Play YouTube videos in Second Life - Second Life Video ...

What we looked for ages. Ability to play you-tube in second life. Now that You-Tube supports MP4 you can stream them directly to Second life. Mega cool. Ahhh the power of standards.

Call for requirements: ISO MPEG-V (mpeg for virtual worlds) Deadline: July 16, 2008

My dear friend, J.H.A. (Jean) Gelissen from Philips continues to work on MPEG-V. This is the major official (read: global) work on establishing standards. Most of you are aware of my "push" for global standards (see Five dimensions of standards, and the metaverse1 project)

I fear that the virtual worlds industry, will end up like the gaming industry -- small islands that stifle large scale innovation. In contrast, the internet model, with its defined stack, is a much better example to arrive at the full 3D3C real virtual world. In any event, the call state:

INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATION FOR STANDARDIZATION
ORGANISATION INTERNATIONALE NORMALISATION ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11 CODING OF MOVING PICTURES AND AUDIO

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11/N9903 Archamps, France, May 2008

Title: MPEG-V Extended Call for Requirements

Source: Requirements

Status: Approved

MPEG, a working group in ISO/IEC, has produced many important standards (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MPEG-7, and MPEG-21). MPEG feels that it is important to standardize intermediate formats and protocols for “Information exchange with Virtual Worlds”, MPEG-V in the areas of “Interfaces between virtual worlds” and “Interfaces between virtual worlds and the physical world”.

As stated in the w9424 “Information exchange with Virtual Worlds 'Context, Objectives and Use Cases'” [1] the intended standard for ‘Information exchange with Virtual Worlds’ will consist of at least three parts:

· Part1: Architecture

· Part2: Interfaces between virtual worlds

· Part3: Interfaces between virtual worlds and the physical world

The first part (Part1: Architecture) will describe an overall architecture that can be instantiated for all the foreseeable combinations of virtual worlds and real world deployment.

The second part (Part2: Interfaces between virtual worlds) will allow for the interchange of characteristics between virtual worlds taking native formats and scalability into account.

The third part (Part3: Interfaces between virtual worlds and the physical world) will allow for the interfacing of sensors and actuators to the virtual world taking native formats into account.

MPEG has produces “Draft requirements for MPEG-V” [2] based on the contributions received on a request for requirements issued at the 83^rd MPEG meeting (Antalya, Turkey, January 14 – 18, 2008). To complete the requirements for MPEG-V MPEG would like to be informed about the existence additional requirements applicable to this work item.

All parties that believe they have relevant (additional) requirements for MPEG-V are invited to submit these requirements for consideration by MPEG. These parties do not necessarily have to be MPEG members. The review of these requirements is planned in the context of the 85th MPEG meeting in Hannover, Germany. Please contact Joern Ostermann (ostermann@tnt.uni-hannover.de) for details on attending this meeting if you are not an MPEG delegate. The submissions shall be received by the 16th of July, 2008 23.59 hours GMT, by Joern Ostermann, chair of the MPEG Requirements sub-Group, (ostermann@tnt.uni-hannover.de) who will upload all proposals both by MPEG and non MPEG members to the MPEG site after the submission deadline.

See the initial draft.

Record Second Life Chat + voice

A good tip from Second Life... as to how to record a voice conversation.
See full post here.

One of the best rules of learning is: if you find something useful, share it. Teaching someone else not only enlightens them, it also improves your memory!*

I keep getting asked by fellow Lindens and Residents about how to record voice chat, which is very useful for capturing public events (meetings, classes, etc.) so they can be posted on a website and broadcast later. It’s also helpful for podcasting and more personal situations. Since you are awesome, I’ve done the following to save you time & trouble!

The basic process is: (1) record, (2) edit & encode, and (3) upload.

13-year-old girl who later committed suicide after her virtual boyrienf left her

According to LA Times (16-May-2008) :

Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles on Thursday charged a Missouri mother with fraudulently creating a MySpace account and using it to "cyber-bully" a 13-year-old girl who later committed suicide.

The girl, Megan Meier, hanged herself in her upstairs bedroom two years ago, shortly after being jilted by an Internet suitor she thought was a 16-year-old boy. The case caused a national furor when it was alleged that the "boy" was actually Lori Drew, the mother of one of Megan's former friends.Real Virtual Worlds can be painfully "real." As more of these worlds become part of our lives we need to educate ourselves about the dark sides of virtual life. Real virtual worlds are not a game -- they are yet another part of life with all the the good and the bad.

See a video in CNN.

Wall Street Jounral: Seven Virtual Summer Jobs

The article list 7 stories of people who made money in Virtual Worlds. Showing the "Commerce" C in the 3D3C Real Virtual World (also See paper).

McKinsey: Ignore Second Life At Your Peril

We must all be doing something good if McKinsey, the top consulting company, is writing about virtual worlds. Times On-line reports on April 23:

Virtual worlds such as Second Life will become an indispensible business tool and vital to the strategy of any company intent on reaching out to the video-game generation, one of the world's leading consultancies has said.
McKinsey & Company, the management consulting firm whose observations about corporate behaviour are closely watched, said that virtual worlds were on the cusp of a major expansion - particularly as a way to reach younger customers - and that companies were "ignoring them at their peril."

OK, it is part of a much larger report on on-line marketing. But still nice quote.

IBM Haifa Reserch Lab: Real Virtual Worlds: Key Technical Challenges (with Focus on MLM Virtual Goods)

This is computer science seminar where I will cover three topics:
- Intro to Virtual Worlds.
- Key Technical Challenges in Virtual Worlds.
- Focus on the MLM Virtual Goods Challenge.

Abstract:

Real Virtual Worlds are defined as a three-dimensional worlds in which human characters spend their time, play, work and live. A definition is proposed – 3D3C: 3D for the three dimensions of this interactive world and 3C for Community in which people connect with one another, Creation that allows people to express themselves and Commerce that links real monetary value to actions in this world. Current business models -- what works and what does not work -- as seen today in Second Life, the first example of a real virtual world, are described. To fulfill the immense potential we need to overcome several technical barriers -- this barriers calls for new
algorithms, and define a research agenda in this topic.

One such technical challenge is the issue of MLM Virtual Goods management. MLM stand for Multi Level Marketing -- a known and sometimes problematic scheme or real sales -- yet MLM like sales method has an important meaning when it comes to virtual goods. Baring in mind, that internet:ads==virtual worlds:virtual goods, the ability to sell, cross sell, up-sell, co-sell takes a specific meaning.