games like the Sims, or Civilization, Alpha Centauri, etc. always fascinated me, even if I cannot claim to be good at any of those :)

After spending 90 minutes tweaking my avatar (6 times longer than I expected SL to appeal to me!) I thought there was "something" to SL. I spent that first day 20 hours online ... then slept another 4 hours ... and logged in for a further 16 hours :) After that, I realised that SL was something totally unexpected, new, completely different, with an appeal that I haven't felt about any application whatsoever - at par with the first graphical web browser, Mosaic, back in 1993.

Joe Lewis at webpronews.com offers his thoughts on the current rumor that Google might be thinking about creating its own immersive environment. True or false, it's fun to think about, so here are my two ellz.

Whether or not you've seen/played with Google Earth, it's clear that Google has done a great job with making a fun application. Its popularity is probably what prompted Microsoft to offer their own version, and I'm surprised Apple hasn't followed suit. These apps, however, are less sophisticated than SL by many degrees; they do one major thing, and they do them well, but there is no interoperability as yet.

This is the twelfth in a series of mini-interviews with the residents of Second Life. For the most part, I'll try to leave the responses unedited, except where editing will grant greater clarity.

Triste followed me home one day, and I asked my Mom if I could keep him, and she said no, so I took him to the Shelter instead. They were impressed with his command of the language, and the fact that he used punctuation. He's been a mainstay ever since, and we're happy to have him! [Full disclosure: The initial release of this post had a misspelling of Triste's last name as 'Bernard'. I'm so sorry, Triste! Mea culpa!]

Your SL name: Triste Bertrand

How did you first come to SL?: I read about the application on Apple's web site looking for software to put on my 12-inch iBook; I've since put it on my Windows PC since it has the better video card.

How did you choose your name?: I've been a fan of French singer Mylène Farmer since the late 80s when I bought her "L'autre..." album while taking French classes in high school. One of the more popular songs from her first album "Cendres de Lune" was "Tristana," with a video for the song that was essentially a winter-in-Russia version of the Snow White story. One of my first internet accounts used the ID "tristana," and I carried the ID over as my IRC nickname. Eventually I changed it to Tristesse (the French word for "sadness"), and after getting accosted one too many times by horny geeks thinking I was a woman, shortened it to "Triste" (the French adjective "sad"). I chose the last name Bertrand because it was French-sounding and thus went with the first name.

What's your favorite thing about SL?: The idea of living in a virtual world of your own creation, and being able to be or do anything that arises in your imagination and creativity. I also have had an interest in online ministry endeavors, and Second Life provides the perfect combination of text, visual, and audio interactivity to make it the perfect environment to launch my projects.

What do you like least about SL?: The frequency of crashes, although on my desktop PC is does not happen all that often (it is frequent on my other two computers, both laptops with ATI video chips; the desktop has an nVidia card). The other primary pet peeve is the apparent need for LL to take the entire grid down during peak times for maintenance and upgrades rather than doing so during less active times such as the middle of the night. Since the majority of Residents are in the United States, doing maintenance during the nighttime/early morning hours would seem to have less of a downtime impact on Residents.

Favorite hangout/store?: I'm found most often at The Shelter (Isabel 20,200) (where I've somehow gained the nickname of "Father Mulcahy") or at The Journey (Cayuga 17,59), my online ministry project where I host a weekly Bible study on Friday nights both in SL and as a conference call as well as Sunday Night Gatherings on our Roof Terrace. I also attend worship services at ALM CyberChurch (Vine 173,185) on Sunday mornings and Palemoon Twilight's Prayer & Meditation meetings on Saturday nights at The Final Quandary (Vaoetere 9,8).

Name one new feature you'd like to see added to SL: I would like to see existing bugs fixed before Linden Labs even attempts to add new features. :-)

Shout outs: A shout out to Benjamin & Mariposa Psaltery and their entire ministry team at ALM, Palemoon Twlight, Erbo Evans & Danielle Ferguson, Eden Katayama, and to the many other interesting and unique people (and animals) I have met in-world.