Sun Inc Second Life Browser Viewer (Beta)

Another Japanese company which has comitted itself to virtual worlds is Sun Inc. They have released a first second life viewer for mobilephone since the end of 2007 (which is similar to vollee) and one for PC in June this year. You know, there are some second life viewers on web browser(Ajax Life is a famous one), but with this vieuwer you can log in to second life with streaming images.

Unfortunately, this java-based viewer is written in Japanese, so let me introduce. At first, visit the website and click the yellow button to launch the viewer.

Put your first name, last name, password into fields then click the button next to the fields(buttons are "login", "clear" from left). At this time, the viewer only supports HTTP connection. So I recommend you to use your ALT account for your security.

After logging in, you can find text field to chat and "say" button next to the field. 4 buttons below are "Close","Map","Search" and "Logout". Use the cursor key to move around, page up key to fly. You can't control your camera position.

OK? So let me teleport to rezzable. Click "search" button and put "rezzable" into field. Then double clicking on "Greenies Home Rezzable" from the result will let you go to the SIM.

Right/left click is enabled. This means that you can touch objects, show the pie menu and show edit dialog. Touching key "i" will let you show your inventory.

It's amazing that you can use second life with real time rendering within a webbrowser if you only have low spec PC.

Dazzling View?

Allthough Virtual Worlds have really taken a flight in the past year, there still is a lot of skepsis towards social worlds. Often heard complaints are:

• The graphics suck (gaming worlds usually have much better graphics)
• The interface sucks

Linden Lab seems to take note of this. Early 2007 they have acquired Windward Mark Interactive LLC which resulted in a first windlight client in may 2007 with improved athmosperic rendering. After a shortlived testing period, Windlight was withdrawn from the standard viewer, but it's back again and being implemented in the standard client soon.

The client never changed though and other's gave it a try. Probably the best effort was the socalled Nicholas viewer, but with all the updates Linden Lab pushes it's hard to keep the viewer up to date. Pretty much the same goes for the OnRez Viewer, built by the Electric Sheep Company. While the OnRez viewer certainly looked a lot "fresher" and more up to date, it never really took off.

Now, Linden Lab has been working on updating the look and feel of their client for some time now, codenamed Dazzle. The first screenshots are promising. The client looks fresh:

It will take more than a visual facelift to take away complaints on the usability of the viewer. It will need reorganisation of functions. There should be more interaction design and usability testing to determine the best ways of accessing the inventory, or juggle IM screens.

We're not there yet, but every step is a step forward.

CSI (2) Down the Rabbit Hole

Wednesday, October 24, 10pm et/pt

In this episode CSI New York is all about finding Venus Game:

On October 24, Detective Mac Taylor chased a murderer, Venus, into Second Life. She's on the loose, and her virtual body count is rising. Track her down before she kills again!

CBS has finally opened up their website to support tonight's multimedia show. Also in Second Life the sims are ready to rock. The CSI-NY - Electric Sheep Company gang put in an amazing 416 islands, good enough to hold about 20.000 concurrent logins.

From their website you can immediately sign up for your new flashy virtual alter ego. Of course not necessary for those already having their Second Life avatar. However I took a little peek and I must admit, I didn't go further than the avatar selection, but the Electric Sheep Company did a good show on the graphics. It has a slick look and feel.

I skipped the registration part and went on to step 3: Downloading the new 34 Mb On-Rez viewer, available from this location. The first addon to the default Linden Lab viewer is that aside from English and Korean it now has German and Japanese language support.

Okay, time to immerse