Second Life Article

A representative for Second Life announced the formal launch of “3-D voice” capabilities for the virtual world during a press conference held Nov. 5.

Brett Atwood, editor of secondlife.com, publicized the change for Second Life. Second Life now uses voice technology with spatial recognition for registered users with the proper equipment to take advantage of the new tool.

According to the Second Life website, Second Life is “a 3-D virtual world entirely created by its Residents.” Second Life opened to the public in 2003 and has grown explosively since then, reaching the milestone of 10 million registered voters.

Linden Lab runs Second Life, which now inhabits millions of people from around the globe. According to the Linden Lab website, Philip Rosedale started Linden Lab in 1999 to “create a revolutionary new form of shared experience as rich and complex as the real world.”

Rosedale founded Second Life to create an environment that allows people to communicate and elaborate on projects, said Atwood. By creating 3-D voice technology, people will be able to communicate with one another more easily then relying on text.

“Our approach is to give Residents the tools to create their own unique experience, and we're hoping that many of them will develop new ways to use voice which will ultimately enrich the collective evolution of Second Life,” Rosedale said. “We believe voice is a transformative technology that will change the way Residents communicate, and will lend more immediacy and dynamism to their interaction with others.”

It is free to use Second Life; however, there are versions with additional benefits that come with a charge. To begin using Second Life, one creates an avatar which is the persona of one’s virtual world. People can make their Avatar look anyway they want and, according to Atwood, “some people take their pseudo identities very seriously.”

The public can use Second Life as a social networking device. It can also be used in the classroom for virtual lectures, virtual meetings between or within companies, for residents to sell and buy products, and many other purposes. In fact, many people use Second Life as a platform to allow other companies to build on and enable people to do things, such as perform live music, said Atwood.

According to Atwood, professors will be able to bring distant learning closer to home by holding virtual lectures where students can not only see the material but also hear the instructor’s lecture. Companies will be able to speak to people in other parts of the world while virtually designing new products. Users will be able to talk to people in different nations that they would never speak to in the past.

Whether people want to start a virtual business or simply interact with other avatars, Second Life may be the place to go. Although people may not be in the same room physically; virtually, a person is right next to someone who may really be across the world.