Linden Lab

You may have noticed that we’ve added a Mesh Enablement tab to your Account. Get ready to explore the latest innovation from the Lab! Mesh? What the heck is that? We’ve had quite a few questions from users about mesh — mostly along the lines of what is it? How can I use it? When will it become available? Well, we’ve got some answers for you — and some good news! First of all, what is it, exactly?The term “mesh” refers to an object that consists of polygonal geometry data. Essentially, it’s what you see in modern video games, special effects and 3D animation. It's extremely flexible — and when it’s well-made, it can be way more efficient than the existing prims and sculpties you’ll find inworld currently. Mesh objects are first created in external programs, such as Blender or Maya, and then imported onto the Second Life grid. Once there, mesh objects can be manipulated in pretty much the same ways you would manipulate a regular old prim. And, here’s the best part — the wait is almost over! We’ve been rolling out mesh-upload capability to selected regions over the past week, and the rollout pace will increase in the coming weeks. Mesh on the Main Grid Because we’re rolling out mesh-upload capability across the Main Grid over the next few weeks, mesh is not going to be available everywhere all at once. But, you can get a preview. Ready to try mesh? Here are a few steps you'll need to complete to get started: 1. Get enabled. To do this, you'll need to first complete a short tutorial about mesh and intellectual property rights. 2. Download the Mesh Project Viewer. 3. Once you’re inworld and using the Mesh Project Viewer, teleport to the selected Project Regions where mesh capabilities are enabled. If you're interested in uploading mesh objects, you will want to visit public areas to test. View the list of current mesh enabled sandbox regions here. Intellectual Property rights tutorial Mesh Project Viewer Download If you have a region and want to get upgraded early, check here. Before you do visit a Project Region, you should check out the Mesh Project Wiki Page and read about uploading mesh. It's also a good idea to read through the Mesh Forums to get more info and to ask questions of your fellow creators. During the rollout period (until we enable upload in the next version of the Release Viewer), Linden Lab will charge a discounted fee for uploads. Also, during this initial period, no mesh items should be posted to the Second Life Marketplace due to the limited availability of places to rez mesh objects. We’re excited to share our latest project with you — and can’t wait to see the awesome things you’ll build with mesh! Go out and create something amazing – have fun! Linden Lab

Linden Lab is excited to announce the latest updates on one of our coolest new features — mesh. With mesh, you’ll be able to create, build and beautify even more incredible objects inworld! You’ll find a new Mesh Enablement functionality tab in the My Account section of your Account screen. It’s just another part of the innovation and imagination that makes Second Life the magical place it is. Uploading Mesh Now that mesh is in rollout stage and many users will soon be able to utilize its content-creation capabilities, there are a few things creators should know before giving it a whirl. Potential creators will need to satisfy a couple of requirements in order to gain access to mesh-upload capabilities. First, you’ll need to review a short tutorial that is intended to help Residents understand some of Linden Lab’s intellectual property policies — they can be kind of tricky, and we at the Lab want all content creators to be well-informed This tutorial outlines some of the key points relating to intellectual property. Second, if you have never given us billing information, you'll need to enter it into your account. Why, you ask? Because having payment information on file is an important step in establishing direct relationships with content creators who will be working in mesh. Note: We do realize that with the current configuration, some Residents will need to make a purchase in order to enter their billing information. The first round of rollouts of mesh will be happening over the next few weeks! We look forward to seeing your continued imagination, skill and creativity in this exciting new format. We hope you’ll be pleased with our innovations — and can’t wait to see what you come up with! Now go create something amazing! Linden Lab

One of the most powerful examples of community in Second Life is the annual Relay For Life event, which helps raise money for the American Cancer Society’s fight against cancer and to celebrate the lives of people who have battled this disease. Over the past few years, more than $1 million real-life U.S. dollars has been raised in Second Life for this important cause. This year’s fundraiser (themed “Seasons of Hope”) takes place from July 16 to 17 and features several community activities and events, including: Live and silent auctions Live music performances Scavenger hunts Exclusive, limited-edition goodies Machinima screenings Theatrical performances ...and much, much more! We hope you’ll take a moment to visit and participate in this Second Life community-organized event. Visit the Relay for Life event in Second Life >> Find out more at the official event website >>

It’s shaping up to be a hot summer here in San Francisco — er, at least at Linden Lab! — and July brings a lot of exciting updates — including great news for all Residents who’ve experienced issues with Group Chat lag, awesome new avatars, sweet new features in Profiles and much more! Non-human avatars A longstanding question about the default avatars that the Lab provides is “Why do they only offer humans?” Well, fret no more! Check your Library > Clothing > Initial Outfits tab in any Viewer and you’ll be pleasantly surprised to discover 36 new default avs! We worked with three amazing creators and focused on balancing visual appeal with diversity and efficiency. We think you’ll find that this fresh batch of avis is far more performance-oriented than our previous defaults — and a heck of a lot of fun. Animal series by Damien Fate Robot series by Renn Yifu Vehicle series by Xenius Revere For Residents using Basic mode, the new set of avatars will soon appear in the avatar selector. In a short time, they’ll be available at registration as well. You’ll be tempted to choose your favorite. Try out Second Life as a robot, a dragon — or even a sports car! Group Chat Lag Here’s a little something about that right royal pain, Group Chat Lag. You know how it is: you’re inworld, having a ball chatting with a group of friends, but the chat shows up with words missing or in the wrong order. It’s like a bad roommate, always hanging around and making a mess, interrupting your conversations and ruining your jokes! Some of your friends won’t even try talking while that loser’s around, knowing that their impeccable comic timing will come out looking like free-form poetry. Except, for some reason, we don’t see that dude around much these days. Was it something we did? We’d say that we’ll miss the old Group Chat Lag, but that would be a total lie. Instead, as the saying used to go: “door Don’t let the hit you in the butt on the way out.” Profiles We’re working on improved functionality and features for Profiles, a great way for you to express your interests, share your favorite activities, communicate your unique personality, and meet other SL Residents like yourself. Some of the cool things we’re adding will include a “Pages” feature that lets you add pages to your profile for different topics, interests, regions and other fun stuff. As always, you control the level of privacy for your account — you can adjust precisely how much information you choose to display — or keep private!  You can look forward to a feature that will allow the option of auto-posting to Twitter and Facebook— as well as a new activity stream, including a summary of your friends’ activities. This will allow you to check out what posts or photos your Second Life Friends have commented on, notify you when a friend changes their profile pic, and more! We’re also working on integrating additional social-network identity — including popular sites like Plurk, Blogger, WordPress, Tumblr and Foursquare — so you can streamline your SL social networking, all fine-tuned to share just as much or as little as you prefer. You’re in the driver’s seat, but we’re glad to be along for the ride! Marketplace For all of you who love shopping for new gadgets, outfits, avatars — and everything else under the sun! — we’ve implemented some changes to our Marketplace hat will enhance your shopping experience and make the process go more smoothly. One of the coolest features we’ve been working on is Direct Delivery. We launched the Alpha phase of Direct Delivery in early June, and the participating merchants have been giving us some great feedback! What’s next? More focus on improving Direct Delivery, and working with Beta Merchants on the Alpha platform. We’ve been working on an API for third-party viewers to use to support listing items on the Marketplace, and continue to gather feedback as we develop that capability. Beta Program participation has been opened up for third-party viewer developers and vending system developers, and our primary focus has been on bringing Direct Delivery to market.  Promotional Emails On the promotional email front, we’ve improved the functionality of promotional-email subscription preferences. To unsubscribe to any promotional email, just hit the “unsubscribe” link in the message, and you’ll be able to choose the type of emails you want to get from Linden Lab — instead of “all-or-nothing.” This feature allows you to opt-in to messages you’d like to see more of — and unsubscribe from those you don’t! You’ll still receive other messages, like inworld notifications and Marketplace emails. Search Later this month, the new Search functionality that was included in the most recent Viewer release will go live as the primary Search experience for all Residents. Every search on the Secondlife.com website and in the Legacy Viewer “All” and “Groups” categories will use the new back-end technology, and will benefit from the improved result relevance. Viewer users will not only get the updated results — they’ll also be able to take advantage of all the exciting features we've included in the new Search interface, including easier searching for Events, Land Sales and Rentals, and Classifieds. If you haven't explored Second Life with the new-and-improved Search functionality yet, download the Viewer and take a look! Let us know what you think! Share your experiences with these new features in the Technology Forum. And, don’t forget to hit Twitter — follow us @Secondlife and tweet using the hashtag #secondlife. Now, go explore Second Life, tap into your creative side — and make something incredible! Cheers! Linden Lab

Oakland city skyline at night. Image courtesy: thedude.com The 7th Annual Second Life Community Convention 2011 will take place at the Oakland Marriott City Center in Oakland, CA from August 12-14, 2011, and registration is now open! Linden Lab is a sponsor of this great event that is offered to you by the amazing AvaCon organization. Read about them here! The following article courtesy of: slconvention.org: The Second Life Community Convention is three days of exciting activities, events, musical performances, machinima screenings, panels, workshops, and much more that showcases the abundant creativity of Second Life Residents. Don't Just Attend — Be Part of the Convention The Second Life Community Convention is more than just what is planned — the convention is also what you want to make it. Don't just attend — share something with the community! Submit a Proposal The Call for Proposals is up, and with five new track themes and fun presentation formats, you have the opportunity to share your hard work and creativity with the community that will most appreciate your efforts. Don't want to give a full presentation? Consider doing a Speed Sparks session of 20 slides in five minutes to share the gist of your idea in a fast paced presentation style that was a huge hit last year! Be a Staff Member, Track Leader, or Volunteer There are a few Staff and Track Leader positions open, and if you want to help run the show on the ground in Oakland or inworld, you are invited to join the team. It's easy to ask "Why don't they do X?" but the real fun comes when you help make it happen! Apply for a Staff or Track Leader position, or be an Oakland volunteer or Inworld volunteer today! Sponsor the Convention If you have a product or service and want to get your message out to the most enthusiastic Second Life Residents, or if you just want to show your support, there's no better place to spread the word than at the Second Life Community Convention. There are many levels of sponsorship, so it's more than affordable to help support this nonprofit, community produced event - become a sponsor! Organize a Social Event The convention has a light schedule on Friday, Aug. 12th to make sure there's plenty of time for socializing and networking, and to give you the opportunity to organize your own fun events. Check out the Social Events & Mixers page to organize a social event or outing for your friends and communities. Need ideas for things to do? There is a terrific guide of things to do In & Around Oakland to help you get started! Planning Your Trip There has been lots of hard work this year to help keep the cost of the convention affordable, and there are a number of resources available to help you plan your trip. Reserve Your Room at the Oakland Marriott City Center The convention will be held at the Oakland Marriott City Center in the heart of downtown Oakland, CA — just a ten minute train ride from San Francisco. The best room rates ever have been negotiated! $109 a night for up to quad occupancy, and free wireless internet access in guest rooms. You must be registered for the convention to receive the group-rate discount, and you will receive the link to reserve your rooms in the email confirmation you receive when you register for SLCC. Note that lunch on Saturday and Sunday is included in your convention registration, as well as free wireless internet access in all convention spaces. If you need information about flying, driving, or taking the train to SLCC, check out our transportation guide to get all the details you need to get to the convention. Budgeting & Sharing Expenses to Reduce Costs There is also a guide to help you budget for your trip. Visit the SLCC General Budget page to see a breakdown of convention expenses, a general budget guide to help you estimate costs for travel, and tips to help reduce the overall cost of the convention. If you're interested in sharing expenses on hotel rooms or travel, you can also find information to help you coordinate Finding a Roommate or Carpool. Program Information Coming Soon More details will be announced soon about the program sessions and keynote speakers in the coming weeks. SLCC is going to be a fun and thrilling three days of sharing, learning, and networking with Second Life Residents from around the world! See you in Oakland!

You’re invited! Second Life’s 8th birthday (SL8B) celebration begins on Monday, June 20th and runs through Saturday, July 2nd. This year, there are 21 SL8B regions that open at 10:00 am. on Monday, June 20. There will be more than 300 exhibitors 300 live performances, and all the cake you can eat. And, did someone mention the freebies on the Marketplace? Yep, there are already free SL8B bears for everyone. We’ve got a great line up planned and you won’t want to miss a thing! Get a sneak peek of all the planning, preparation, interviews, and events on the official SL8B blog. Can’t wait for the fun? Chantal Harvey, renowned machinima artist and SL8B volunteer, gives you a taste of what’s to come. Phaylen Fairchild has created a wonderful video about the evolution, magic and imagination of SL from inception to its eight year anniversary. Both videos are well worth watching! Also, mark your calendars for Monday, June 20th when Kim Linden will give a short opening address at 11am SLT. Then on June 23rd at 3pm SLT Rodvik Linden, the CEO of Linden Lab, will be mingling with the crowd at the SL8B Main Stage. Follow @Secondlife and the #sl8b hashtag on Twitter for more real-time info! Plus, share memories and fondest moments in Second Life history with #slmoment.

Oh, we have some fun things to share today. Big news on Search and Lighting and Shadows. New Search Beta Makes Finding People, Places, Events, and Things Much Easier In the latest version of SL Viewer (2.7.1) released today, we’re introducing the new Search beta as the standard search technology that helps you find interesting people, places, events, items for sale, and other things to make your inworld experience more fun, collaborative, and meaningful. In addition to the cool things that we mentioned in the Search Project Viewer blog post, here are a few new items that will make searching a breeze: Enhanced Classified Listings: You can now search classified ads in the beta. So, whether you are searching for a seller, item, or store, you’ll be able to find them quickly and easily. Sorting is a Snap in People, Places, Groups, Events, and Land: Handy sorting features are now available in several popular categories. For example, when searching for people, you can sort by either User Name or Display Name. When searching for events, you can sort by name, or by when an event is scheduled to occur. When searching for land, you can sort by name, price, area, and more. Nice, huh? And we’ll be adding more sorting options in the future! Featured Land listings: Not only are we making land listings easier to navigate, but we’ve added featured land listings to the main page. Take a look at the Land & Rentals tab on the search homepage for quick links to available properties! We’ve also added a few subtle, but helpful, usability enhancements—all based on Resident feedback. Those include going back to the check box as an option to click when searching for mature content, adding wildcard searches to the people tab (ex: rod* lin* finds Rodvik Linden), highlighting search terms in results, saving your place in search results when you reopen search, and making it easier to open and close search results. So, big thanks to those who took the time to send feedback in the Search Project Viewer. We got some terrific suggestions. SL Viewer Search is still in beta and we continue to smash bugs, tweak relevance, add features, and optimize it for international Residents. So, let us know what you think by sharing your suggestions by clicking the “Feedback” link at the top of the Search window. Real-Time Lighting and Shadows Brings a New Dimension to Second Life You might have noticed the cool log-in screen images with shadows that give them greater dimensionality and lifelike feeling. Now, you can have them too. This version of the SL Viewer introduces dynamic lighting for multiple local lighting sources, as well as high quality real-time shadows from the sun or moon. And, it’s easy to enable. In the SL Viewer’s Advanced mode, choose Me > Preferences, go to the Graphics tab, click the Advanced button, and just check Lighting and Shadows. (If your graphics card can’t support this option, then it won’t be available.) Then, you will experience the magic of Second Life like never before. For more information, see Lighting and Shadows. So, download the latest SL Viewer today and we’ll see you inworld! Download SL Viewer (2.7.1): Windows | Mac | Linux Helpful Links: SL Viewer Release Notes Feedback Forum on SL Viewer Basic Mode Second Life Search Beta FAQs on the SL Wiki Lighting and Shadows Tutorial on SL Wiki Twitter hashtag #slviewer 

Calling all Landowners! This Project Viewer is definitely one that you’re going to want to try out. So, you know the story: You have a vampire-themed area in Second Life and each Resident who visits your space has to adjust their personal environment settings to get the full spooky nighttime effect. Or, you’ve invited a bunch of friends to a sunset beach party and some of them have their environment settings at midday--not exactly what you had in mind. You’ve long dreamed about the day when you can control the environment settings for all Residents visiting your space. We’re happy to say that your dream has now come true. The Environment Settings (Windlight Region Settings) Project Viewer, available today, gives you the opportunity to try the new region environmental controls that include sky, water, and day cycle settings. This feature gives landowners and region managers the ability to customize and define unique environmental region settings that are automatically shared by others in that region (unless those users have chosen personal overrides). Now, your vampire destination will always be dark and scary and everyone at your beach party can enjoy a perfect, beautiful sunset. One last thing before you get started. For now, everyone in your region must be using this Project Viewer to see the customized environment you’ve set. Otherwise, the lighting will appear as it as it would normally. When we’ve completed this trial, and made any needed changes, we’ll roll this feature into the SL Viewer Beta and eventually, the main SL Viewer. So, give it a go and let us know what you think! Helpful Links: • Download the Environment Settings (Windlight Region Settings) Project Viewer Windows | Macintosh | Linux • Environment Settings (Windlight Region Settings) Project Viewer documentation on the SL Wiki • File Bugs in the SL Viewer (VWR) section of JIRA and link to STORM-1126 issue • Share Your Experiences on this thread in the Land Forum • Follow us on Twitter @Secondlife and tweet using the hashtag #SLViewer 

As you may have seen in the news, email/password combinations for user accounts on other platforms--including Sony’s PlayStation Network--have recently been released following ongoing attacks. To be clear, Second Life has not been targeted in attacks of this kind and your personal information remains secure with us. However, if you access Second Life using the same password from a platform that has been attacked, then your email address could be all that’s needed to take control of your Second Life account. Recently, we have seen people attempt to acquire Second Life users email addresses by posing as a Support agent, a Linden, a trusted member of a group, or someone that you know. We want to do everything possible to help you protect yourself from these attacks. Here are a few things that you should do right now to ensure that your personal information and your Second Life account remains safe and secure. Do Not Reuse Your Second Life Password on Other Platforms Using your Second Life password on other platforms, such as forums, bank accounts, or email services, may put your account at risk if these other platforms are compromised. Change your Second Life password, as soon as possible, if this situation applies to you. Always Practice Good Password Hygiene Here are some good rules of thumb to create a secure password. • Never use a simple word • Make it at least 8 characters in length • Include two numbers • Include two shift-key characters (i.e. %, *, #, +) Be Cautious When Sharing Personal Information Inworld No Linden or Support agent will ever make an unsolicited request for your personal information or password. Do not comply with any such requests, even if they are from an inworld friend or group member, and file an Abuse Report immediately. Finally, if you think that your account has been compromised, then please contact Support and we will help you to resolve the situation. 

Of all of the things that excite us about Second Life, and there are many, Mesh is near the top of our list. Since the Mesh Project Viewer has been available, many content creators have given it a try on the test grid and we have only seen a small glimpse of the unlimited creative potential that this technology brings to Second Life. On behalf of everyone at the Lab, we want to thank everyone who have participated in the test and created these cool videos demonstrating the power of Mesh. So, now that you are excited about trying it out on the Main Grid, we wanted to share the launch time line, as promised. In July, we will enable a limited set of regions to use Mesh and will roll it out, in a phased approach, throughout August. By the end of August, everyone in Second Life will be able to import Mesh objects. Of course, if we run into unforeseen issues or bugs, then this time line will need to shift. We know that you must have a lot of questions regarding policies, costs, and how Mesh objects will be weighted. Although we cannot share these details yet, we will continue to keep you informed on our progress and other relevant news on this blog. So buckle up and get ready for a whole new wave of creativity in SL.

Search is a vital element in Second Life that enables you to find interesting people, places, events, items for sale, and other things to make your inworld experience more fun, collaborative, and meaningful. It has been a while since we last updated you on search and that’s because we’ve chosen to take a big leap forward versus smaller, incremental improvements. We believe that new search is a vast improvement over current search both in terms of usability and relevance. But we’re not the only ones who think that. We conducted a quiet test with a savvy group of Residents who preferred new search results over 75% of the time compared with current search results. Now it’s time for you to test it out. Today, we have released a Search Project Viewer, that works on the main grid. Here are a few things that you’ll notice right away: Better Search Results User Interface: It’s not just prettier (we had to say it), but it’s also much more usable. Our new search engine considers Second Life specific data, such as how many people are at an event versus web-based data, so search results are more relevant and less subject to spam. And, now search results are compiled on a single scrollable page instead of several pages that require multiple clicks to see. You can even view multiple search results at one time by expanding results! Delivers More Relevant Results: The new search engine also serves more relevant results than the current search technology, based on four rounds of double-blind testing. And, we’ll always continue to test and tweak the results to ensure that you find what you’re looking for. To Buy or Rent? That is the Question.: The land sales category has been revamped, separating sales and rentals and giving you better options to limit your search by price range and land size. Now, it’s much easier to find that perfect place to settle in Second Life. Find Out What’s Happening Now: You can also search Events by either the exact start time or ”happening now,” but might have started earlier. That way, you can quickly find out what’s happening in Second Life right now. Search Results Are Saved: Many of you have shared with us how you use search to discover your world and shop, and how you want your search results saved. We’ve all had this experience. We search for something, find an interesting event or place to go shopping, and then want to go back to our search results and find another place to go--but they are gone. When using the new Search, results are saved for 15 minutes so that you can easily go back and explore other options. Take a look at this video and see for yourself. For those who want more details, the Search Project Viewer FAQ explains the test process and the search terms that landowners will need to use when listing their land for sale or rent. One of the first questions many will have is, “Will new search work in Viewer 1.23 and Third-Party Viewers?” New search will soon be available to you in the official SL Viewer and we will not be implementing it for the 1.23 Viewer. To be clear, you can still use the 1.23 Viewer, but search functionality will be impaired once new search is released into general availability, after the test period. (We cannot speak to which Third-Party Viewers will adopt the new search technology.) All of our development efforts are focused on making SL Viewer with Basic and Advanced modes exceptional for all Residents--new and seasoned. So, test out new search using the Search Project Viewer that makes finding cool people, places, and things in Second Life easier than ever before.

Today, we released the latest version of the SL Viewer into general availability with Voice included in Basic mode. All that new users have to do is click on a simple microphone button--a well-understood symbol for voice/sound. For those seasoned Residents, the microphone button is where the Speak button is in Advanced mode. Look for more improvements to the SL Viewer coming soon. In the meantime, download the latest SL Viewer and give Basic mode a try. Helpful Links • Download SL Viewer with Basic and Advanced: ◦ Windows | Mac | Linux • SL Viewer Release Notes • Feedback Forum on SL Viewer Basic Mode • Twitter hashtag #slviewer

Some recent issues with our billing system have caused some accounts to become delinquent and that has prevented those users from logging in to Second Life. We apologize to those who have been affected and for any inconvenience that this has caused. If you have had problems with our billing system, such as difficulty adding or updating your payment info or you are unable to login to Second Life, then we’re here to help. The best way to quickly get your billing issues resolved is to call our Billing Support team who is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And, we’ve just created several new toll free numbers as an added convenience for our international customers. Call Our Support Team to Resolve Your Billing Issues Toll-Free (US/Canada): 800.294.1067 Long-Distance (US/Canada: 703.286.6277 Local Toll-Free numbers: France: 0805.101.490 Germany: 0800.664.5510 Japan: 0066.33.132.830 Portugal: 800.814.450 Spain: 800.300.560 UK: 0800.048.4646 Please press option 3 to get to Billing Support. Or, if you would rather, you can always create a Support case and we’ll get to it as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience as we work through these issues. We’re looking forward to helping you get everything sorted out and seeing you back inworld.