Second Life Virtual World to Get Firefox 207
lecreuset writes "Clickable Culture has an article discussing the imminent wedding of Firefox and Second Life. From the article: 'The virtual world of Second Life will leverage an embedded version of Mozilla Firefox in a future release, supporting in-world web browsing and the display of web pages on the surfaces of 3D objects, according to developers at Linden Lab.'"
What will it be used for though? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What will it be used for though? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:What will it be used for though? (Score:5, Interesting)
More likely, I see people linking to their real-life websites from their virtual homes or stores. There are already some pretty cool web / Second Life integrations, such as the ability to purchase and deposit virtual money [ige.com] into your Second Life account from the web, or to buy virtual goods [slexchange.com] in real time on the web.
Also, this integration may allow people experienced with javascript and web application development to do some interesting things in SL (even though SL has its own scripting language already).
Re:What will it be used for though? (Score:1)
Re:What will it be used for though? (Score:2)
Re:What will it be used for though? (Score:2)
Re:What will it be used for though? (Score:1)
Genitalia is not an included feature of Second Life's character models. Genitalia are created, scripted and sold by residents who don't mind making a buck on the more prurient interests in-world.
I think you'd better take a closer look at Second Life, though. There's a whole lot more to it than what you're describing. I've been
Re:What will it be used for though? (Score:2)
Re:What will it be used for though? (Score:3, Informative)
Difference is, it's advertising for inworld products and services. The 'Second Life' economy, is a fairly large one, there are people generating over $50K/year through inworld products and services (one such person [anshechung.com] reports they will be doing over 100K this year.)
But, one of the big problems is letting people know about your products and services. A person inworld setup MetaAdverse [metaadverse.com] as a way of advertising your inworld products via inworld billboards - these billboards usually act as spon
Re:What will it be used for though? (Score:2)
Remember kids, where there's HTML, there's goatse.
I can't wait to visit goatsehouse in Second Life.
Second Life (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Second Life (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Second Sense (Score:2)
Re:Second Sense (Score:2)
50% Flamebait
50% Overrated
This thread really showed how Slashdotters would rather get in a flamewar about grammar than brainstorm how to make simulation games more like the fictional ones we like. I mention (and correct) a "common grammatical mistake", without further criticism, as a way to introduce a detailed discussion of VR. Practically no one says anything about the VR. Practically everyone flames me about "grammar nazi" content, when I didn't even focus on the grammar m
Re:Second Sense (Score:2)
Re:Second Life (Score:2)
Re:Second Life (Score:2)
I remember trying it out when it first came about, thought it was another Alysma [alysma.net].
Although for all I know it might have been an attempt to take market share away from EQ [sony.com]?
For Those Who Don't Know What Second Life Is: (Score:5, Informative)
"Second Life is a virtual world - a 3D online persistent space totally created and evolved by its users. Within this vast and rapidly expanding place, you can do, create or become just about anything you can imagine. Built-in content creation tools let you make almost anything you can imagine, in real time and in collaboration with others. An incredibly detailed digital body ('Avatar') allows a rich and customizable identity. A powerful physics simulation running on a backbone of hundreds of connected computers and growing with the population allows you to be immersed in a visceral, interactive world that as of April 2005 covers more than 12,000 acres and 20,000 owned plots of land. The ability to design and resell 3D content, combined with the ability to own and develop land and a microcurrency, which can be exchanged to real money means that you can build a real business entirely within Second Life."
Re:For Those Who Don't Know What Second Life Is: (Score:1)
One word can sum this up:
Creepy.
Some people get way to involved in their "digital life", to the point where it IS their life.
Re:For Those Who Don't Know What Second Life Is: (Score:2)
(It's a fake webcam which plays precaptured frames of some guy dressed up as a chicken according to the command you type in. At least I think they are precaptured frames.)
Re:For Those Who Don't Know What Second Life Is: (Score:2)
Re:For Those Who Don't Know What Second Life Is: (Score:2)
Re:For Those Who Don't Know What Second Life Is: (Score:2)
Second Mortgage Life more like it. (Score:1)
Popups (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Popups (Score:1)
Re:Popups (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Popups (Score:1)
Re:Popups (Score:3, Insightful)
Popups may be annoying, but they're hardly dishonest. Just because something opens a new window doesn't make it malicious. Unscrupulous would be more along the lines of the Gator people managing to get changes approved to Firefox to make their popups work.
Re:Popups (Score:4, Interesting)
Is breaking that rule malicious, unscrupulous or dishonest? I don't know. I do know that I sure won't feel unscrupulous for enforcing it.
Re:Popups (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, they are incredibly dishonest to the point that they would be illegal if similiar tactics would be used in a more mature industry, like in print ads or television.
Take a look at your typical pop-up. I collect ad servers for my ad blocking hosts file [everythingisnt.com] so I'm kinda a connoisseur of this crap. First and foremost, the current trend is to make the ads look like a windows system message. Not just any message, but mimicking the style of the secu
Re:Popups (Score:2)
Oh? Let's see...
Re:Popups (Score:2)
Re:Popups (Score:2)
Re:Popups (Score:2)
Considering there's no explicit agreement for browsing the web (which in this day and age I'm quite amazed that we haven't seen these yet) you can agree that the content provider has every right to distribute whatever content they wish to your machine, where you can then choose to disregard it or regard it as you want.
That being said, finding out how to get around a popup bl
Re:Popups (Score:2)
Re:Popups (Score:2)
Re:Popups (Score:2)
Still arround? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Still arround? (Score:3, Informative)
Um, Second Life doesn't require a monthly fee. There's a one time fee of $10 and after that you are free to play as much as you like. Now you do have to pay to buy properties and some other in-game items, however there are plenty of free "sandboxes" for you to use to practice creating things and show off your wares.
Re:Still arround? (Score:2)
Re:Still arround? (Score:2)
Re:Still arround? (Score:3, Insightful)
There probably WILL be an open source system such as Second Life at some point. But that point might be ten years in the future for all we know. While there are a few Open Source projects that come up with something totally new, for the most part Open Source is a lot like Microsoft, wait for an innovation and then copy it. My feeling is that Open Source eventually does it better, but it rarely doe
Re:Still arround? (Score:1)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/moo3d/ [sourceforge.net] for the engine
http://sourceforge.net/projects/tasogare/ [sourceforge.net] for the core/environment
It wouldn't necessarily need to be free of charge, either-- something like this can easily fund itself similar to Second Life does, charging for services (virtual land, etc hosted on the server)
Re:Still arround? (Score:2)
My favorite candidate on the Open Source camp is Croquet [opencroquet.org]. It is designed by some of the early pioneers of the user interface such as Alan Key [gatech.edu]. It's goals are broader than Second Life, I hope it succeeds!
On the other hand, I think that eventually Linden Labs will open source it's own system, and simply keep control of the economy like they do right now.
Re:Still arround? (Score:1)
Re:Still arround? (Score:2)
already done for quake (Score:2, Informative)
Re:already done for quake (Score:2)
Any more details you might remember ?
Re:already done for quake (Score:2)
Okay... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm going to be able to slack off from my virtual life (and say, read slashdot) while I'm slacking off from my real life playing Second Life?
Okay, and meanwhile, in Darfur...
Re:Okay... (Score:1)
Re:Okay... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Okay... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Okay... (Score:2)
I'm going to be able to slack off from my virtual life (and say, read slashdot) while I'm slacking off from my real life playing Second Life?
Yes, and you will be able to do it from your virtual mom's virtual basement.
Re:Okay... (Score:2)
What if (Score:1)
Re:What if (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What if (Score:2)
Note: I'm a vim user, but I'm not a zealot about it--Emacs is good too, it just doesn't fit me.
Re:What if (Score:4, Insightful)
For one thing, it's difficult to design a program that does everything. This is because the complexity in software mainly comes from the interfaces between components, and the more your program does the more interfaces it has to have.
(Interfaces aren't always explicit, but the best ones are. Bad software is mainly characterized by fuzzy boundaries between functional units and promiscuous sharing of data between blocks of code that don't need to know it.)
The easiest program to design does one thing and hooks up to a simple API for its communication with the outside world. Unix command-line programs are built this way, and it has resulted in a lot of stable programs. Trying to expand a program is usually best done by splitting it and giving each part an easy way to talk with the other parts. This can be as easy as a bunch of subroutines that call each other or as complex as a client/server pair that send data to each other over the Internet. That way, each part can be reasoned about in isolation and ignored when you need to think about other parts, or the connections between all of the parts.
For another thing, it's difficult to change one part of a program. Making the boundaries between parts clear and strong helps, but it's never quite as easy as you first imagine. If you want to change the web browser component, do you really want to rebuild the entire project and try to integrate another browser into your framework? (If you don't have a framework of some kind, it would be easier to scrap the project and start again. An ad hoc communication system between components is usually impossible to change cleanly.)
It could be done. But I don't think it could be done well.
Virtuality (Score:2)
Huh? (Score:2)
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
with second life probably it's to allow the player to create something that displays something from the web though.
I KNEW IT (Score:1)
Firefos IS heavenly!
if anyone from linden labs is reading this (Score:2)
I will never sign up for one of those "free trials" where you have to cancel before your free trial expires, otherwise you pay. First of all I tend to be forgetfull and I may not cancel at the right time, also god knows how complicated their cancelation procedure is.
I am disappointed that a comp
Re:if anyone from linden labs is reading this (Score:1)
Re:if anyone from linden labs is reading this (Score:1)
I don't know how long their free trial is, I'm guessing a week maximum. It probably takes 2 days of being on there all day (basically all day) to determine if you want to stay. I'll go as far as to say 3 days. If you start playing in it and decide the place is the Suck, and you don't cancel right at that point, and you don't cancel the next day while you're deliberately Not logging in because you KNOW you're going to be bored
Re:if anyone from linden labs is reading this (Score:2)
Perhaps none of this happens for Linden which is still irrelevant. Forcing someone to hand over their credit card number for a small amount of play is a tactic deliberatly designed to snare people who forget, who are confused by the terms and cond
Re:if anyone from linden labs is reading this (Score:2)
Nonetheless there are many people who have signed up for the $10 one-time membership who are regular users. There is only a monthly bill if that is what you select when you sign up. Monthly billing
Re:if anyone from linden labs is reading this (Score:2)
Do you PAY a web hosting company to host content for the web?
SL's subscription model is much like the web. You pay a monthly fee if you want to persistently host content on a space that you fully own.
Alternatively, you can pay a one-time $10 for Basic membership and be able to do everything except own land outright. However, even a Basic member can still make friends with a landowner who will host something for them, or rent land from other lan
Re:if anyone from linden labs is reading this (Score:2)
Re:if anyone from linden labs is reading this (Score:2)
Yet another thing to lag SL out. (Score:1)
Can't wait to see what happens with it when the HTML contains a ton of animated images, or annoying popups.
Re:Yet another thing to lag SL out. (Score:2)
You can't have more than one video stream going at a time, since video streams are one per land parcel, and your avatar can only be in one land parcel at a time. The streams for neighboring parcels can only play when you step into their land.
Besides, you can turn off streaming video in your preferences if it's a problem.
Second Life rocks (Score:2, Informative)
It might not appeal to all -- it's not exactly a game, more of a virtual place, where you can live your imagination, build, socialize. Don't expect WoW-like quality and content, but you can get and do much more, many things you can imagine, can be scripted to an extent. Or you can make clothes, build houses, cars, etc.
It's a virtual world, and it's getting somewhat similar to the Metaverse (like in Neil Stephenson's S
Re:Second Life rocks (Score:3, Insightful)
The people at Linden Lab (the place responsible for developing SL) are geeks. They like Linux, they share opinions about languages, database, file formats, and protocols, they play the same games we play. They laugh at obscure geek jokes that we do.
And unlike any other MMOG, you *can* catch the designers, developers, administrators, and occasionally
What is Second Life (Score:2)
I'm sorry, the links are totally Slashdotted... what is second life? Is that like another AlphaWorld?
Re:What is Second Life (Score:1)
Re:What is Second Life (Score:2)
http://secondlife.com/vote/get_feature.php?get_id
The Clicable Culture site has indeed bogged down. But all the info is on that SL page anyway.
Well ok (Score:2)
But many of us still need to get a first life, before we can move on to a second one
Linux version? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Linux version? (Score:2)
US military overseas not allowed (Score:2)
What I really wanted to try was... (Score:2)
The question is, would other users be able to read and see what's on your screen?
Update from the Second Life dev team (Score:5, Informative)
Why bother? We want to allow people running Second Life [secondlife.com] full-screen to access our web site. Right now, if you want to bid on a piece of virtual land, or read the scripting language wiki, you have to either run in a window or switch out to your browser. That sucks, so we're fixing it.
The second goal is to get to third-party web sites. I want to trade SL currency on Gaming Open Market [gamingopenmarket.com] while staying in-world. Our internal scripting language supports e-mail into and out of the world, as well as XML-RPC. Lots of people have used this to build cool web sites that tie into the virtual world. See the postcards on Snapzilla [sluniverse.com] postcards and the Second Life del.icio.us tag [del.icio.us] for examples. Getting these connected into the world would be a big win.
Why Mozilla? Could there be any other choice?
Working with the Mozilla codebase has been interesting. It's huge, and very complex. But I'm proud to say we've found and fixed a couple bugs in Mozilla, and contributed the changes back to the Mozilla folks. I'm looking forward to Firefox 1.1 and the potential for the new Cairo/OpenGL rendering subsystem -- that may really help with embedding for 3D worlds.
So despite the linked description, Callum and I are working on getting an interactive 2D browser working first. Web pages on the surfaces of 3D objects may not ship in the next version (1.7). It'll ship as soon as it's done.
As an aside, if any of the Mozilla developers are reading this, we could use some help with embedding, specifically how to post mouse-click events into an embedded instance, please send me mail.
Cheers,
James
Re:Update from the Second Life dev team (Score:2)
The scripting capability is what hooked my interest in trying SL, so I thought I'd link to the LSL Wiki [secondlife.com] here for others who might be curious. =)
Re:Update from the Second Life dev team (Score:2)
Re:Nice concept, bad implementation (Score:1)
Re:Nice concept, bad implementation (Score:1, Offtopic)
Moving around in a pre-determined environment, and interacting with your world in only specified ways is hardly role playing/living a virtual life. It's unfortunate that the current trend has people who onc
Re:Nice concept, bad implementation (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm guessing you haven't actually played it, because it's not moving around in a pre-determined environment, it's moving around in a pretty random environment, one shaped and changed by a whole bunch of different and uncoordinated people.
Games are like books/written words. There are people wh
Re:Nice concept, bad implementation (Score:2)
Having users need to position elements precisely themselves indicates a lack of refinement IMO. User's should be able to cr
Re:Nice concept, bad implementation (Score:1)
Re:Nice concept, bad implementation (Score:2)
Re:That is a remarkably blank page (Score:1)
That wasy, the nothingness will be easier to not read.
Re:Please (Score:1)
This simply allows people ingame to use all the proper features (and I would assume your user profile settings) of a real browser.
If your not using the game, then this news isn't of use to you.
Re:Please (Score:1)
Re:Please (Score:2)
Thank you to anyone who listens and relises I shouldn't need to upgrade my graphics card to check websites.
Well, that is the price of progress. I remember needing to replace my *CPU* to view websites (Java 3D modeling needed "MMX" or whatever...). Your complaint should be with the people who are building the websites. The browser is simple enough to put on screen - we've been doing that for ye
You can have MORE! (Score:3, Funny)
Why the lack of ambition?
Your virtual character can have a web browser that attaches not to a virtual server, but an actual one. The Second Life server.
If you have sufficient karma, you will be able to use your web browser to find out what virtual person sent you the spam/created the pop-up/whatever, and obliterate their existence. It'd be like have root access to God's server.
Re:Still Second... (Score:2)
Re:frosty piss (Score:1)