Meet Max the virtual guide dog on Second Life for PC!

Online virtual world Second Life now has its own virtual guide dog available to help blind and partially sighted people – meet German Shepherd Max.

Max revolutionises how people with a visual impairment navigate the global community and can even read signs, using text to speech technology.

The cyber pooch is keyboard controlled, rather than having to use a mouse. It simulates the experience of the ‘real world’, listening to sound and other helpful messages to find its bearings; so being unable to see the screen isn’t a problem.

Max makes it easy for visually impaired users to log on. And he’s a problem solver; designed to help people with sight loss navigate by finding any object (including other avatars (online character) and taking the blind person’s avatar to a virtual meeting.

He gives constant feedback about the immediate surrounding area, so like a real guide dog, he helps visually impaired users avoid crashing into other people and objects. He assists them in navigating the virtual world, reading messages and information with text to speech technology... even a real guide dog can’t do that!

Bridget Warr, chief executive of Guide Dogs said: “This is a significant technological development, meaning blind and partially sighted people now have greater mobility and enhanced vision in the virtual world. Max is one clever dog, opening up new opportunities for those with sight loss.”

Max is free to use, and will be launched on June 20th with a ‘Vision Quest’, designed to help participants experience what it’s like to work with a guide dog and to write stories about those experiences.

Second Life is an ideal place for blind and partially sighted people to explore social networks, take classes, start businesses, and experience a wide range of languages and cultures. Second Life also offers access to vast range of audio content, including live music performances, presentations by speakers, and educational forums.

See http://www.tvwsp.com/questing/visionquests.html for details.

A very real future for virtual worlds

Second Life has long been seen as the bell-wether for the growing interest in virtual spaces. Here, founder Philip Rosedale talks to the BBC News website about the past and future of the parallel world he is helping to create.

These are interesting times for Second Life. In the four short years it has existed, it has seen media coverage go from hysterical to hectoring. It has been hailed as both a harbinger of the next big thing and a brake on the burgeoning development of virtual worlds.

Speculation about its future has intensified as news emerged that chief technology officer Cory Ondrejka, who helped design and build Second Life, has left the company.

But said Philip Rosedale, one of the founders of Linden Lab which oversees the running of Second Life, the departure will not dent the vision all the original engineers had for their creation.

"Cory is a fantastic guy, he's fantastically capable and we will miss him a lot," said Mr Rosedale.

More from the BBC

Hackers say they can steal 'Second Life' currency

Over on Dean Takahashi's San Jose Mercury News blog today, he reported on the discovery by a pair of security researchers that it may be possible to steal Second Life users' in-world currency.

That would be a big problem, of course, because the currency, known as Linden dollars, are directly convertible to U.S. dollars.

According to Takahashi's story, hackers Charles Miller and Dino Dai Zovi told him that they have uncovered an exploit that could allow someone to fleece Second Life residents of their Linden dollars.

The exploit is related to Apple's QuickTime software, which is used to display videos in Second Life.

"The exploit works because Second Life allows users to embed videos or pictures on their characters or their virtual property," Takahashi wrote. "When someone comes nearby and is within view of the object, the Second Life software activates QuickTime so it can play the video or picture. In doing so, QuickTime directs the Second Life software to a Web site. By exploiting the flaw in QuickTime, the hackers can direct the Second Life software to a malicious Web site that then allows them to take over the Second Life avatar.

The end result of that could be that a malicious hacker could then strip the avatar of any Linden dollar holdings.

For its part, Takahashi wrote, Linden Lab told him that the exploit is easily patched. Nonetheless, the company put up a warning on its blog Friday.

Takahashi said that Linden Lab told him, "We were alerted a short time ago by Internet security professionals that a QuickTime exploit has been discovered which may allow an attacker to crash or exploit any user of the QuickTime software from Apple. The Second Life viewer uses QT to play videos and therefore this exploit could potentially affect the residents of Second Life. This exploit affects all platforms that use QuickTime and, to date, Apple has not released a fix for it."

To date, however, Takahashi wrote, Linden Lab said it isn't aware of anyone actually using the exploit to rob anyone.

For residents of Second Life, then, the solution may be to avoid holding onto large numbers of Linden dollars.

As I told Takahashi when he asked me to comment for his story on Linden dollar security, "As one SL business owner said to me...you should always have a backup plan in case of a glitch that causes you to lose everything, because you never know what might happen. And in the case of Linden dollars, that likely means doing regular (Linden dollar/U.S. dollar) exchanges so as not to keep too many Lindens in your SL account. You can't lose what's not there."

More here...

Get a life, but make it second life top 5 virtual world + top 5 online games

Most of us have an alter-ego waiting to burst out, and now it can - on the internet, in virtual worlds that are springing up to suit every need and desire. Ian Douglas explores a universe of online possibilities

I couldn't wrap my nephew's birthday present last year. There was no box or batteries to be included because what I'd bought him was the ability to go online, pretend to be a penguin and talk to his friends.



Thin, tall and beautiful: this must be Second Life
A year's membership to Club Penguin, the icy virtual world for children aged six to 14, is less and less of an unusual gift. There are more than 700,000 members, all of whom pay from $60 (£29) a year.

For their money they get games, clubs, the possibility of earning "coins" through competitions and work, which can be traded in for objects in the game or in the real world. They can build their own igloo and fill it with objects they've collected, assemble a wardrobe of penguin clothes and go sledging.

Top 5 virtual worlds
Second Life (www.secondlife.com)
Club Penguin (www.clubpenguin.com)
There.com (www.there.com)
Habbo Hotel (www.habbo.co.uk)
Entropia Universe (www.entropiauniverse.com)

Top 5 online games
World of Warcraft (www.worldofwarcraft.com)
RuneScape (www.runescape.com)
Eve Online (www.eve-online.com)
City of Heroes (www.cityofheroes.com)
Final Fantasy XI (www.playonline.com/ff11us)

More from the Telegraph...

Exploiting Online Games: Cheating Massively Distributed Systems

If you are a gamer, a game developer, a software security professional, or an interested bystander, this book exposes the inner workings of online-game security for all to see.

From the authors of the best-selling Exploiting Software, Exploiting Online Games takes a frank look at controversial security issues surrounding MMORPGs, such as World of Warcraft and Second Life. This no-holds-barred book comes fully loaded with code examples, debuggers, bots, and hacks.

This book covers

Why online games are a harbinger of software security issues to come

How millions of gamers have created billion-dollar virtual economies

How game companies invade personal privacy

Why some gamers cheat

Techniques for breaking online game security

How to build a bot to play a game for you

Methods for total conversion and advanced mods

Written by the world's foremost software security experts, this book takes a close look at security problems associated with advanced, massively distributed software. With hundreds of thousands of interacting users, today's online games are a bellwether of modern software. The kinds of attack and defense techniques described in Exploiting Online Games are tomorrow's security techniques on display today.

Read online at SAFARI

The future of video games

Quentin Hardy's panel on "Beyond the Video Console" is fascinating. Increasingly video games take centerstage in the online world going forward.

One of the panelists made the point that every generation worries about a new "technology" that will corrupt children: once upon a time, that "technology" was jazz music; then rock and roll. Fast forward and today it's video games.

Video games become a dominant means of telling stories. Even more compelling--multiplayer games where the "community" can engage in playing a game. The "game" aspects, of gaming, matter enormously.

That doesn't make SecondLife the answer, though.

As one panelist pointed out, once you have created an avatar and dressed it, there isn't too much to do in SecondLife.

Call that a work in progress. Eventually, however, the industry will figure out this emerging digital world, and invent engaging ways to play games and interact there.

For now, though, I confess I made a note to myself: better buy the kids more video games!

Source: Forbes

Serious Games Institute shows applications for the real world

At a recent cocktail party, David Wortley set up a video camera to record images of the guests in the room. The video was streamed, live, into a computer-generated version of the party in Second Life, the online virtual world, where participants' "avatars" could watch them sipping their drinks. Then a video of the virtual version of the party was beamed back onto a screen in the real-world room.

"People were watching people watching people watching them," Wortley said, acknowledging, "It can be a little difficult to get your head around in the beginning."

But such scenarios may seem less surreal when you are director of the Serious Games Institute, a center for the development of "serious" applications of video game technologies and virtual worlds for businesses, security agencies and other users. The party took place during a conference that coincided with the recent opening of the center.

Much has been made of the potential of Second Life as an environment for entertainment, marketing or even terrorist financing. But the Serious Games Institute says that it is one of the first places dedicated to helping businesses enhance their own operations by harnessing virtual worlds for things like training, communication and emergency planning.

The institute, which is affiliated with Coventry University and funded in part by a regional economic development agency, has a handful of tenants set to take up residence in November. It plans to operate as an "incubator," helping these companies grow, as well as serving as a hub for networking and research.

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