A small study conducted by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers found that online virtual communities can be a great way to train patients in the art of meditation and other mind and body-related techniques. Researchers used the virtual world of Second Life to conduct the research.

Apparently Second Life has managed to get an honorable mention in a new FBI intelligence dossier on gangs. On page 41 of the FBI's recently released "National Gang Threat Assessment" report, Second Life gets a mention as a hang for nefarious characters. From the PDF:

Students at Indiana University have used the virtual world of Second Life to recreate pivotal moments in the Civil Rights Movement, championed and lead by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The virtual recreation includes the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the March on Washington, and the Mississippi Freedom School Movement.

This is an honorable way to celebrate what Dr. King did for civil rights in the United States. Through his hard work, patience, and ultimate sacrifice he fulfilled the promise of our founding fathers when they wrote this opening line in the constitution:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

Check out the video to your left.

Source: The[A]ListDaily

Rod Humble once swam in the fantasy waters of EverQuest, he lived in the virtual worlds of The Sims, and now he dwells in the hodge podge of Second Life. The former Sony Online Entertainment and EA Play employee is now the CEO of Linden Lab. Humble takes over the role left vacant by Mark Kingdon , who stepped down from the position in June.

"Joining Linden Lab is a very exciting opportunity," said Humble. "I have a long standing interest in the how the boundaries of society and economics change as communications evolve in new ways. Second Life is unique: it sits at the intersection of virtual worlds, avatars, and human contact. The Residents and developers of Second Life have built something very special, I am honored to join the talented team at Linden Lab to help expand this new frontier."

While the hubbub over the virtual world Second Life has ebbed considerably in the last few years, the community is still active and one school in particular continues to leverage Second Life as an aid to its students and faculty.

Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) features a slate of properties in Second Life, including Comm Media Island, which serves as a “blank slate” for students to develop projects in, and Crimson Island, a destination used for both classroom instruction and to orientate new users.

Second Life creator, Linden Labs founder, and CEO Philip Rosedale has stepped away from his role as the top executive of the company this week. Rosedale will now focus his attention on his newest venture, LoveMachine. This new venture sounds like an odd sexually-themed zone in Second Life. Rosedale held the position of CEO for four months after Mark Kingdon left the company.

"I'll be leaving day-to-day management of the company and continuing in my role on the board, including helping in the search to find a great CEO," Rosedale confirmed on the LoveMachine company blog.

"I will also be continuing my work with my new company, LoveMachine."

Rosedale's startup is apparently working on some new virtual currency and AI technologies, as well as some new middleware.

So who is the new CEO? Bob Komin will take on the role, assuming he does not get cold feet in a few months like Rosedale.

A UCLA student created a “meth house” in the virtual world of Second Life in order to assist a study into how environmental cues factor into addiction.

Chris Culbertson, a doctoral student at the school, was inspired by “reports of alcoholics and smokers developing cravings while visiting virtual worlds devised by addiction researchers” according to Scientific American, and created his own adaptation. Once built, he invited 17 meth addicts to UCLA to try it out, measuring their heart rates and having them fill out questionnaires as they navigated the 3D space.

Anger over being unprepared for an interview with Reuters in the virtual world Second Life reportedly led California Republican gubernatorial candidate—and ex-eBay CEO—Meg Whitman, to push an employee.

The incident took place on June 1, 2007, when eBay employee Young Mi Kim was helping Whitman prep for the interview. The New York Times reports Kim told a fellow employee that Whitman uttered a profanity and shoved her. In Whitman’s version of the exchange, she claimed to have “physically guided” Kim out of the room.

Kim eventually returned to work at eBay, but only after a four-month vacancy and a reported six-figure settlement, which some eBay workers put at around $200,000.

Whitman described Kim as a “respected colleague and valuable asset to the company.” Kim stated that, “Yes, we had an unfortunate incident, but we resolved it in a way that speaks well for her and for eBay.”

As part of its reporting on trends and issues in crime and criminal justice, the Australian Government’s Institute of Criminology has issued a research paper that takes a look at transgressions that occur in virtual worlds.

Crime Risks of Three-Dimensional Virtual Environments was written by Ian Warren and Darren Palmer and kicks off with a mention of what may have been the first case of its kind—the “rape” of an avatar in the text-based game LambdaMoo. The incident resulted in a Village Voice piece on the incident, and eventually a book, and brought the issue of crime in virtual worlds to light.

A similar incident took place in Second Life in 2007 and actually caused Belgian police to patrol the online community to prevent rapes.

While virtual crimes such as money laundering or fraud can usually be handled by real-world laws, the grey area of harassment-type assaults online seems to continually confound authorities.

A few thoughts put forth by the paper:

The question of whether real-world notions of interpersonal harm apply to virtual assault or sexual assault is unresolved. This complicates the question of regulation within virtual worlds.

While civil redress for psychological harm is conceivable, the 'disembodied' character of such an incident would invariably bar liability for any crime against the person.

The paper notes that under Australian federal criminal law, a maximum penalty of three years could be levied on someone who menaces, harasses or causes offense to another user, though whether this law has ever been applied to virtual worlds is unclear.

Thanks to multinational users, jurisdictional uncertainties and technology that continues to evolve, “there is considerable uncertainty surrounding the role of criminal law in these multi-user categories.” The paper suggests that, “Formal criminal intervention would only have a place if an appreciable and measurable effect on the real-world victim could be established.”

Since so much is unknown or untested about this subject  as of yet, the paper suggest research directions for the future, which include “enhancing our understanding of the nature of harm within multi-user 3dve (three-dimensional virtual environments) platforms,” and more collaborative research on how to protect children in virtual worlds.

The report concludes:

Clearly, Australian 3dve users require more knowledge to identify, manage and prevent harm. Developing a systematic approach to harmonise current knowledge on these emerging issues is perhaps the greatest research priority.

Thanks Anthony!

An academic artist, who previously used America’s Army to make a political statement about the Iraqi war and recreated Gandhi’s Salt March in Second Life, has another online installation underway which features the Indian peace advocate.

Joseph DeLappe has imprisoned his MGandhi avatar in Second Life as a recreation of Gandhi’s post-Salt March prison term.

In real life, Gandhi was imprisoned by the British from May 5, 1930 through January 26, 1931. In the Second Life reenactment, MGandhi has been in a cell on Odyssey Contemporary Art and Performance Island (link for Second Life denizens) and will be “released” on January 26.

While imprisoned, MGandhi has not been idle; DeLappe’s avatar has been interacting with visitors and performing daily readings from the Bush-era Torture Memos. The readings are being fed to DeLappe’s Facebook account and his Twitter handle.

To celebrate MGandhi’s freedom, DeLappe is organizing a release party, entitled the gg hootenanny, which will feature the ability to sing-along, via voice chat, to protest songs from avatars such as The Beatles, Amy Winehouse, Pope Benedict XVI, Hello Kitty, Jim Morrison, Prince Charles and Spongebob Squarepants. The event will take place at 10AM, 6PM and 11PM SLT (Second Life Time) on January 26.

For gamers not into virtual worlds, fret not. DeLappe is also encouraging non-Second Lifers to pick up a guitar and sing inside their online game of choice on January 26, as he demonstrates in the embedded YouTube video, where he sings Bob Dylan’s Masters of War inside an FPS (America’s Army?)—a performance in and of itself.

The Public Broadcasting Service’s (PBS) investigative show Frontline will air a deep look into how digital media and the Internet have transformed human lives and the subject of videogames is featured heavily in the program.

Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier will debut on February 2 at 9:00 ET. The 90 minute show was produced by Rachel Dretzin, who also created the recent Frontline special Growing Up Online, and will feature commentary from Douglas Rushkoff. Segments include Living Faster, Relationships, Waging War, Virtual Worlds and Learning.

Many individual videos are already available for viewing on the PBS website and a trailer for the show offers a quick overview of what it’s all about.

The Waging War section features game-related topics such as the military’s use of virtual reality training, as well as looks at both America’s Army and the Army Experience Center.

Virtual Worlds contains a cornucopia of videogame segments, including the use of virtual reality therapy for veterans, gaming addiction, professional gamers, violent games, Second Life and about 20 more pieces.

Another cool aspect to the program is that the Digital Nation website launched about a year ago ago in a bid to let users collaborate with the project by sharing their own experiences.

A congressionally-mandated Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report looks into the availability of sexually and violently explicit content in online worlds to minors.

Virtual Worlds and Kids: Mapping the Risks examined 27 virtual online worlds, including Second Life, Build A Bearville, IMVU, Neopets, Runescape, There and YoVille. Selected worlds investigated ran the gamut from those intended for kids to those aimed at adults only.

At least one instance of sexually or violently explicit content was found in 19 of the 27 virtual worlds, with five labeled as having a “heavy” amount of explicit content, four containing a “moderate” amount, while a “low” amount was found in 10 virtual worlds.

Kid-oriented (designed for children ages 13 and under) virtual worlds fared a little better, with seven featuring no explicit content, six featuring a “low” amount and a single world labeled as having “moderate” explicit content.

The report also examined the ways in which virtual worlds designed for older teens or adults kept out younger children. It was found that “most” worlds used an age-screening mechanism tied to a birth date entered in the registration process and half of these worlds did not accept kids who re-registered on the same computer using a modified birth date.

The Commission recommended five steps for virtual world operators to take in order to limit the exposure of kids to explicit content:

• Ensuring that the age-screening mechanisms virtual world operators employ do not encourage underage registration;
  
  
• Implementing or strengthening age-segregation techniques to help ensure that minors and adults interact only with their peers and view only age-appropriate material;
  
  
• Re-examining the strength of language filters to ensure that such filters detect and eliminate communications that violate online virtual worlds’ conduct standards;
  
  
• Providing greater guidance to community enforcers in online virtual worlds so that they are better equipped to: self-police virtual worlds by reviewing and rating online content; report the presence of potential underage users; and comment on users who otherwise appear to be violating a world’s terms of behavior; and,
  
  
• Employing a staff of specially trained moderators whose presence is well known in-world and who are equipped to take swift action against conduct violations.

What defines explicit? The Commission developed its own factors, looking to Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) rating criteria.

The full report, in PDF form, can be grabbed here.

While it might not mean the end of the traditional air raid siren, New York State is currently testing a plan that uses networked videogame machines to send emergency alerts and warnings to the state’s population.

The alert system is just one component of New York State’s Empire 2.0 initiative, which is designed to make the state’s government more “transparent, participatory and collaborative,” reports Information Week.

New York State Deputy Chief Information Officer Rico Singleton thinks the plan to alert the populace via videogame consoles is a natural, “considering the amount of time our youth spend on video games.“

Other Empire 2.0 measures include monitoring Facebook in a bid to spot and stop potential suicidal behavior, using Second Life to train 700,000 Homeland Security first responders and publishing Senate bills online where members of the public can comment on and mark up proposed legislation.

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...