While I faffed around the other day in my private virtual playground, sinking badly terraformed continents, Open Sim’s Diva Canto was thinking deeply on the future.

And yesterday my graphics card appears to have cooked itself, so no terraforming in Second Life or Open Sim for me for a while. The fan isn’t spinning, so I will have to fallback on the original crap card. This will force me to do other things, while we figure out my next computer option.

The future of Open Sim is coming, although the present looks and feels a bit like Second Life from a few years ago, with a more DIY ethic. I got online at OSGrid via laptop using Dolphin last night, just to say I could, and found people sitting around helping each other at the welcome plaza.

I want to create my own personal grid, so I can learn enough to propose Open Sim as a way to provide a secure, private meetspace and training space when my office goes virtual. So I’m keeping an eye on the latest developments in Open Sim, on the Diva Distro that many use to run OS, and New World Studio, the package bundler/installer that got me started.

Here’s Diva Canto on Hypergrid 2.0:

What this amounts to is that the Hypergrid will be able to support different policies that better reflect different levels of comfort that people have regarding opening up their worlds. Grids that deal with protected content will be able to continue to protect that content while allowing their users to visit other grids, and even collect items there, and allowing foreign users to come in and mingle — without any asset ever being exported or imported from/into their main storage. Grids that deal with kids will be able to block them from hypergriding while allowing certain privileged staff to go out and get content and knowledge from other grids. Secretive grids will be able to prevent foreign visitors while allowing their users to go out. Grids can have only one or two regions available to foreigners, while the rest is off-limits. Communities can make up small networks of worlds that allow Hypergrid exchanges only among themselves. Etc.
I hope this clarifies where we’re going with the Hypergrid!

I know that the first question that everyone will ask is: when? My guess: sometime this summer, hopefully early.

That fast? Impressive. Educators and enterprise are going to have to move fast, to get out in front of the image problem they currently have with the public where virtual worlds are concerned.

They have to counter the image of virtual worlds people have, as in “Isn’t that like Second Life? Ewww.”

Meanwhile, NWS had a developer meeting today; they’ll have an upgrade out soon with some great features and an easy way to upgrade to the current version of the Distro.

As much as I love SL people and places, the brand is tainted for business and education. I can’t even mention it as an entertainment platform in polite conversation without having to add “It’s not ALL skeevy vampire pervs, and bling-bling pixel tarts with ludicrously huge boobs.”

No… it’s just not uncommon to encounter someone with ludicrously huge sculpty boobs.

It’s hard to explain to someone who doesn’t know or care for Second Life how… unimportant that is. It’s an intrusive distraction to me, but to a non-Resident, it’s a turnoff.

I love the funny chats, the music, and the immersive wonders. Don’t love the stress and pressure I put on myself for not being as creative or skilled as I think I should be after nearly 5 years.

At least I got my Relay for Life vendor loaded with a few charity donations! My store SLurl is in my picks. I’ll limp inworld later and add more if possible. Please visit… there’s a “phone” in my desk cubby for sending messages, too.

I guess my brave new world-building was the last straw for my card; I could tell the fan wasn’t spinning right and it must have seized up after I powered off. It was doomed, anyway – the design of the case prevented air from circulating. I’m surprised it lasted this long, frankly.

Once I solve my hardware issues, which may include a brand new desktop that’s chosen with SL/OS in mind, I’ll be building my world for fun and relaxation (I found a terrific Hawaiian music stream).

The current machine, which is otherwise a fairly decent Gateway, will probably get turned into a media server. I hope to hypergrid, but don’t know if I’ll go fully public, or offer building rights to trusted friends.

Ironically, running New World Studio with the Diva Distro doesn’t require much; it’s the viewer that’s the power and graphics hog. So the desktop may yet have the Hypergrid in its future – as a server.

There’s other issues too – need to do a better job balancing my real and virtual lives. But I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next with the Hypergrid, the Diva Distro of Open Sim, and the next update of New World Studio.

Link: Metaverse Ink Blog» Blog Archive » Towards HG 2.0