Second Life getting more realistic, but not necessarily better
Virtual world site Second Life one again is making news, acquiring new technologies to make its environment more realistic.
On the other hand, Second Life has been taking some hits lately.
First, the new technology: Linden Lab, which owns Second Life, has acquired two assets from Windmark Interactive, which make lighting and environmental simulation more realistic. They are Nimble, which helps create things like 3D clouds, and WindLight, for improving how light interacts with natural terrain, man-made objects, water, clouds and particles.
But the latest stats show that few people are visiting the corporate sites being set up in Second Life by folks like Coca Cola and Dell. Their headquarters were practically empty, with Coca Cola and Dell having an average of 1.5 visits an hour on average. Maybe its because visiting Dell isn’t exactly what people have in mind when they visit a fantasy world.
Meanwhile, miscreants attacked the site of an Australian company, ABC Island, blowing up two months of work. See image above, which shows the explosion before it was later restored to its original version by Linden Labs (top left in picture).
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
