Crave

This has to be the weirdest and saddest crime-of-virtual-passion story I've come across.

Kimberly Jernigan--a 33-year-old woman from North Carolina--was apparently distraught after her online relationship with a 52-year-old man from Claymont, Del., came to an end.

The pair apparently met through the online community Second Life and began a virtual relationship. The two finally met in reality several months ago, and the alleged victim ended the relationship, sending Jernigan into a downward spiral.

Kimberly Jernigan met her virtual ex-boyfriend in Second Life.

(Credit: CBS3.com)

In early August, Jernigan allegedly drove to the victim's Pennsylvania workplace and attempted to kidnap him at gunpoint, according to local news station CBS3.com. When she was unsuccessful, according to the report, she returned two weeks later to track down the victim's Delaware address, and posed as a postal worker to do so. After four days of searching, authorities said she found residence in the Whitney Presidential Towers on the 7100 block of Society Drive in Claymont.

On August 21, police said, Jernigan broke into the unnamed victim's apartment with a Taser, a pair of handcuffs, a BB gun, her dog, and a roll of duct tape. He wasn't there, so she waited. When the virtual ex arrived home he saw what looked like a laser beam projecting on his chest. He immediately fled the apartment and contacted the Newcastle County Police.

In the wee hours of August 1, the moon and the sun will pass each other for a breathtaking full solar eclipse, but U.S. residents won't be able to catch a glimpse of the phenomenon because of their location on the planet.

San Francisco's Exploratorium science museum is broadcasting the eclipse to the masses, however, combining science and technology by streaming the eclipse on virtual world Second Life.

In the real world, a team from the Exploratorium science museum will be traveling to the Xinjiang Province in Northwestern China, close to the Mongolian border, to stream a Webcast of the eclipse. The museum is staying open all night to bring the Webcast to museum visitors, as well as its online viewers and members of Second Life.

Second Life avatars view the 2006 full solar eclipse in the virtual world.

(Credit: Exploratorium)

Total solar eclipses happen usually only every 18 months or so, and the team must travel to China because the full eclipse is only visible on a narrow slice on the surface of Earth.

Second Life users can view the 45-minute Webcast, starting at 3:30 a.m. PDT August 1, on the virtual world's so-called Exploratorium Island. Avatars can also gather at the Pi Day Theater at the Sploland Sim, at the Science School Sim, and at the Spindrift Sim. The eclipse will be accompanied by video and commentary of Exploratorium and NASA scientists.

Starting July 1, Second Life members and their real-life makers can use Exploratorium Island to learn about solar eclipses, Chinese culture, and solar science.

The Exploratorium has previously paired with Second Life and NASA to deliver space news. In 2006, for instance, the team traveled to Turkey to broadcast the solar eclipse, and NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander team has created an avatar for the exploring robot in the virtual world.

Non-Second Life users can view the Webcast on the Exploratorium Web site, and the CNET News.com multimedia team will provide coverage of the event after viewing the live video in the Exploratorium.

Demanding a better-than-average processor, a 1024x768 screen resolution, a boatload of RAM, and a strong video card just to take part, it's hard to believe that Second Life, the virtual world developed by Linden Lab (download for Windows and Mac), could ever survive on a mobile phone.

Yet on Tuesday, Vollee, a 3G streaming services provider, began offering the free, open beta version of Second Life for 40 Wi-Fi-enabled and 3G cell phones with more handset compatibility coming soon. That means you, iPhone.

'Second Life' avatars can fly and teleport from 40 mobile phones.

(Credit: Vollee)

In Second Life Mobile, users will be able to fly and teleport all over the virtual world, and chat when other friends are online.

Talk about porting Second Life to cell phones began in February, and a private beta program of Second Life Mobile appeared shortly after.

How does Vollee accomplish the gargantuan, scoffed-at task of hosting a huge, graphics-hungry PC game on such compact devices? They won't spill much, except to say that Second Life Mobile is a thin client downloaded to the high-end cell phone that communicates with the full, unmodified game that's hosted on Vollee's servers. All the adaptation happens on Vollee's end, with the mobile-friendly results streaming to each individual handset.

We haven't had a chance to try it out yet, but we will soon. Watch this space for our first take of gameplay.

This is the Genius Bar at Apple's new retail store on West 14th St. in New York. Does Apple have a bright idea for re-creating the interpersonal retail experience in a virtual world?

(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET News.com)

A patent filing by Apple is prompting speculation that the Mac and iPod maker could be getting ready to open up Apple stores in the virtual realm--perhaps in Second Life.

On Thursday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple titled "Enhancing online shopping atmosphere," filed in September 2006. The PTO's action was first noted by the Mac news site MacNN.

Judging by the patent application, the company apparently is looking to do more than just spruce up its own Apple Online Store. Rather, it seems interested in creating a whole new experience for consumers looking to buy its products via the Web.

In dissecting the application, MacNN picked up on a number of clues that portend a commercial undertaking of the sort that have been popping up in the virtual world Second Life in recent years. And indeed, even a quick reading of the PTO document makes such an assumption quite plausible.

First this, from the Background of the Invention paragraph:

(O)ne drawback of online shopping is that the experience can feel sterile and isolating. Customers in such an environment may be less likely to have positive feelings about the online shopping experience, may be less inclined to engage in the online equivalent of window shopping (e.g., will not linger in front of a display), and may ultimately spend less money than their counterparts who shop in physical stores.

Other visitors to the site are represented by human shaped icons such as icon 118. Both Alice and one other visitor (118) are currently viewing the main page of the Acme website. They are represented by icons in entryway 120 accordingly. Other visitors are viewing other portions of the website.

People shopping at a site like Amazon.com, Zappos, or Store.apple.com don't get to see others while they're browsing and buying. On Second Life, by contrast, the core experience is all about seeing the avatars of other participants.

And Second Life is no stranger to commercial endeavors or the incursions of high-tech companies such as IBM. It's worth noting again, however, that the Apple patent application was submitted in 2006, during the first wave of corporate interest in what virtual worlds might offer to a profit-minded business.

So do take a deep breath before concluding that this is a done deal. As Wagner James Au says on the GigaOm site--while also noting that "when a Second Life user built an unofficial Apple Store last year, it generated tremendous buzz (as the 270K views of this YouTube video suggest.)":

So does this mean Steve Jobs is going to show off his avatar in a virtual Apple store at the next big Mac show? Possibly, but even with my pronounced Second Life bias, I'm more than a touch skeptical. Companies file all kinds of patents that go unused, as a way of preemptively staking out territory.

The camera used for the new Second Life interface comes from 3DVsystems.

(Credit: handsfree3d.com)

While the Nintendo Wii has garnered attention from consumers and media alike for its innovative motion-based controls, Linden Lab is experimenting with a new way to interact with its Second Life virtual world with nothing more than a Webcam. Codenamed Segalen, the technology makes use of 3D Webcams, such as the ones from 3DVsystems, to track user's body gestures to let them navigate and edit within the environment.

In a YouTube video (embedded below), Second Life creator Mitch Kapor and Kapor Enterprises Inc. employee Philippe Bossut demonstrate the basics of moving around the 3D virtual world without the use of a keyboard or mouse--the traditional interface for most games. They mention that they took some cues from the way people use the Segway personal transport device to map out people's gestures and posture into a 3D world. The technology can also track facial gestures and match them onscreen in real time.

On Bossut's blog he notes that the project has only been in "real" development for a little more than three weeks. Second Life users looking to get their hands on it will have to wait, however, the 3D cameras in use for the project are still not readily available to consumers.

Similar efforts to use Webcams for gaming include the XBOX 360 and its Live Vision camera as well as the Playstation's EyeToy series, although neither had the 3D hardware capability that will give Kapor's Handsfree 3D its extra dimension of spacial control.

For anyone familiar with The Sims Online, the poorly-received virtual world launched by Electronic Arts in 2002, take note: EA is relaunching it under a new name and for a new price: free.

Born as The Sims Online, it will now be called EA Land.

On Monday, Electronic Arts announced 'EA Land,' the latest iteration of 'The Sims Online,' an online version of its massive hit, 'The Sims.' However, 'The Sims Online' never achieved much success and became overshadowed by other online virtual worlds with economies.

(Credit: Electronic Arts)

This is a rather momentous move by EA, since it means it is bringing back from the dead--at least as far as perception goes--a game that, while it never really got off the ground, was extremely important in the overall development curve of 3D social virtual worlds with economies.

And while TSO, as it came to be known, never got the massive audiences of its single-player antecedent, The Sims--which came out of nowhere to become the best-selling PC game of all time--it did usher in and initiate a lot of people to virtual worlds.

In fact, there are, to this day, whole communities of people in Second Life and There.com that began in TSO.

Note: My wife now works at Second Life publisher Linden Lab.

One of the major reasons why TSO never took off is that it really didn't give players very much opportunity to create their own content. And that was particularly frustrating to many players, because The Sims creator Will Wright had promised that TSO would offer open content creation.

But now, according to EA, EA Land will allow players to make their own things.

"Like in the original Sims game, the goal is to let you customize the game completely," EA wrote in a note to former TSO subscribers, "but in EA Land, you can see and buy the customizations of the other players."

That means, of course, that there will continue to be--as there was in TSO--a functioning economy. But because players will be able to make more content, that economy could, in theory, have more complexity and depth than that of TSO.

It's probably too early to tell how EA Land will do, but I do have to say that it's unfortunate EA couldn't come up with a better name.

My guess is that EA Land will have a hard time making too much of a dent in the virtual world space. That's partly because it is hard to see exactly where it fits into the mix. Second Life is well established, though it does not have a huge audience; There.com also has a substantial audience; and then there are the kids' virtual worlds, such as Habbo Hotel, Club Penguin, and the like.

But you never know. Perhaps the biggest question will be how much marketing effort EA puts into EA Land. If it allows the game to exist on its own without a lot of backing from corporate, then it may wither away with as much fanfare as it arrived. But if EA gets behind it full force, it could be something some day.

3DConnexion's SpaceNavigator mouse.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

It might not be a Wiimote, but it's still got that whole "immersive" thing going on.

Linden Lab, publisher of virtual world Second Life, announced Thursday that its members can use some officially-sanctioned new toys to navigate the metaverse. Logitech's 3DConnexion line of 3D mice can now navigate through Second Life, as a result of Linden Lab's decision to make its code open-source last year.

Second Life members can now use 3DConnexion's SpaceNavigator ($59, or $99 for a premium edition), SpaceExplorer ($299), and SpacePilot ($399) mice to control their avatars, fly, and build objects in-world. They can, of course, also perform more mundane two-dimensional functions, like tweak settings and preferences.

Both Mac and Windows operating systems will be able to handle the 3D mice, and according to Logitech representatives, Linux users should be able to use them, too.

The devices, the first to be made available to Second Life through a partnership with Linden Lab, are not yet compatible with other virtual worlds and 3D multiplayer games like There.com or World of Warcraft. The Logitech representatives, however, said that they will explore other gaming and virtual world opportunities after using Second Life as a first step.

Currently, the SpaceNavigator and its pricier brethren are used for design and modeling software as well as 3D applications like Google Earth.

Philip Rosedale, CEO of Second Life creator Linden Lab and founder of the virtual world, announced Friday that he will step down from his post.

He assured Second Life enthusiasts that he would remain on full-time at the company as chairman of the board.

Rosedale, known in Second Life by his avatar's name Philip Linden, did not provide a concrete date for his change in role, only saying that the company has "decided to search for a new CEO."

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com)

He continued: "This is a decision driven by my desire to best grow SL and match my job to both our needs and my passions. We don't have a specific timeline, and I don't expect my job to change while we are looking for someone."

It sounds like the company is looking for a veteran business professional rather than a futurist visionary. "I feel that the most important contributions I have made and will continue to make to Second Life are related to building both the product and the company through my direct contributions to vision, strategy, and design," Rosedale wrote in a post on the official Second Life blog.

"As we grow, the role of our CEO will increasingly be to hire and grow the right team--to lead and help the company scale--to thousands of people and tens of millions of users of Second Life."

Corporate upheaval at Linden Lab has been going on for some time now. In December, Chief Technology Officer Cory Ondrejka left the company, and leaked e-mails seemed to indicate that Rosedale had fired him over creative differences.

Second Life, meanwhile, has been going through some rough patches outside of the boardroom. A series of banking scandals earlier this year led the virtual world to effectively ban in-world banks. Issues with vandalism and political radicalism briefly shook the community, and it has still failed to rebound from the backlash that followed in the wake of breathless media hype about virtual worlds.

These days, when you hear about Second Life in the mainstream media, it's coming from dweeby Dwight Schrute on The Office. Linden Lab likely hopes to pull in a CEO who can change that.

For years now, the popular virtual world, Second Life has been available only for PCs, Macs, and Linux machines.

There has always been talk about whether SL might ever make it onto consoles like the Xbox or PlayStation 3 and some scattered discussion about possible mobile phone implementations.

Last year, in fact, I saw a hack that allowed someone to access SL, albeit in a very, very superficial manner, on an iPhone.

But now, according to a press release I got Tuesday morning, a company called Vollee is planning on releasing technology that will make it possible to run Second Life on 3G handsets via Vollee's streaming media service.

I have to admit, I'm skeptical. Second Life is difficult to use, is very graphics intensive, and requires a huge amount of streaming data. To run it on a 3G network might work, I suppose, but it would depend entirely on that network staying up, staying high-speed, and on the device being capable of presenting the SL environment in a pleasing, useful manner.

Or not. I suppose it's also possible that someone could use Second Life on a handset and not need all the graphics. Essentially, it could be little more than a communications medium, allowing users to chat with their SL friends, to move around to various locations, and to do some small tasks. Would they be able to use the building tools? I doubt it.

Basically, this is a workaround. I haven't seen it, though, so I can't say for sure. But given the constraints that SL presents, I'm just not sure how well it translates, even onto a device with a big screen and a high-speed connection.

Still, it's noteworthy that this company is trying, and that it got someone from Linden Lab, the publisher of Second Life, to offer a quote for the release. That implies coordination between the two companies, and that always makes something like this more likely to have been thought out.

But only time will tell.

Update (5:19pm): I went over to the Game Developers Conference this afternoon and got a look at Vollee's mobile SL implementation. And I have to say, I was impressed.

While the mobile version won't allow users--at least at first--to conduct any kinds of transactions or to use the building tools, what they have got already is pretty cool.

Mostly, it's because what they've built is fairly smooth, and the look and feel is consistent with the original version, albeit much smaller.

But, for example, the graphics--say, when you're flying--look right, as it does when instant messaging with someone in-world or looking at your contacts list.

This is clearly the result of an actual partnership with Linden Lab rather than a do-it-yourself type of workaround, like the one I saw last year.

And while this is no substitute for a fully working version, it's certainly enough for what many SL users do on a daily basis.