Second Life Issues And Criticisms
''Second Life'' is an online multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user created content within a multi player online virtual world. Developed and owned by the San Francisco-based firm Linden Lab and launched on June 23, 2003, it saw rapid growth for some years and in 2013 it had approximately one million regular users. Growth eventually stabilized, and by the end of 2017 the active user count had declined to "between 800,000 and 900,000". In many ways, ''Second Life'' is similar to massively multiplayer online role-playing games; nevertheless, Linden Lab is emphatic that their creation is not a game: "There is no manufactured conflict, no set objective". The virtual world can be accessed freely via Linden Lab's own client software or via alternative third-party viewers. ''Second Life'' users, also called ' residents', create virtual representations of themselves, called ''avatars'', and are able to i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Linden Lab
Linden Research, Inc., doing business as Linden Lab, is an American technology company that is best known as the creator of ''Second Life''. The company's head office is in San Francisco, with additional offices in Boston, Seattle, Virginia and Davis, California. Its offices in Mountain View, Brighton, Singapore and Amsterdam were closed in 2010. In addition, the company employs remote workers that communicate and collaborate on projects using ''Second Life'' technology. History The company, founded in 1999 as Linden Research, employs numerous established high-tech veterans, including former executives from Electronic Arts, eBay, Disney, Adobe, and Apple. The company's founder and original CEO is Philip Rosedale, a former CTO of RealNetworks, one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World in 2007. The company name "Linden" originates from the street name where the company premises were initially based, at 333 Linden Street in San Francisco. The hexagonal L ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Neal Stephenson
Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction. His novels have been categorized as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, postcyberpunk, and baroque. Stephenson's work explores mathematics, cryptography, linguistics, philosophy, currency, and the history of science. He also writes non-fiction articles about technology in publications such as ''Wired''. He has written novels with his uncle, George Jewsbury ("J. Frederick George"), under the collective pseudonym Stephen Bury. Stephenson has worked part-time as an advisor for Blue Origin, a company (founded by Jeff Bezos) developing a spacecraft and a space launch system, and is also a cofounder of Subutai Corporation, whose first offering is the interactive fiction project ''The Mongoliad''. He was Magic Leap's Chief Futurist from 2014 to 2020. Early life Born on October 31, 1959, in Fort Meade, Maryland, Stephenson came from a family of engineers and scient ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nudity
Nudity is the state of being in which a human is without clothing. The loss of body hair was one of the physical characteristics that marked the biological evolution of modern humans from their hominin ancestors. Adaptations related to hairlessness contributed to the increase in brain size, bipedalism, and the variation in human skin color. While estimates vary, for at least 90,000 years anatomically modern humans were naked. The invention of clothing was part of the transition from being not only anatomically but behaviorally modern. Clothing and body adornments were elements in non-verbal communication reflecting social status and individuality. Through much of history until the late modern period, people might be unclothed in public by necessity or convenience either when engaged in effortful activity, including labor and athletics; or when bathing or swimming. Such functional nudity occurred in groups that were usually but not always segregated by sex. Among ancie ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Violence
Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or Power (social and political), power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation."Krug et al."World report on violence and health", World Health Organization, 2002. Internationally, violence resulted in deaths of an estimated 1.28 million people in 2013 up from 1.13 million in 1990. However, global population grew by roughly 1.9 billion during those years, showing a dramatic reduction in violence per capita. Of the deaths in 2013, roughly 842,000 were attributed to self-harm (suicide), 405,000 to interpersonal violence, and 31,000 to collective violence (war) and legal intervention. Fo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, its name comes from the face book directories often given to American university students. Membership was initially limited to Harvard students, gradually expanding to other North American universities and, since 2006, anyone over 13 years old. As of July 2022, Facebook claimed 2.93 billion monthly active users, and ranked third worldwide among the most visited websites as of July 2022. It was the most downloaded mobile app of the 2010s. Facebook can be accessed from devices with Internet connectivity, such as personal computers, tablets and smartphones. After registering, users can create a profile revealing information about themselves. They can post text, photos and multimedia which are shared with any ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sansar (video Game)
''Sansar'' is a social virtual reality platform developed by the San Francisco-based firm Linden Lab, and now owned by Sansar Inc. It launched in “creator beta” to the general public on July 31, 2017. The platform enables user-created 3D spaces where people can create and share interactive social experiences, such as playing games, watching videos, and having conversations in VR. Each participant is represented by a detailed avatar that is the graphical representation of the user including speech-driven facial animations and motion-driven body animations. Sansar supports both virtual reality headsets (including the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive) and Windows computers, and is free to use, with advanced features available for paying subscribers. History In 2014, Linden Lab announced its intent to develop a “next-generation virtual world” in the spirit of its popular virtual world ''Second Life''. In 2015, more details about the project became public including its positioni ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mark D
Mark D, born Mark Randall,Deedes, Henry ''The Independent'', 13 February 2008. Retrieved 13 February 2008. is a British punk musician (guitarist and songwriter). He is also associated with the Stuckist group of artists. Mark D was born and spent his childhood in Peterborough. He now lives in Nottingham. Music From university onwards, Mark D (D standing for "degenerate") played in various bands including the Fat Tulips, Confetti (when he was known as David), the Pleasure Heads (when he was known as Mark Randyhead), Oscar, Servalan and Sundress, and appeared on dozens of releases. He published and edited fanzines, including the underground C86 fanzine ''Two Pint Take Home''. He is a co-owner of Heaven Records."Mark D: Biog/text" stuckism.com. Retrieved 13 February 2008 The Fat Tulips were formed in 1987 and have been described ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Technology & Engineering Emmy Award
The Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards, or Technology and Engineering Emmys, are one of two sets of Emmy Awards that are presented for outstanding achievement in engineering development in the television industry. The Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards are presented by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), while the separate Primetime Engineering Emmy Awards are given by its sister organization the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS). A Technology and Engineering Emmy can be presented to an individual, a company, or to a scientific or technical organization for developments and/or standardization involved in engineering technologies which either represent so extensive an improvement on existing methods or are so innovative in nature that they materially have affected the transmission, recording, or reception of television. The award is determined by a special panel composed of highly qualified, experienced engineers in the television indu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cory Ondrejka
Cory Ondrejka was the Chief Technology Officer of Linden Lab, makers of Second Life. With Philip Rosedale, Ondrejka co-founded Second Life and played a significant role in the architecture of the product. After leaving Linden Lab, Ondrejka became Senior Vice President of Digital Strategy for the EMI Group until he left EMI in September 2009. He also was vice president of engineering at Facebook. Education Ondrejka is a former US Navy officer and 1992 graduate of the US Naval Academy. He earned a joint undergraduate degree in Computer Science and Weapons and Systems Engineering, and has the distinction of being the first Annapolis graduate to do so. In 1995 he graduated with a master's degree in computer science from Boston University. Career Before Linden Lab Before joining Linden Lab, Ondrejka served as Project Leader and Lead Programmer for Pacific Coast Power and Light, where he helped to develop Road Rash 64 and built a core technology team to deliver titles to the Nintendo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Anshe Chung
Anshe Chung is an avatar (online personality) of Ailin Graef in the online world ''Second Life''. Referred to as the "Rockefeller of Second Life" by CNN, Graef has built an online business that engages in development, brokerage, and arbitrage of virtual land, items, and currencies. Her work has been discussed in ''Business Week'', ''Fortune'' and ''Red Herring''. Background According to Chung, she had already created fortunes in purely virtual currency on other MMORPGs such as ''Asheron's Call'' and ''Shadowbane'', but had never converted that to real tender. This changed when she entered ''Second Life'', where the in-game currency, "Linden Dollars" (L$), can be officially exchanged for real money. In her early ''Second Life'' days, prior to founding the business that made her famous, Anshe Chung had a goal of using virtual wealth to support an orphaned boy in a developing country in the real world. With her first Linden dollars she was able to sponsor a boy named Geo from t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |