Filed under: News and developments by Digado

“Something a little scary, when shots of ruths jumping on empty sims makes eveeryone jump up and down with excitement” - Zwa Ewry

Funny because it’s true. IBM engineer Zwa Ewry describes the landing of Layla Linden on an OpenSim location. In itself not a noteworthy event if it wasn’t for the previous location the avatar of Layla - the beta grid of Second Life. The big news is OpenSim (an independent platform of hosting servers/virtual space) and the official (beta) grid of Linden Lab’s Second Life platform now seem to be interoperable

This comes a lot faster than expected and is really a step into the ‘right’ direction from a consumer point of view. What it means is people outside of linden lab, whether this is a hosting company or a private server, can now offer space to host your three-dimensional content. This first step towards decentralization could be a major step towards a more accessible 3D internet, without the high costs of Linden Labs own hosting. Perhaps more importantly it will also mean the owner of the content will have control over who can access his or her sim, and can overview the data going in and out of the sim. Obviously of big importance for corporate purposes.

Exciting news for anyone involved in the ‘metaverse’. There are some big issues still to be resolved such as property, item transfers between locations and probably a bunch of technical things. But eitehr way, this is a big breakthrough in connecting privately hosted grids and the ‘community grid’ of Second Life. Read a first hand testimonial on Zwa’s blog here.

Posted on: June 7, 2008 | Share on: