Second Life gets ready for big upgrade

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Saturday, 20 January 2007 12:11

Your IT - Home IT

Linden Labs are hard at work on making Second Life a more realistic environment, with voice communication capabilities, better commerce for merchants and more.

In an interview with the IDG News Service, reported on at Macworld, the Vice President of Platform and Technology Development at Linden Labs, Joe Miller, has detail upcoming improvements to the immensely popular online world of Second Life.

In a question about upcoming new capabilities, Miller focused on the work that Linden Labs is doing to make natural voice communications, with correct 3D sound placement, an everyday experience for Second Life users.

He told IDG that: “Voice is an area in which we’re actively investing in now. We haven’t made any announcements of launch of an integrated voice solution but it’s something we’re very much involved with. Many of our customers today who need voice for what they do in Second Life use other solutions alongside of Second Life. However, our approach will be much more tightly integrated. Obviously we want voice to be an important part of the Second Life fabric, so that if you walk up to someone who is voice-enabled you’ll be able to just start a conversation”.

Miller continued that: “You wont have to run anything else, or do anything else: just speak to someone or a group of people as you engage in a conversation today in a room. As you move through a large group of people, you’ll be able to hear multiple voices, each emanating from the proper place in 3D where they are, so it makes it very much like a real experience of walking through a crowded room where there’s a number of people speaking. It’s an important attribute we’ll be adding shortly”.

Miller also told IDG that they are improving search capabilities in the virtual world. He said that: “We have a significant initiative to make search more natural and visual than it is today. When you come in as a casual user, it’s tough to find the interesting things that are happening. We want to significantly improve the search capabilities. We also created an API to let our business customers create their own front porches into Second Life”.

It’s definitely worth reading the rest of the interview at Macworld to see what other developments Second Life has in store for its legion of dedicated users, including claims that Second Life is turning into a new type of operating system.