New Changes To WebRTC Voice In Second Life

May 16, 2024Daniel Voyager Leave a comment

On 15th May 2024 Linden Lab announced an update on changes to Voice which is coming to an Agni region near you. The lab have made “great progress” over the past two months since they shared the news on plans to support WebRTC Voice in Second Life.

Linden Lab plans on working on the WebRTC Voice Project Viewer and promote it to Release Candidate status in early June 2024. The lab are looking forward to WebRTC Voice being available grid-wide and supported in our default Viewer and TPVs very soon.

What’s New

Second Life WebRTC Voice Project Viewer is now available: Download
Second Life WebRTC Voice support deployed to Agni channel “Pop Rocks”
- WebRTC Voice 1

To experience spatial audio on this WebRTC Voice Beta region, you will need a WebRTC Voice-enabled Viewer. The WebRTC Voice-enabled viewer can also use voice on non-WebRTC voice-enabled regions. It is our goal that WebRTC-Voice-enabled Viewers can still communicate with all other viewers via P2P, conference and group calls.

You should immediately notice the higher quality audio for voice as well as the following benefits:

Improved security
Removes external dependency on third-party provider for voice
Simple setup from behind firewalls and private networks
Enables greater control of voice operation in the viewer
WebRTC features including audio device selection, stereo audio, noise reduction, automatic gain control, and echo cancellation

There are some known issues:

Conference/Group/P2P in WebRTC is not yet available on the WebRTC Voice regions.
An occasional popup regarding voice server incompatibility can appear. Restart voice if you see this.
The viewer may crash if you connect/disconnect headphones or enable/disable voice.
Voice morphing is not available in this WebRTC-Voice enabled region.

Check out the WebRTC Voice wiki page for more information.

Future Of The Old Linden Home Continents – May 2024 Update

May 16, 2024May 16, 2024Daniel Voyager Leave a comment

As many know the first generation Linden Homes first appeared on the grid back in 2010 and consists of roughly 1, 100 regions. There are four continents south of the grid containing old Linden homes featuring sandboxes, protected underwater areas, parks and some interesting attractions.

Today on the land selection page you can still claim first generation Linden Homes and pick from four LH themes. There is still alot of active residents that still have old Linden homes and are pretty happy staying there. There are a lot of empty homes and areas on the four old Linden Home continents that need sorting out asap.

Timeline

In early December 2021 Patch Linden confirmed that the old Linden Homes will be phased out/repurposed.

Back in early May 2022 the plan was for the old Linden Homes to “mostly go away”. Patch mentioned he hopes to save some of them for historical purposes and hopes to keep areas online for those that may still want one.

Back in early March 2023 Patch Linden said that they are slowly dying a natural death and that the lab still has to pay for all the empty space the unoccupied homes maintain. Patch said that at some point the lab will determine the future of the old Linden home continents.

Last year at SL20B there was a brief mention of the old Linden Homes in terms of the hubs. Patch Linden mentioned that possibly they may get updated and the lab/moles will give them a freshen up a bit. I think the lab are still trying to get the right balance on available new Linden Homes vs the old Linden homes. Having enough supply to meet the demand of shutting down the old Linden Homes is the overall goal.

As of mid May 2024 the lab have not announced anything new about the future of old Linden home continents (still deciding).

Old Linden Home continents on the map – 16th May 2024

I think the most active areas should be saved for historical purposes with empty areas should be closed down because it saves money for the lab. The regions not being used very much could be used to build up other continents in Second Life.

If the lab goes ahead with any big revamp or major closure then there needs to be plenty of advance notice (some kind of upgrade package to move to Bellisseria) and there be likely some level of disruption which will be unavoidable. I’m sure the lab will announce something before the end of 2024/2025 about the future of the old Linden home continents.

I will blog again when the lab makes a decision or gives another update.

Second Life reaches 28, 000 regions mark

May 14, 2024May 13, 2024Daniel Voyager 1 Comment

As of Sunday 12th May 2024 Second Life reached the 28, 000 mark for total regions on the grid. It’s been a very long time since this has happened and this proves that Second Life is growing after almost 21 years of service.

I think the last time Second Life was at this 28k regions rate was back in 2012/2013 roughly. Hopefully it will stay above 28, 000 now and reach 29, 000 within the next few years or so. I do think there needs to be more positive growth for Private Estates in Second Life.

The lab have helped the overall region numbers for Second Life over recent years by adding more and more Linden Owned regions every so often especially for the Bellisseria continent. The ranch and Mediterranean sub continents etc still yet to be fully completed. More Linden Owned regions are expected over the next 6-12 months.

Since early April 2024 both Private Estates and Linden Owned regions have showed positive net growth which is very encouraging and hopefully this growth trend will continue through 2024.

I will be blogging about the grid regions stats and daily user concurrency statistics in early June 2024.

New UI Changes & UI Fixes For Second Life Mobile Private Alpha – May 2024 Update

May 13, 2024May 13, 2024Daniel Voyager 1 Comment

New Android Alpha builds and iOS builds are now available as of 10th May 2024 bringing a more clearer organized Settings menu, displaying the latest version numbers/licensing info along with many user inferface fixes.

In the latest builds it is no longer possible to visit Adult-rated regions using Second Life mobile app. Favourites are now marked visually to indicate if the chosen location cannot be visited.

Public Beta Coming Soon

The lab are now planning the big transition of the Second Life mobile app from Private Alpha phrase to the Public Beta phrase very soon. It’s not clear on if Public Beta will launch before or after SL21B. I think Public Beta will most likely start end of Q2 2024.

The Public Beta phrase would include Premium members and Basis members I would guess and then more developments/new features will be rolled out later in 2024/2025+. There is a lot to still look forward to with Second Life mobile.

Q1 2024 – 1st January – 31st March
Q2 2024 – 1st April – 30th June – 98% chance
Q3 2024 – 1st July – 30th September – 95% chance
Q4 2024 – 1st October – 31st December – 80% chance

The lab have said that “expanding the audience for the app means that we must comply with app store requirements, including limits on the types of content that can be displayed in apps”. The lab are working on finer controls for content maturity in order to allow maximum freedom while complying with app store requirements

What’s New ?

UI changes

Menu > Settings is more clearly organized
Menu > About Second Life displays version number and licensing info

UI fixes

Timestamps no longer display while typing messages
Text in the title bar no longer wraps, so you can close groups with very long names
Automatic login when app is opened
Display “Unnamed parcel” when parcel name is empty
Keyboard no longer obscures text fields (Android only)
Sorbon Beach (The Lost Gardens of Apollo) removed from Mobile

Early Days Of Alpha Testing

Overall good progress has been made since the lab first announced (5 months ago) for Private Alpha on 13th December 2023. It’s good the lab have been informing the Second Life on a regular basis on the progress it’s making.

I have been currently testing out the early access versions of the Second Life Mobile Private Alpha since late January 2024. So far the mobile experience has been getting better since the start of 2024 with really useful improvements and fixes.

The UI changes recently have improved the mobile experience a lot but there is a ton of things missing (not yet rolled out) like add the SLT time, Linden balance, group notices, mini-map/world map, option to take snapshots, inventory much more. The lab are working hard through the roadmap for Second Life mobile and soon everyone will be able to use it.

I am looking forward for when new improvements are made to the Second Life mobile app and when the wider audience can start using it.

New SL21B Multiple Areas On The Map

May 13, 2024Daniel Voyager Leave a comment

Since the start of May 2024 there has been good progress made for the upcoming SL21B event scheduled for 21st June through until 21st July 2024. There are now new multiple areas that new development is taking place for SL21B. It appears there are stages in progress. some water regions and that there is a new template for general exhibit regions. One of the regions is called “SLB Spicy” which is interesting as this was mentioned on the SL blog at the end of last year.

The first batch of SL21B regions arrived back on the grid back in mid March 2024 with two build regions along with a group of planning regions and since then it’s been steadily progressing. There are now 31 “SLB” regions in total on the grid. This overall number here may be lower at the grand opening due to the planning regions etc which may or not be used for the public.

There is now roughly 40 days remaining until the grand opening day of SL21B. As we get closer to the opening day the big merge will take place where all the “SLB” will come together in one big land mass. More region map transformation and more build development is to be expected within the next five weeks.

Here are the latest SL21B map previews as of Monday 13th May 2024….

Part 1