I recently got invited to be a judge during the RMB City “Naked Idol” Contest. It basically mimics the well-known “Idol” competition format, where contestants showcase their talents to a group of three “celebrity” judges. However, in this particular contest, talent is defined more to be how the participants “assembled” or created their look for the event, based on the theme and the rules of the contest.

As the theme was obviously about nakedness, the participants came in various types of avatars, but of course, most came into the contest in human form, and in their “birthday suit”–nude and even stark naked. However, the RMB City guidelines for the event states that naked doesn’t necessarily mean that the avatar has to be totally undressed–the participant can also wish to express various concepts of nudity or nakedness, as we perceive it in various situations.

The contest was hosted by Zilla Warrhol of RMB City. The judges were myself, NWN Correspondent Hamlet Au, and China Tracy. While Hamlet came in wearing boxer shorts, I was more surprised to see him, for the first time, wearing a detailed Second Life skin (complete with body hair!), instead of his usual “Hamlet” skin.

There were about 14 participants during the event, and some had to unfortunately drop out of competition due to scheduling issues while the contest was ongoing. Nevertheless, the contest proceeded with the host directing the contestants to various locations in RMB City, and performing amusing and wacky animations (part of their “tasks”), then finally, leading them back to the Bird’s Nest, for the question and answer portion of the competition. The judges asked each contestant various questions ranging from inspirations to their chosen look for their avatar, to questions about what nudity or nakedness means to the contestant. After the gruelling Q&A, the scores were tallied and the results were announced.

The winners of the event were as follows. Third place went to Ford Roffo, a crazy colorful Chimpanzee who really dominated the event with his crazy antics in voice and chat. Second place went to Molly Montale, who came as a glowing and dazzling “moving matrix” skin/shape form. And the first prize went to Vivienne Graves, who came to the competition as a satyr/faun/neko avatar accented with various accessories.

A flickr.com gallery of images taken during the event can be found here (WARNING: Some images may be NSFW).

Linden Lab just announced an alpha release of Viewer 2.1. While most of the improvements are on performance, stability and usablity Linden Lab is also excited to reveal two new features including single sign-on and Voice Morphing, that can change the sound of your inworld voice to match your avatar. It’s an exciting new feature that will allow even greater opportunity for fun and expression. Now, not only can you outfit your avatar to suit your favorite look, but you can also get an awesome inworld voice to match as well.

New Character For Voice
Voice Morphing is a feature that Residents have been asking for almost as long as we’ve had voice capabilities inworld. Simply put, it’s the ability to change your avatar’s voice to match any one of a number of tones and characteristics. Want to sound like a robot, a furry, or the opposite sex? With Voice Morphing, that ability is now just a few clicks away. The ability to change what your voice sounds like inworld will not only make it a richer and more interesting experience to be part of a community in Second Life, but will also help introduce voice to Residents who have been reluctant to use it in the past because they were uncomfortable making their real voice heard inworld. With Voice Morphing, you can be whoever you like in Second Life in voice as well as in appearance.

As a first step, LindenLab introduced 25 voices, available for purchase via subscription in five packs of five each, with the following themes: scary, feminine, masculine, tiny, and techie. You’ll be able to sample each one for free to find the morphs that work best for you.

For more information you can check SL’s official blogsite Here

More information on VoiceMorphing
http://secondlife.com/landing/voicemorphing
http://blogs.secondlife.com/community/community/blog/2010/06/10/find-your-inworld-voice-second-life-voice-morphing
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Voice_Morphing

Robert Wang, a computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Artificial Intelligence Lab. has developed a system that could bring gesture-based computing to the masses and it requires nothing more than a pair of multicoloured latex gloves, a webcam and a laptop.

As seen in the video, the device has a lot of potential for virtual design, especially building objects inside virtual worlds, such as Second Life.

Here is a brilliant and inspiring blog entry by Dusan Writer, eminent SL/VW Evangelist, that strikes deep into the heart of the “whys” of our presence inside virtual worlds like Second Life, and why the simple act of creation, such as rezzing a prim (Second Life’s basic building block), is still a fundamental experience that every resident has to go through, as part of the process of “becoming” and achieving transformation inworld, and in real life. His thoughts and ideas about the issue are best summed up by his ending:

“In the act of creation and in the knowledge that the tools for inventing worlds are at our fingertips, we discover that we have access to a wellspring of ideas that won’t just transform our lives online, they’ll show us the way to transforming the atomic one as well.”

Read his entire blog entry here.

Today, MLinden officially blogged about Linden Lab’s restructuring to accommodate two of there previous goals. First, Linden Lab will create a browser-based virtual world experience, eliminating the need to download software. Secondly, Linden Lab will look to extend the Second Life experience into popular social networks. Another reason for the restructuring is cost cutting. Eliminating some great employees, MLinden is sad to see them go. But perhaps it is for the better as some, like the SL Enterprise, failed to meet both expectation from the audience and the company.

Here are the goals stated from MLinden’s Blog:
“Our restructuring plan has three main goals:
* to improve our focus as a company on the projects that matter most to Residents
* to simplify our organizational structure and operate more efficiently
* to achieve cost savings so that we can invest in platform improvements, new products, and new lines of business.”

MLinden annoucnes Linden Labs restructuring

Related Blogs:
Botgril’s Take on Linden Labs “New Direction”
LindenLab Pressroom