Linden Lab and Vivox are taking the voice system down for maintenance tomorrow morning (Wednesday, 24 October) between 2AM and 3AM SLT (US Pacific) for unspecified improvements.

Could this have anything to do with the projected influx of CSI:NY fans tomorrow? It would be too coincidental to suggest otherwise. Apparently Linden Lab has been robustifying a number of subsystems, particularly the user-registration system.

So, Second Life is now 'fully voice enabled'. That means that assuming your network can handle it, and your hardware can handle it, and you've got a headset, and your office policies don't forbid it, and your family lets you use it you're just fine.

Unless, of course, you are one of the 1 in 100 Second Life users who uses the popular open source operating system Linux - a number which is increasing - it has been observed that Second Life runs better on the same hardware if that hardware is running Linux rather than Windows.

Where the heck is the holdup? Now, that's an interesting question - and depends entirely on who you ask.

For those of you who have a usable voice, and good hearing (a quarter of the people on my friends-list do not), voice is coming to SL with closed beta trials to begin very soon, according Joe Linden.

One telling tidbit though is that the voice system will apparently not be completely free, as suggested by such statements as: "There will be no additional charge for using voice for residents or land-owners during the both of these beta trial periods." and "Private island owners also have the ability to turn on voice as they wish if they're on a current payment plan (grandfathered plans may require an additional fee)."

Joe's posted an explanation and FAQ, and invites people who are interested in the beta voice trials to send an email to 3DVoice@lindenlab.com. Now, as long as someone doesn't walk up to me and expect me to be able to hear them speaking, I'll be just fine.

Among some quarters of our expanding virtual worlds, there's a big push towards sound. Live music, voice-chat, and so on. Philip Linden does Town Halls by voice. People want to pull out their headsets and address the people around them. But what if they can't hear you?

You're in a public place, and espy someone you want to talk to. You lean on your push-to-talk key, and say hi, and ask how they are. Meanwhile they just stand there. Are they ignoring you? Are they being rude? Maybe they just can't hear you. Some people are in Second Life for business, they might not have any speakers on their computer -- and headphones are much frowned on in the workplace if there's any chance that they might interfere with you being able to hear co-workers or speak on the phone. The business-person in Second Life probably can't hear you.

The second major class are the handicapped. Second Life has many deaf or hearing-impaired residents -- it's a great environment for them. Likewise some people cannot speak -- or cannot speak the all the languages they can read or write. Some can type a perfectly acceptable grade of English, but have no idea how the language sounds, never having had much opportunity to hear an English-speaker. They probably can't understand you speaking, anyway, let alone respond in sounds you can understand.

Vivox is a VoIP provider that specializes in virtual world VoIP. They have recently been gaining ground in Second Life by integrating their services in world. Their newest promotion, "Hello, this is Second Life Calling..." will provide the community with one million free phone call minutes between October 4 and November 1, 2006. Residents will be able to use this service to call any RL phone. This of course should be used with caution as the people you call will then realize what a huge dork you are, but hey I'm in the same boat.

There are a couple of different options for using Vivox phones. First you can use a Vivox Phone Booth. These look like the traditional red British phone booths and allow calls to be made to any North American phone. The other option is to use a Microphone. These are kiosks that will be spread around Second Life and will allow up to 5 people to have live voice conversations at the same time. So, you can go to their page and sign up now and get information on where the phones will be.