Intel Wreaks Havok On Friday, Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) announced that it had acquired Havok, a leading provider of interactive software for the gaming and movie industries. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Equally importantly, Havok’s 3-D software is being employed to power the growing online world of Linden Lab’s Second Life. If Web 2.0 platforms such as Second Life want to keep growing more prominent, they’ll need to employ the latest and greatest in physics technology to create digital environments that feel more realistic.

Google Calendar Coming To Second Life, Again We previously reported on Cherub Spectre, one of the genius inventors behind the great office-style productivity tools found at PixelTrix. I recently caught up with them to find out what was new, and discovered plans to create a Second Life interface for Google Calendar. I tried to get them to commit to a time frame, but unfortunately they remained coy on that point. Metaversed will certainly be following this story closely, as it has the potential to change the way people do business in Second Life.

Second Life, WOW a target for money laundering Internet security company Symantec is warning that virtual worlds like Second Life and World of Warcraft are being targeted by organized criminals to launder money and spread key loggers and ID harvesters.

The warning is contained in Symantec’s Internet Security Threat Report, which predicts that over the next six to 24 months a number of security concerns will emerge as the use of these virtual environments expand.

Speaking of which…

IE pwns SecondLife First of all, I must say that I am not a bug hunter. I am more on the side of tactical exploitation - you know figuring out your way through the system. I really hate using exploits and in fact, I find this approach very dull. There is no fun and value in it whatsoever. Anyway, the big news is that IE (Internet Explorer) pwns SecondLife.

Raymond Weil, Hublot Start ‘Second Life’ Swiss luxury watch brands Raymond Weil and Hublot this month each started a “Second Life” on the Internet, and are among the first luxury brands to do so. Each says it represents a new and unique direction for marketing and reaching consumers.

Liability in Second Life Michael J. Bugeja has a provocative article on Second Life in the Chronicle of Higher Education, September 14, 2007, “Second Thoughts on Second Life.” His concern is with liability. In Second Life, there can be good things and bad things. Just like life. Virtual rape, virtual harassment, virtual sexism, racism, homophobia. Virtual murder. The problem, though, is that there is no policing and, if one requires using a virtual environment like Second Life in a course, it is not clear what the professor’s role is. Policeman? Protector? What are the liability rules here?

Putting Videos into a Virtual Wonderland Guests to the 3-D online landscape known as Second Life have a new way to access video and other digital media within their virtual world, thanks to Origin Digital in Weehawken.

Origin Digital’s technology is now delivering on-demand videos, music and other digital content to users within the online playground. This is the latest way the company’s services are being used at a time when video viewer ship is growing rapidly over the Web.

Book Review - Designing your Second Life Designing your Second Life by Rebecca Tapley is one of those books we wish we had before we started building in Second Life. It provides an almost essential guide to the ins and outs of avatar creation and perhaps more importantly architectural construction in the virtual environment.

BT Phone Home: British Telecom to Launch Second Life SMS, Phone Calls A new service from British Telecom that allows Second Life residents to send and receive SMS messages from within the virtual world, as well as the ability to make phone calls in game, is in the works according to Cnet.com.

Supporting Design and Designers in Second Life Designers put hours of work and skill in creating the things they sell - working to bring together shape and texture (as can be seen here on an example of a chair designed by Sky Everett and discussed here). If their work is undermined by copies - either exact or close - which are then sold at huge discounts that fail to acknowledge (let alone reward) the work of the original creator/s, then this strikes a critical blow to creativity within Second Life - and it could play a role in distorting the larger economy.

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Watching a Cyber Audience Watch a Real Orchestra Perform in a Virtual World We’re not in Kansas anymore, or even in Liverpool, England, where the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic opened its season on Friday night. For the occasion the orchestra went to the unusual extreme of building a new hall: a virtual environment in the online world Second Life. In a virtual replica of the Art Deco hall, an audience of animated figures, known as avatars, watched the orchestra perform live in a choppy video streamed over the Internet on a screen at the front of the room.

My Speech in Second Life: Moshing with Metaverse-Molders I was slightly embarrassed yesterday at Life 2.0, a virtual conference organized inside the virtual world Second Life by multimedia publisher CMP, when I realized that I’d been lecturing for 10 or 15 minutes but my avatar was slumped over the podium like a narcoleptic. It’s one of the unintentionally hilarious features of Second Life that when a user is “afk” or away from the keyboard for more than about 10 minutes, their avatar falls asleep. I wasn’t technically afk, but I was gabbing away over an audio link without remembering to nudge my avatar.

Benjamin Duranske Must Be Stopped Another post about Benjamin Duranske from Profky Neva. “Benjamin Duranske is at it again. He’s someone who really must be stopped in Second Life; he is a threat to the social order and does objective damages to people who question his prosecutorial zeal, and criticize his role.”

Making a Living in Second Life Millions of Americans are spending their money, meeting new people, getting advice and living their dream life through a virtual world called Second Life.

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