Daily Herald

Ah, this is living the second life
by Logan Molyneux
http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/259215/149/

Reality is virtually any way you want it
The most interesting thing about the online virtual world Second Life is that it's so closely tied to first life for many people.

It's hardly a game, though that's often how it is described. Second Life has signed up more than 12 million users since it launched in 2003, but just less than 500,000 visit the virtual world at least weekly. They launch Second Life's software on their computers, which allows them to see and explore any of the seemingly endless 3D landscapes, islands, homes, businesses, clubs and so on that are stored on servers run by Second Life's creator, Linden Lab, of San Francisco.

It's free to join and create an avatar, as the 3D online personas are called. After completing a short tutorial, residents (the Second Life word for users) move around by using keyboard and mouse to direct their avatar to walk, fly, drive or even teleport all over the virtual world. Visiting the Sydney Opera House, or Dublin, or Texas State University is as easy as double-clicking a landmark (like links pointing to virtual locations) stored in your Second Life inventory. There's a whooshing sound, and presto! Your avatar appears in a new location.

As more residents move in, Second Life has grown to the virtual equivalent of 900 million square meters, or about one-tenth the size of the U.S. Finding a way around the millions of locations requires a little help, which is why Sean Percival, a Los Angeles-based author, spent "ungodly hours" in Second Life to collect landmarks and write his "Second Life In-World Travel Guide."

"The learning curve here is very tough," Percival said. "There's a bunch of people who just came here once and then gave up. My hope is that the book will alleviate some of that."

But once people get going, he says, they really get into it. Percival attended a Second Life convention in Chicago last year and guessed that the average age of the people he met there was about 40. He met some that were in their 70s.

"I'm 28," Percival said, "but I was one of the younger people there. I think it's because people who get serious into this have to have income to support it. Younger people spend their money on clothes and stuff, but when you're older you can float $100 a month."

He said he met people who spend five hours a day in Second Life. Linden Labs counts about 24 million user hours a month, or an average of 40 hours per user in the last month. The Wall Street Journal wrote in August last year about an Arizona man who spends so much time there his marriage is disintegrating.

One of the driving forces of interest in Second Life (as well as the economy there) is users' desire to customize the way they look. It's possible for every woman to be tall and slender, every man to be full of muscles. And if you tire of that, a new identity is just clicks away.

Adding longer hair or a tattoo to an avatar is as easy as traveling, though it will cost Linden Dollars, the currency used in Second Life. Real-world money (in $US or nearly any other currency) can be exchanged for Linden Dollars at a variety of online exchanges at a rate of about 265 Linden Dollars for $1.

Residents then shop by browsing walls covered with images and clicking one to purchase. Your new painted nails or bigger muscles can be added to your avatar right away. When it comes to clothing, size isn't an issue because the image of your new jeans will simply be laid over the 3D model of your avatar.

In real money, a new shirt might cost you 50 cents; a new car, a few dollars. Renting a house might cost a few dollars a month, though this can vary widely depending on the size and location of the home, just like real life.

Multiplied by millions of users, these nickels and dimes add up to a real, thriving economy that rivals some small countries in size. All in all, users spend about $20 million of real-world money in Second Life every month. Linden Labs reports there were 266 transactions of more than 500,000 Linden Dollars (or more than $1,880) in February alone and estimates there are more than 50,000 Second Life residents who have a positive monthly flow of Linden Dollars.

To infinity ...

The innovation that has made all of this possible and profitable is Linden Labs's decision to allow residents of Second Life to "own" anything they create. And they can create anything.

Everything in Second Life is created by using the 3D modeling software inside Second Life -- there's no option to import 3D creations from other programs. It can be a pain, Percival said, to shape and manipulate 3D objects in Second Life, but the appeal is that once you're finished, you own it. So it's possible to purchase houses and cars that other people have built.

Residents can also build and sell animations, including everything from nodding heads to dancing, shaking hands to sex. The animations must be stored in objects, so, for example, a lounge area might feature a chair with a small sphere marked "relax." Click on the sphere and your avatar reclines, puts his hands behind his head and starts bobbing his foot.

And the personalities there are as varied as they are in real life, but there are some unwritten, assumed boundaries. People don't commonly give out their real-life names in Second Life -- privacy is part of the appeal, too. In fact, most residents decide not to use the voice chat feature added by Linden Labs about six months ago because that removes some of the anonymity.

In the course of an hour, you might meet someone from Salt Lake whose avatar is named Struckbythunder Aeon. He (or she?) said he started renting a house there about a month ago. His place has two levels -- double doors and a grand piano that plays three songs on the first, and a lounge area, bed and balcony on the second. He pays about $7.50 a month.

There was a bookshelf on the second level, too, but Aeon decided during a recent visit that a fireplace might look better there. His avatar points at the shelf for a few seconds. It disappears, and moments later a crackling hearth is in its place. Stepping back, he typed in the program's chat box, "Don't know if I like it there or not." After all that.

Alternately, you might meet a librarian from Utah State University who goes by Stolvano Barbosa in Second Life. He hangs out a lot in a virtual library, where he talks to other librarians, both public and university types, about books and libraries. It's an extension of his real life, not a replacement for it.

Not everyone joining the discussion with Barbosa is involved with libraries, however. A woman from Florida dropped in because she "prefers intelligent conversation." Another group is there discussing their favorite TV shows. It's easy to eavesdrop because the chat box shows messages from any avatar in the vicinity.

But fantasy is only a portion of Second Life. The ability to mimic real life has been invaluable to several real world companies. IBM has encouraged its employees to sign up with Second Life so they can hold international business meetings there. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, overseer of hotel brands Sheraton, St. Regis and Westin, launched a new hotel chain, Aloft, in Second Life in 2006. Their goal was to present a 3D model of the planned hotel, let visitors try it out with their avatars and provide feedback.

Educators are also using Second Life to their advantage. Ohio University has created a virtual science lab there, where students can conduct experiments without messes or cumbersome equipment. Business students at the University of Houston test their design and entrepreneurial skills in a virtual market. Several other schools, including Stanford University and Harvard Law School teach classes in Second Life.

... and beyond

Second Life's growth and myriad uses have led technology guru Ray Kurzweil to call it a "great harbinger of what's to come." Kurzweil, author of the book "The Singularity is Near," which predicts that technology will become so powerful and prevalent that it will actually become a part of us, said that eventually, everyone will be spending some or most of their time in virtual reality.

"For a lot of reasons I think we're going to be spending more and more of our time, ultimately the majority of our time, in virtual environments," Kurzweil said. "And also the boundaries between real and virtual environments are going to soften and we're going to have a blending of real and virtual reality, so it's not going to be clear always where one starts and another ends."

Kurzweil bases his predictions on the exponential growth of computing power and other technologies as well as the exponential adoption of technologies such as cell phones. In fact, he says, cell phones are a form of virtual reality -- two or more people are in different physical locations having a conversation in the same virtual "space."

"But you can't say, 'Oh, that agreement I made with you last night on the telephone, well, that was just virtual reality, that's not a real agreement,' " Kurzweil said. "No, it was a real agreement, and these are real conversations, and we'll be having real interactions with real people in virtual environments."

It's possible that some people would be so against the idea of using an avatar to interact with others that they wouldn't ever enter a virtual world like Second Life. But Kurzweil points out that everyone, to some extent, is already acquainted with virtual spaces, whether it's telephones, video conferencing or chatting on the Internet, and he says it's only a matter of time before virtual reality becomes a part of everyday life.

"That's the nature of these technologies," Kurzweil said. "They get smaller and smaller, they get more and more flexible and more and more integrated into our lives -- less and less expensive, and more and more capable."

He says it is human nature to extend beyond our limitations and that finding ways to integrate technology into our lives is part of human learning and evolution. He doesn't think religion or human ideology will get in the way of the "inexorable progression" of technology -- in fact, he thinks the world's religions are quite in line with it.

"Both biological evolution and technological evolution are spiritual processes because they move us toward greater intelligence, greater creativity, greater beauty," Kurzweil said. "God is described as all knowing and infinitely creative and infinitely loving, infinitely intelligent. Well, these evolutionary processes grow exponentially in those very properties. They don't become infinite, but they do become more God-like, over time."

But there's still a long way to go. Percival said Second Life has its share of technical glitches, like how his avatar appears bald until the computer can download his detailed hair. Often, the servers are down or slow. But the appeal of Second Life is only somewhat affected.

"It's very innovative, what they're trying to do here," Percival said. "And residents just try to work around the glitches the best they can.