“Never before has a virtual character been signed to a worldwide recording contract,” stated Warren Croyle, CEO of Reality Entertainment, the company that signed him. “Von Johin is legendary in the virtual community Second Life for his heart-pounding live shows.”

The deal was made in much the same way as its real-world counterparts. Two scouts from Reality Entertainment spent several months looking for promising artists to sign throughout Second Life. “It was a hard decision, but Von Johin is the real deal, he is original and plays from his heart,” said Pud Puchkina, one of the scouts. “Just the man and his guitar, with just these two instruments and a virtual appeal like no other, he brings crowds to their feet daily.” (more…)

Marco, whose name has been changed for this story, considers himself addicted to an online role-playing game where he has spent the last 3½ years, up to 12 hours a day, living an alternate life — one more exciting than the life he leads in the real world.

But young men living out heroic fantasies aren’t the only ones spending too much time with a keyboard and mouse. Because of ease of access and the cloak of anonymity, real-life addictions such as gambling, shopping and pornography have an even more powerful grip when conducted online. (more…)

Law and order is one of the cornerstones of a civilized society. Establishing rules of conduct, spelling out acceptable and objectionable behavior, defining the consequences for anyone who violates those laws and deciding who will enforce them are all essential to maintaining peace and harmony.

In the real world, there exist systems of laws — civil and criminal — that govern people’s behavior. However, in the digital world, who lays down the law? As virtual worlds such as Second Life and Eve Online continue to grow, attracting more and more residents — and often for vastly different reasons — who decides what goes and what doesn’t? What constitutes a crime in these worlds? Do real-world laws apply, or is up to the creators of these fantasy lands to police their own environments? (more…)

YouTube, the video-sharing website, is under attack from MPs for failing to prevent images of sex and violence being posted freely on the internet.

The Culture and Media Committee of the House of Commons is publishing a report saying it is “unimpressed” with YouTube’s systems for policing the millions of video clips it posts online.
advertisement The site does not vet videos before the go online, instead relying on users to report “inappropriate” content, with staff removing those that they judge to be unsuitable.

The firm says that 10 hours of video are posted online every minute, making it simply impractical to vet all of those films in advance. John Whittingdale, the committee chairman, dismissed that argument and insisted that the firm and others that host “user-generated content” should do more to filter submissions. (more…)

More than 600 HVAC students at the college in became the first UK students to be given a Second Life education. Students can virtually fly round its central heating and hot water system, turn off valves and follow the movement of (red for hot, blue for cold) water through its pipes, to examine parts virtually that may be harder see aspects of in the real world

Individuals can move through the 3D environment using a figure of their own choice (known as an avator) to represent them inside Second Life. The house also features a gas meter to allow students to take a gas reading from a virtual appliance and calculate a gas rate and then receive instant feedback on whether they are correct. (more…)

Springfield Technical Community College is poised to launch a venture into a wholly online world. Project organizers will unveil their creation to hundreds of peers from community colleges across the nation Tuesday at a conference in Austin, Texas.

The project, two years in the making, utilizes a virtual island within a computer-generated world on a Web site known as Second Life. The National Center for Telecommunications Technologies, a division of the college, purchased a virtual “16-acre” island within Second Life earlier this year for $1,200 in very real cash.” (more…)

If women are still struggling for power in the tech world, maybe we should turn to the virtual world for guidance. Before the evening came to an end, I caught up with Philip Rosedale (who Pattie — and a few others — forgivably mistook for Chris DeWolfe, the CEO and co-founder of MySpace). Rosedale, who is chairman of Linden Lab and the father of Second Life, said that at secondlife.com, a 3-D online world created by its residents, women rule society in a way that parallels the Victorian age (as rulers of their households, women of that earlier era coordinated the social events where alliances were created between families, businesses, etc.). (more…)

search for : Second Life

We’ve all heard the warnings: addiction, isolation, a waste of time. But some 50 million people log on to online role-playing games like The Sims and Second Life—and many of them never log off. The makers of a new documentary called “Second Skin,” which hits theaters in September, followed seven hard-core gamers to find out why. Victor Piñeiro, the film’s producer, spoke with NEWSWEEK’s Jessica Bennett:

It all started with a teacher friend who got so into Star Wars Galaxy that he was leading a double life. He’d run home from work during lunch, 10 blocks, to check what was going on inside the game. He was staying up all night and would show up to class with bags under his eyes. From the outside it looked crazy. But from the inside it was kind of amazing. He’d become the mayor of his town and was leading hundreds of people. (more…)

search for : Second Life

The British Computer Society has launched an e-learning specialist group in the Second Life virtual world.

The British Computer Society said the specialist group will hold regular meetings in Second Life and other virtual worlds.

“E-learning provides a solution for those who cannot access colleges and schools,” said the British Computer Society (BCS).

“Employers are also embracing the technology that allows their employees to develop additional skills without leaving the workplace,” it added. (more…)

The U.S. government recently denied a green card application by a well-known Second Life artist, declaring her two-year marriage to an American citizen to be fraudulent. The news isn’t all bad for her, though — the denial gives her an opportunity to appeal and prove that the marriage was legitimate.

However, she says she’s growing weary of trying to untangle the red tape, and is preparing for the probability that she’ll be forced to abandon her adopted home in America.

Irena Morris, known in Second Life as “Eshi Otawara,” married an American citizen who died while her application for residency was still in progress. A provision in U.S. immigration law called the “widow’s penalty” says that, in that situation, an alien’s green card application should be rejected if the marriage lasted less than two years. The Morrises were married one year and 10 months when Glenn Morris died suddenly. (more…)