Pennsylvania State University academic advisors are now required to meet students in the virtual world of Second Life.

The online campus advisors take to the community for at least two hours a week, using their avatars to interface with students and answer questions reports The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Shannon Ritter, social-networks adviser for the Penn State World Campus, indicated that the advisors are enjoying their new form of interaction, adding, “Second Life has been a completely new thing to almost all the advisers. And so at the beginning they aren’t really sure how to do anything. But we schedule training sessions and work with them on the basics.”

Linden Labs has modified its popular Second Life virtual world to allow businesses to get into the act behind the safety of their own firewalls.

Launched on Nov. 4 as Second Life Enterprise, the new software creates meeting room environments for employees and use voice-over IP, text chat and 3D collaboration, but with businesses allowed to control the hosting and application management themselves, according to an AFP article. IBM, Northrop Grumman and U.S. Navy are among 14 businesses that are already using the $55,000 product.

So far those companies seem impressed. According to IBM:

"Second Life Enterprise version offers a great combination of collaboration, content creation and communications tools and resources," said IBM vice president of innovation initiatives Francoise Legoues. "We were one of the early adopters of the Second Life platform, and having that technology behind the firewall gives us the opportunity to expand our use of the platform enterprise-wide."

The Navy apparently likes the extra security:

"Virtual worlds have the potential to provide a safer, more cost-effective approach to some of the Navy's current mission areas," said Douglas Maxwell, program technology lead for NUWC Metaverse Strategic Initiative. "Hosting the Second Life Enterprise on a secured network allows us to conduct training, concept of operations exercises and collaborative engineering activities using sensitive information in safety."

Linden Labs said it has more business-related products in the works and plans a Second Life Work Marketplace for early next year.

An article on Law of the Level takes a look at whether using real brands on virtual goods in online worlds—by someone other than the trademark owner—could be interpreted as trademark infringement.

A publication of the law firm Sheppard Mullin, the blog was written by Thayer Preece, a lawyer in the firm’s Video Game Industry Group. She begins to answer the question by noting that several real world brands have taken exception to counterfeit virtual goods sold online, especially when the money from these sales line someone else’s pocket.

One way to deal with infringements is to sue. Taser International, Inc. filed a lawsuit against Second Life creator Linden Labs (along with others) earlier this year, which alleged that fake Taser-branded products were being sold in Second Life and infringing on the company’s sales. Taser sought $75,000 in damages but eventually dropped the suit.

Another way to fight the knock-offs is to join the virtual world and pump out your own branded goods. Law of the Level writes that this is the tact Herman Miller took. In response to a number of fake Herman Miller goods offered on Second Life, the designer launched its own official presence in the world and even replaced “fake” Herman Miller products with “real” ones.

What would happen if a virtual world trademark infringement lawsuit made it to court? Breece writes:

At present, there is no legal precedent on this subject. But as the popularity of virtual worlds continues to grow, it seems likely that it will only be a matter of time before the courts make a decision on the issue. In the meantime, it will be up to each brand holder individually to decide how to respond to the emergence of this growing marketplace and its potential opportunities and pitfalls.

The creator of Second Life in Education, a wiki designed to document the educational uses of the online world, has received notice from developer Linden Labs that the site infringes on their trademark.

The website has been in operation since 2006. While Jokay Wollongong wrote on her blog that the notice came as “a kick in the guts,” the site’s founder said that she would not fight the request and would move the resources of her wiki to another domain. She also wrote:

I also worry that this is a sign of things to come for many other residents who are creating fantastic content.

Massively notes that one of the infringements in question centered on Linden Lab’s SL trademark, which they only registered within the past two weeks.

The eighth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States did not pass unnoticed in Second Life.

New World Notes links to about a dozen assorted SL events commemorating 9/11 and offers this comment:

[T]he reflecting pool pictured above [is] the creation of Liam Kanno... in real life a New York ad executive who lived near Ground Zero, but after the terror attacks, joined a monastery and created the Second Life site, as part of his healing process.

 

Liam's memorial site is where I just met Mark Benelli... He describes himself as a firefighter in real life, based in Germany. He doesn't know any brethren based in New York, but he wore his uniform and visited the memorial site, to pay tribute to their valor on that day...

Social activism in virtual venues may indeed transfer to the real world.

New World Notes reports on such a transition by Second Lifer KallfuNahuel Matador, who in 2006 helped protect an SL African genocide awareness site from griefers.

Turn the clock ahead three years, however, and the flesh-and-blood man behind the Matador avatar is in the real Africa, doing backbreaking volunteer work (see pic). He told NWN's Wagner James Au:

The friends I made in the [SL] Virtual Camp Darfur are heavily involved in humanitarian activities in their first lives. Better World and Camp Darfur were extensions of their work and attempts to spread the word of the causes they stood for...

We discussed telling [their African hosts] we'd met in SL, but the idea of a virtual world where we interact but not in our own bodies? Difficult to convey...

 

[SL users should] really get to know the people you're working with in SL, research their [real-life] projects. Get to know them, talk to them, see if there's a 'fit' for you in their cause... Or, And if you aren't lucky enough to be able to travel far and wide, then find a way to help the cause locally.

Protests held in virtual spaces such as Second Life have real-world political value, according to international projects lobbysist Max Burns, who pens an op-ed for Foreign Policy in Focus.

Paying particular attention to SL demonstrations against the Iranian government's post-election crackdown against opponents of the Ahmadinejad regime, Burns writes:

The active Iranian protest community in Second Life is more than a curiosity, and downplaying the importance of virtual societies in our political and social lives... understates the power of synthetic worlds in creating viable social movements...

Authoritarian governments that repress real-world demonstrations have difficulty doing the same in the synthetic world. Virtual rallies are so hard to shut off because the mechanics of virtual protest are fluid...

Indeed, the efforts of real-world governments to restrict the Internet usage of virtual protesters appears to strengthen the rallies as the online community responds to what it views as an offense against expression. So, for instance, Second Life's virtual protests continued — and even increased in scale — after real-world Iranians started to mysteriously disappear from the synthetic world...

As it did a few weeks back, the Federal Communications Commission will simulcast a live workshop into Second Life.

Today's event takes place at 1 pm Eastern and will focus on broadband and its implications for education. Betterverse has more:

The goal of this workshop is to identify potential impact of increased broadband access on education outcomes and how broadband policies can help improve those outcomes. The FCC hopes to learn about ways in which broadband can impact education at the early childhood, elementary, secondary, and post-secondary levels in a cost-effective manner.

 

The workshop will look at current programs, such as e-rate and evaluate how such programs can be improved, for example, to take advantage of new technologies that have arisen since it was established. The workshop will also look at what applications and devices might be used to improve educational performance.

Via: New World Notes

A speech delivered by Barack Obama in Ghana last month was the President's "most tweeted, Facebooked, and SMS'd event to date," according to Second Life Examiner (GP: although it's unclear how the site arrived at that conclusion).

The event was streamed live into both Second Life and Metaplace. The Click Heard Round the World offers its take on the event:

After President Obama's speech, there was a virtual debrief with three African experts: Ghanian musician DNA (Derrick Ashong), Ambassador Kenton Keith and African studies Professor Timothy Burke of Swarthmore College. People in Second Life and Metaplace could ask the speakers questions as well as engage in back channel chat.

A spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service says that the agency saves U.S. taxpayers money by maintaining a personnel recruiting presence in Second Life.

This news comes by way of CollegeRecruiter.com, which acknowledges that the IRS is one of its clients. The site has posted a short interview with Frank Stipe, Virtual Worlds & Social Networking Project Manager for the IRS. Stipe explains the IRS's Second Life connection:

In 2008, the IRS project team established a presence in the Second Life virtual world... The team has created the IRS Careers Island and constructed a sky platform with an IRS Careers Center and an IRS Education Center... [these features have] been opened to the general population in Second Life since February 2009...

 

In the physical world, we could spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions, on sponsoring a race car that displays our brand in a field of thirty or more other cars. In the SL virtual world, we have spent a few thousand dollars to build complete entertainment and communications venue that includes a race course...

We are now entering the relationship building phase where we are reaching out to universities that operate virtual campuses in Second Life to market directly to their students...

Recently, GamePolitics reported on the availability of Barack and Michelle Obama avatars for use in Second Life.

But it seems that those virtual depictions of the President and the First Lady are destined to have short careers.

New World Notes reports that, beginning next month, SL publisher Linden Lab will implement strict new rules on the sale of real-world products and brands - including depictions of actual celebrities. Barack Obama and Angelina Jolie avatars are specifically referenced as examples of prohibited content in the new Linden Lab guidelines.

Readers may recall that stun gun manufacturer TASER, Inc. brought a trademark lawsuit against Linden earlier this year over virtual copies of its weapon which were being sold by third-party content creators for use in Second Life. The suit was later dropped, but the new SL guidelines are almost certainly a response to such legal concerns.

As New World Notes mentions, enforcing the new policy may be problematic for Linden Lab:

While I'm not a lawyer, I would think avatar imitations of celebrities, especially political figures, would fall under the parody safe harbor of fair use. In the real world, you can still buy an unauthorized Barack Obama mask for Halloween. Not so in Second Life very soon...

 

The biggest challenge to this policy, in any case, is likely to be the SL content creation community itself, who often do reference the real world in their works, but are still proprietary about their products.

New World Notes reports that the Federal Communications Commission will provide the Second Life community with an interactive simulcast of today's workshop on open government and civic engagement.

SL users will have a special channel to forward questions and responses to workshop attendees in Washington, D.C. NWN notes that the event is part of the National Broadband Plan and will help government officials understand how high-speed Internet access "can improve transparency and citizen participation in government..."

FCC spokeswoman Jen Howard commented on the SL simulcast:

In developing our nation’s National Broadband Plan, we are committed to finding innovative, cutting-edge ways -– both online and offline -- to reach out to the public and elicit suggestions, questions, and insight regarding our nation’s broadband future. We are delighted that this first workshop will have an aperture into Second Life and that staff is experimenting in such ways to reach all stakeholders.

TASER International has - at least for now - dropped a trademark infringement suit against Linden Lab, which operates Second Life.

As GamePolitics reported in April, the maker of the controversial stun guns, filed suit after it discovered virtual TASER replica items being sold in Second Life as gear for SL avatars (see pic at left).TASER also alleged that its brand would be damaged via association with virtual sex and virtual drug use occuring within Second Life.

Virtual World News reports:

Taser filed a Notice of Voluntary Case Dismissal... and adds that because Linden never filed an answer to the original complaint, the dismissal is "without prejudice" -- meaning Taser could choose to refile at a later date.

For a price, Second Life users can now cavort in avatars which are close to being dead ringers for the President and First Lady.

New World Notes reports that a very realistic Michelle Obama avatar has just been completed, while the Barack Obama avatar has been available for some time. Both are the creations of SL entrepreneur MrSigmund Fride:

As one would expect, [Michelle Obama] is on default elegantly coiffed and smashingly dressed, and about as instantly recognizable as Mrs. Obama as the avatar version of her husband. (Creating avatars based on identifiable real world celebrities, as this series strongly suggests, is no easy task.) One significant shortcoming: the avatar's arms aren't as perfectly sculpted as the First Lady's most famously are...

Other popular avatars based on real-life figures are Italian President Silvio Berlusconi and Chinese actress Gong Li.

The Obama administration's deputy chief technology officer for open government will pay a visit to Second Life at noon Eastern time, reports New World Notes.

Beth Simone Noveck, who is known as Lawlita Fassbinder on SL, has been a member of the virtual community since 2004. Noveck will speak about her new book, Wiki Government: How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger, and Citizens More Powerful.

Noveck talked about her job with the New York Times last month:

If [average] people are going to be asked to spend the time on contributing, you want to use the participation they give you...

Even something like having a blog with an open discussion about policy is so revolutionary in the way government works.

Faced with rumors of a Second Life ban by Australian government authorities, publisher Linden Lab issued a statement last night to reassure SL users Down Under that no such action has taken place. At least, not yet.

Here's what Linden said on the issue:

Linden Lab has received no indications from the Australian government that it plans to block Second Life and will keep our community apprised of any developments on that front. In the meantime, we want to assure Australian Residents that Second Life remains accessible and functioning in your region.

Australia has and will continue to be an important market for Linden Lab, and we’re committed to providing the best possible Second Life experience for the users... Some of the most exciting uses of Second Life have come out of Australia, a diverse community of Residents that includes major universities, large enterprises and many thousands of consumers, who spend hundreds of thousands of hours inworld each month.

The Second Life rumors surfaced after the Australian government said that it planned to block Internet access to games which would not meet the MA-15+ content rating standard.

Meanwhile, New World Notes reminds us that the community of Australian SL users is a rich one, indeed:

There's a number of Australian organizations, including several universities, with an official presence in Second Life, there's been several SL-based fundraisers to benefit various Australian non-profit causes... and coming soon, a feature film starring several of Australia's top actors which depicts Second Life in a positive/neutral manner...

New World Notes reports that a ceremony was held in Second Life last week to honor protesters killed by security forces during the post-election unrest in Iran:

Lasting longer than 90 minutes... about forty people ultimately showed up for the vigil. No one there was reportedly from Iran, but some have family members who are. It wasn't only a time for mourning, but coordinating and growing the nascent "Support Iran" group which organized the event.

 

What we're seeing here, then, is an immersive offshoot of the informal Internet community that has sprung up in the last couple weeks...

As GamePolitics reported last week, the Australian government is moving to block online access to games containing content which would exceed the country's MA-15+ rating. The proposed filtering scheme would affect online retailers selling such games as well as games played online such as MMOs.

In last week's coverage we noted speculation that such a ban could affect games like World of Warcraft and Second Life. At least one site is now reporting that Second Life has, indeed, been banned. The Inquisitr, invoking Nazi (!) imagery, writes:

It was confirmed by Australian Minister for Censorship that online games such as Second Life is banned in the country. There was confirmation from Censorship Minister Stephen “Goebbels” Conroy...

It is surprising because this policy has always been known to everyone. When Conroy was asked, he didn’t give direct answer. The more Australian government confirms the issue, the more totalitarian the policy is becoming if compared to China.

But Wagner James Au, who tracks SL happenings on New World Notes, writes that rumors of SL's Australian demise are greatly exaggerated:

Over the last 24 hours I've been peppered with links... which seem to suggest the Australian government is imminently planning to block access to Second Life from that country...  I'm far from an expert on Australian jurisprudence, but near as I can tell, any relation with this news to Second Life is highly tenuous and conjectural at best...

 

Nothing in the [Inquisitr] editorial actually confirms [a ban], and the very second sentence compares the government administrator involved to Joseph Goebbels, which is such a ham-fisted violation of Godwin's Law*, the only thing it really confirms is the author's own penchant for dubious hyperbole...

 

It's likely there are several layers of parliamentary, bureaucratic, and technical implementation before any of this impacts Australian access to Second Life (if it ever does.)...

* Godwin's Law: As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.

Australia's federal government said yesterday that it plans to block access to websites which host and sell games with content edgier than what is allowable under an MA-15+ rating. The unprecedented censorship policy will apply to Australians of all ages.

As reported by the Sydney Morning Herald, a spokesman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy (left) said that the filtering scheme willl apply to downloadable games, Flash games and websites which sell boxed copies of MA-15+ games via mail order.

Colin Jacobs of Electronic Frontiers Australia, an online users' lobbying group, criticized the plan:

This is confirmation that the scope of the mandatory censorship scheme will keep on creeping. Far from being the ultimate weapon against child abuse, it now will officially censor content deemed too controversial for a 15-year-old. In a free country like ours, do we really need the government to step in and save us from racy web games?

Mark Newton, described by the SMH as an ISP engineer, told the newspaper that the plan could affect online-only games like World of Warcraft and Second Life as well:

That [online games] exemption [on content ratings] is the only reason why multi-player games with user-generated environments are possible in this country; without it, it'd only take one game user anywhere in the world to produce objectionable content in the game environment to make the Australian Government ban the game for everyone.

While the Iranian government has cracked down on communications by restricting Internet traffic during the ongoing post-election unrest, an analysis performed by Craig Labovitz of  Security to the Core suggests that authorities aren't paying attention to the flow of online game data:

While the rapidly evolving Iranian firewall has blocked web, video and most forms of interactive communication, not all Internet applications appear impacted. Interestingly, game protocols like xbox and World of Warcraft show little evidence of government manipulation.

Perhaps games provide a possible source of covert channels (e.g. “Bring your elves to the castle on the island of Azeroth and we’ll plan the next Ahmadinejad protest rally?”)

Meanwhile, Xbox 360 gamer Mike Murikami, blogging for The Examiner, notes:

With the Xbox 360 offering video chat among the features of being an Xbox Gold subscriber, this could easily be an upcoming popular way for loved ones and news outlets to deliver messages to and from the country.