Austin Tate's Blog

And a set of adverts using Gerry Anderson productions…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-K1W-T1naA

This blog post on 12th September 2021 by covers some interesting locations to visit on the Bellisseria containment in Second Life… the location for Linden Homes such as my houseboat…

https://secondsighting.wordpress.com/2021/09/12/ten-special-attractions-to-visit-in-bellisseria/

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Franklin%20Hollow/133/81/54
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Rigamarole/147/150/23
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Treeowatoor/227/59/22
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Altberg/109/126/52
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Millers%20Pond/158/210/9

The Global Youth Engineering Climate Conference 2021 (GYECC21) online virtual event took place on 7th and 8th September 2021 with exhibits and facilities being available thereafter until 12-Nov-2021. Over 4,000 attendees for some 100 countries joined the event. Use #GYECC21 in social media posts. Access facilities via https://gyecc21.onbeehive.global/

The virtual event platform used is “Beehive” (https://liveunion.co.uk/beehive/).

See also https://liveunion.co.uk/our-work/national-grid-global-youth-engineering-conference/

A few observations on the Beehive platform:

1. The animated “Eco-Park” orientation approach and entry to the various areas works well and is easy to use and navigate. Watch out for “Nessy”.
2. The “Points” system encourages exploration of the exhibits and galleries as well as use of the collaborative aspects of the platform.
3. When an attendee tries to set up a 1-1 meeting, there was no means I could see to message them to better arrange mutually convenient times, or discuss in advance the topic of the proposed conversation.
4. When trying to suggest an alternative time for 1-1 meetings for someone who had previously suggested a meeting, the time slot selector briefly flas

On 21st October 2021, the 360° Snapshot “Project Viewer” became a Release candidate as version 6.5.0.564863.

Since 2016 a Second Life “Project Viewer” has been under development by Linden Lab that allows for the creation of 360° snapshots in Second Life virtual world scenes (see this earlier blog post). After a period of inactivity, a new version 6.4.23.563579 was released on September 3rd, 2021.

The 360° Project Viewer allows for the capture of 360° panorama (equirectangular) snapshots which can be saved to the users’ local computer and then viewed or shared via social media streams, uploaded to sites that support 360° images such as Flickr, or viewed in VR for example via the “360 Photos” app for Oculus Rift. The facility can be accessed via the Viewer menu “World” -> “360 Snapshot”. For convenience, a User Interface button can be added to the menu bar to provide access to the 360° Snapshot Tool, or a link off the standard 2D snapshot tool also opens the 360° tool.

Set a suitable viewer distance for what you want to capture, and I find it best to look round and ensure all content is concurrently visible without refreshing as you look round. Try increasing the viewer cache size if it doesn’t.

Image Quality Choices

All 360° images are created as 4096×2048, 24-bit colour and 96dpi. The quality settings vary in the JPEG image quality saved setting, and hence the file size. All image quality levels looked crisp except for “Preview” which appears blurry.

Click on Thumbnails Below to View Example 360° Images on Flickr

The above 360° images can also be viewed in this Flickr Photostream.

Issues Remaining with Second Life 6.4.23.563579 Project Viewer

1. The “Preview” quality settings appears blurry in all instances. Perhaps a refinement to the quality being created here to make it the minimum that would appear crisp would be useful.
2. When using the “Maximum” quality image setting, a few times some objects in view, such as a sailboat, was only partially rendered. Dropping to the next level down “High” quality appeared to render fine.
3. The 6 sides of the cube “skybox” that are created to form the image can show clear demarcation lines at the sides of the faces… especially when the sky light varies a lot between the directions. The sea level can also appear with a straight edge and corner where the sides of the cube meet. See example to right.

Images from 360° Snapshot Project Viewer 6.5.0.564863

Launch video for Space:1999 Technical Operations Manual by Chris Thompson and Andrew Clements… due for release in October 2021 via Anderson Entertainment.

Starlog Moonbase Alpha Technical Notebook

Released via Starlog Magazine in 1977 as a mail order item.

50 years after their initial formation and 40 years after their last performances together, Swedish super-group Abba are back with a new album and a virtual reality concert planned to start in London’s Olympic Park in May 2022. Avatars created by Industrial Light & Magic and a team of graphics artists have created the Abba as they appeared in 1979 using motion capture by the four members of group themselves: Agnetha, Anni-Frid, Benny and Björn… Abba Voyage – https://abbavoyage.com/

Abba Avatars

Motion capture by Industrial Light and Magic. Image by Baille Walsh

Abba Voyage Motion Capture

Abba Voyage Arena – London

Abba Avatars Technology

Back in 2019, the web site GraphicNews had an infographic that described the likely projection technology to be used for the show. Click here for Infographic.

Track from Abba Voyage Album – I Still Have Faith in You

https://efi.ed.ac.uk/events/future-culture-edinburgh/

Can we collectively reimagine Edinburgh’s cultural ecosystem and its future?

A mixed-reality workshop broadcast from Leith Theatre, Edinburgh with online participants via Zoom, organised by the Edinburgh Futures Institute.

miro.com was used to allow brainstorm style input from participants… [https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_l0TOZ6Y=/]

This is feedback after trying for myself the recently changed new account sign up web experience after receiving comments from professional colleagues joining Second Life for the first time, and being surprised at unsuitability for their purposes for the starter avatar they were given without choice BEFORE they were logged in, were visible to others, and used the appearance and avatar selection facilities. An issue seems to be the lack now of a selection of a starter avatar closer to their purpose and preferences BEFORE entering in world, as used to be the case (see this blog post of the process in 2016).

There seems to be no mention you have to go to e-mail and check that for the verification mail that is there. The viewer just says could not log you in!

Initially I could not log into the viewer the password accepted at account creation time, so thought that the password I had used must be wrong. I had remembered it correctly, as I could log in to the web account page. BUT when I came to change the password on the web it kept complaining the password was not suitable. I had to add more special characters and complexity than the instructions of a suitable password indicated before it was accepted. When that was accepted on the web page it also worked in the viewer. So there is some mismatch between viewer checks and account creation checks in terms of password complexity allowed (as at 30-Aug-2021).

The new avatar arrives at a “Welcome Island” where a few orientation areas allow the new avatar to get used to the environment. A Guidebook” is displayed in the viewer to walk the new user through the initial essential things of movement and interaction between objects and other avatars. the Guidebook and tutorials can be recalled at any point via a button in the viewer, and the user can return to a version of the Welcome (Back) Island – not the original one so new users are protected from hassle).

The initially allocated avatar seems to be arbitrary. Though feedback from colleagues indicates a single choice for female (shopping girl!), male (orange shirted 70’s bloke) and Chris (for no Gender/Non-binary) seem to be the avatars appearing on the starter/welcome region. I understand avatar appearance and complete avatar selection can be altered in the viewer, but a lot of users may be unhappy with the initial allocation in terms of look, shape, skin colour, etc. My colleagues say they lao feel under pressure at this point as they are aware they are in a place where they are seen by others. Removing the avatar selection carousel may not suit everyone. Maybe show the initial avatar choices or a “select later in world” option at account creation time? Or fundamentally change the initial process to use a personal “changing room” space BEFORE joining any public space.

I could not see an area where Linden Lab sought feedback after I logged in with the new avatar.

Details After Some Use

As soon as I began to obtain some of the avatar items and complete avatars, I realised that all empty folders in the inventory were not (by default) displayed. That meant when it came to amending or making a new shape the “Body Parts” folder was not visible to place these items in and to encourage organised inventory for new users from the start. This can be changed by the user, but is not obvious to new users.

It is also the case that opening group and friends tools to participate in social events is quite deeply buried. Placing these choices on the right-click context menu for the avatar (as it was for many years until recently) would be helpful.

This blog post is to support a short project to have University of Edinburgh Information Services (IS) folks get started with (or return to) Second Life as part of the handover of some of the work with the Virtual University of Edinburgh (Vue) from Austin Tate (avatar Ai Austin) who has acted as the Coordinator for Vue from 2007.

Vue is a virtual educational and research institute bringing together all those interested in the use of virtual worlds for teaching, research and outreach related to the University of Edinburgh.

Project Aim from IS

Stuart Nicol on 24-Aug-2021: “I was thinking about getting some people in my team more up to speed with Second Life/OpenSim. One way to do this would be to get a couple of folks to work on a practical experiment. I’d like to set up a virtual office in SL as we return to our physical office … by setting up something akin to the approach used in the Vue virtual graduations (a screen in the office showing SL and avatars of those working at home, and a video feed of the physical office being displayed in SL). I’ve identified a couple of people who are willing to help with this, and was wondering if you would be able to advise them on how to set this up? It would mean that they begin to get up to speed and we would be in a better place in relation to keeping some knowledge of the environment.”

Suggestions

I think its a good idea to start in Second Life to gain experience. They can install the official Linden Lab viewer, but (later) I would suggest though that your team use the Firestorm viewer rather than the official Linden Lab one. FS is the most widely used viewer in SL but also has the advantage that a version of that same viewer also can be used on both SL and for the open source OpenSim grids. http://firestormviewer.org. Both can co-exist anyway.

When you first enter Second Life there will be a welcome/tutorial area to help you get started. But here is some info and a short video…
https://community.secondlife.com/knowledgebase/english/second-life-quickstart-r373/

Have ONE of the users register in SL with a “Premium Account”? It can be done monthly ($12), but my suggestion is to do it as one annual payment as its quite a bit cheaper… $99
https://go.secondlife.com/premium

This will allow that user to have a 1024sq.m. plot on a LL region without further payment… such as one of the Linden Homes in various styles.. like the houseboat I have. I think this is a good way to get a simple start and it can easily be changed later to a different style or to a custom use mainland plot (you just abandon the plot you already may have first), or even a private island like we used to have.

The rest can use free accounts. I will suggest a group is set up to link these folks. The premium user will get L$1000 (about US$4) as a starter fund and L$300 a week to have some funds if needed to buy items. Some free items for avatars can be found at helping Haven Gateway in Second Life at its “Freebie Village” via this link… http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Helping%20Haven%20Gateway/173/42/25

With that in place I can maybe join the folks in world and help them set up the office/base to support the group, rather than just the individual owner) and set up a media screen that should support the video stream inwards.

OpenSim can follow along if things work out… maybe by setting up an addon region in OSGrid to replicate what is set up in SL, but maybe starting with the OpenVCE collaboration region content as an initial setup.

Locations, Avatars & Groups

Temporary meeting place: Ai Austin’s Houseboat (Linden Lab Home):
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Damiano/90/18/21

Ai Austin
DudleyTidwell
Gallagher Glenfadden
MorenGenver
Nico Halfpint

Vuer (open group for anyone interested)
Vue Associates (Project group including people outside UoE)
Vue Development (Vue builders group)
Vue Experimental (Vue experiments group) [Used for this experiment]
Vue Maintenance (Vue estate managers and administrators)

Sample Video Live Streams

The aim is to link a real world space in IS via video into Second Life workspace and vice versa. We can explore a suitable format to use to play in world, but pretty much anything that will play in Google Chrome will work (as SL uses the Google Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) library to play content on inworld media surfaces.)

E.g. for a YouTube Livestream – use the embed/<video>?autoplay=1 form:

SpaceX Starbase Nerdle Cam:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/sTA0GTgFn5E?autoplay=1

Temporary Facilities for Meetings in Second Life

A number of Open Educational Resources (OERs) are available in Second Life to set up Vue facilities. See the blog posts Vue -> Openvue and Vue and OpenVCE OERs.

The OpenVCE project (http://openvce.net) contracted with Clever Zebra to produce the OpenVCE collaboration region virtual world assets for Second Life and OpenSim. Those assets are available under the Lesser GPL open source licence via http://openvce.net/resources/downloads/ or http://vue.ed.ac.uk/resources/open.ed/.

The original Clever Zebra open source assets under the CC-BY-NC licence are archived at http://vue.ed.ac.uk/resources/open.ed/OpenVCE/CleverZebra/ and this includes an OpenSim Archive File (OAR) file which can be loaded onto an OpenSim region using “load oar” region console command.

OpenVCE Virtual World Assets
Version: 1.3
Revision Date: 13-Aug-2009 (Second Life and OpenSim locations updated 19-Jul-2021)

Description: Freely available buildings, landscaping elements and textures to support the creation of collaborative and other facilities in virtual worlds such as Second Life and OpenSim.

Licence:

The licence details and credits should remain attached to the assets.

Open source under the GNU Lesser General Public License (Version 3,
29 June 2007) for maximum flexibility and re-use potential.

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html

The OpenVCE approach makes use of modular components from many other open source contributors and communities, and are available under their respective licences. Most parts are available from their normal open source download site.

Credits:

Design and Development: Clever Zebra (http://cleverzebra.com)
Design Inputs from AIAI, University of Edinburgh (Austin Tate, Stephen Potter)

The development of these resources was supported by a grant from the OpenVCE project (http://openvce.net).

Availability:

OpenVCE web assets are available at: http://openvce.net/downloads

Second Life OpenVCE assets are available via the Second Life Marketplace:
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/124830
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/OpenVCE-Complete-Build-Set/3963899

OpenSimulator OpenVCE assets are available on the OpenVCE region on OSGrid at hop://hg.osgrid.org:80/OpenVCE/128/128/20

Contact: downloads@openvce.net and a.tate@ed.ac.uk

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics (actually run in 2021 due to the COVID-19 epidemic) introduced Skateboarding Freestyle and Park Riding into the event list for the first time. It reminded me to go back over some of the early championships run in Scotland and at UK and European level back in 1978-1980.

I was Competitions Secretary for some of these events and Secretary for the Scottish Skateboard Association at the time as well as a skateboarder in the Edinburgh University Skateboard Club. We were fortunate to have excellent park/bowl riding facilities in Glasgow at Kelvingrove Park (see this short movie from the time) and in Livingstone, both of which had enlightened and enthusiastically supportive Recreations & Parks departments. A few of the competition programmes and competition regulations used at that time are reproduced here.

Index

• 1978 Scottish Skateboard Championships
• 1979 Scottish Skateboard Championships
• 1979 1st UK Open Skateboard Championships
• 1980 Scottish Skateboard Championships
• 1978 Scottish Skateboard Association Competition Rules
• 1978 Scottish Skateboard Association Proficiency/Skatepark Grading Scheme
• 1979 Scottish Skateboard Association Competition Rules
• SSA Badge and Competitor’s Registration Card
• SSA – Annual Reports 1977-78 and 1978-79

Click on any thumbnail image to see the full resolution version.

1978 Scottish Skateboard Championships

1979 Scottish Skateboard Championships

1979 1st UK Open Skateboard Championships

Congratulations Telegram to 1st UK Open Skateboard Championships Organisers from Rolling Thunder Skatepark, London…

1980 Scottish Skateboard Championships

1978 Scottish Skateboard Association Competition Rules

1978 Scottish Skateboard Association Competition Rules
(click for PDF version)

The 1979 revised competition regulations added extra details and appendices for Park/Bowl Riding and Freestyle competitions along with the naming of tricks and their degree of difficulty.

1978 Scottish Skateboard Association Proficiency/Skatepark Grading Scheme

1979 Scottish Skateboard Association Competition Rules

1979 Scottish Skateboard Association Competition Rules
(click for PDF version)

SSA Badge and Competitor’s Registration Card

SSA – Annual Report 1977-78

SSA – Annual Report 1978-79

Firestorm 6.4.21 + P373R VR Mod: This build includes P373R’s VR Mod 6.3.3 changes merged into Firestorm 6.4.21.64531 release branch. No change to the VR Mod code is needed. It is created using “GitHub Actions” (GHA) thanks to Humbletim… see
https://github.com/humbletim/firestorm-gha/releases/tag/v6.4.21-vr-alpha-0

The user instructions are identical to Firestorm VR Mod 6.4.12 which is described at
https://blog.inf.ed.ac.uk/atate/2020/12/11/firestorm-vr-mod-6-4-12/

Jeff Bezos, Mark Bezos, Wally Funk, and Oliver Daemen have become the first humans to fly in Blue Origin’s New Shepard from the West Texas launch site. Funk, an 82-year-old aviation pioneer, became the oldest person to fly in space. Daemen, an 18-year-old Dutch student, became the youngest.

This is a blog post to support resources from the Virtual University of Edinburgh (Vue) and Open Virtual Collaboration Environment (OpenVCE) activities to make them available on http://open.ed.ac.uk. Contact – Stephanie Farley (Charlie). Downloads available are in http://vue.ed.ac.uk/resources/open.ed/

See https://open.ed.ac.uk/virtual-world-simulator-platform-resources/

Vue is a virtual educational and research institute bringing together all those interested in the use of virtual worlds for teaching, research and outreach related to the University of Edinburgh.

Even before Second Life began to be used across the University of Edinburgh in 2007, groups in Business Studies, Education and Artificial Intelligence/Informatics had been exploring virtual worlds platforms for a range of collaboration, educational and research project uses. Early Multi-User Dimensions (MUDs), platforms (now long gone) such as “There” and commercial virtual world simulators such as “Forterra” had been in use, and Second Life itself had been used even in its very earliest incarnation.

The following blog post indicates what Vue usage there has been of Virtual Worlds…
https://blog.inf.ed.ac.uk/atate/2018/04/27/virtual-worlds-technology-for-university-of-edinburgh/

The original Second Life Vue regions used from 2007 to 2019 are no longer maintained, but resources are available to use any available space in Second Life and a similar set of facilities are available on the OpenSimulator Platform and in some other experimental virtual worlds platforms…

Virtual Worlds Regions and Content

The Openvue “mini-continent” contains 12 256mx256m regions…

The lower right hand corner contains the “OpenVCE” (Open Virtual Collaboration Environment) region created by us and made available an an open educational resource that anyone can obtain and use in Second Life or OpenSim (see this blog post). It is also available as a selectable starter region on a range of OpenSim hosting platforms.

Open Educational Resources – Vue

Available via http://vue.ed.ac.uk/resources/open.ed/

• OpenSim OAR (OpenSimulator Archive File) and terrain (.png and .f32 formats) for each region in the Vue “continent” as originally mounted on Second Life.
• Extra OpenSim OARs and terrain files. Edinburgh is a variant of the Edinburgh Uplands region with “Edinburgh Castle” and “High Street” content that can stand alone. Sea-Vue is a simple region with only water and can be used for infill between other regions where useful.
• Male and Female “Bots” avatars.
• Second Life Marketplace – Ai Austin Store – resources to create temporary facilities on Second Life sandboxes or other areas where they are allowed to build.

Open Educational Resources – OpenVCE

OpenVCE content for Second Life is available via the Second Life Marketplace:

• Ai Austin Store – OpenVCE Complete Set

OpenVCE content for Opensim is available via http://vue.ed.ac.uk/resources/open.ed/

• OpenSim OAR of all core elements and buildings.
• OpenSim OAR of a pre-arranged collaboration region.
• Presentation screen adjustments to scripts.
• Readme and LGPL licence.

You can visit an OpenVCE region on OSGrid (free avatar via http://osgrid.org) at

• hop://hg.osgrid.org:80/OpenVCE/128/128/20

On 11th July 2021 Virgin Galactic plans flew its first fully crewed mission in “VSS Unity” spaceplane launched from under the carrier aircraft “VMS Eve”. The crew included Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic. See this press release for more details. Welcome to the next phase of the Space Age.

Also win a trip to space with Virgin Galactic via Omaze –
https://www.omaze.com/products/virgin-galactic-2021

Austin Tate has acted as the Coordinator for the Virtual University of Edinburgh (Vue) since 2007 and acts as the administrator for the various collaboration facilities. These notes are intended as resources to assist in the transition of the assets and resources to a new Coordinator for Vue.

Vue is a virtual educational and research institute bringing together all those interested in the use of virtual worlds for teaching, research and outreach related to the University of Edinburgh.

Even before Second Life began to be used across the University in 2007, groups in Business Studies, Education and Artificial Intelligence/Informatics had been exploring virtual worlds platforms for a range of collaboration, educational and research project uses. Platforms (now long gone) such as “There” and commercial virtual world simulators such as “Forterra” had been in use, and Second Life itself had been used even in its very earliest incarnation.

The following blog post indicates what Vue usage there has been of Virtual Worlds…
https://blog.inf.ed.ac.uk/atate/2018/04/27/virtual-worlds-technology-for-university-of-edinburgh/

Green Technology, Virtual Reality (VR) and Intelligent Teaching Spaces

Virtual worlds can play into a range of Learning technologies that the University could be interested in longer term. Hybrid or mixed-reality meetings to reduce the carbon/travel impact of academic conferences, workshops, project meetings and interviews, project expo spaces, use of VR, intelligent instrumented supportive teaching spaces with AI virtual assistants, etc.

Virtual Worlds Platforms for Vue

The original Second Life Vue regions used from 2007 to 2019 are no longer maintained, but resources are available to use any available space in Second Life and a similar set of facilities are available on the OpenSimulator Platform and in some other experimental virtual worlds platforms…

• OpenSim – Openvue
• OpenSim – OSGrid Addon Regions
• Sinespace – Vue Region
• Second Life Marketplace – Ai Austin Store – resources to create temporary facilities on Second Life sandboxes or other areas where they are allowed to build.

The OpenSim Openvue “mini-continent” contains 12 256mx256m regions…

The lower right hand corner contains the “OpenVCE” (Open Virtual Collaboration Environment) region created by us and made available an an open educational resource that anyone can obtain and use in Second Life or OpenSim (see this blog post). It is also available as a selectable starter region on a range of OpenSim hosting platforms.

Vue Collaboration Facilities

• Web Site: http://vue.ed.ac.uk and http://vue.ed.ac.uk/openvue/
• Open Educational Resources: Vue and OpenVCE (open.ed.ac.uk)
• Mailing Lists: A moderated e-mail list for members of the University of Edinburgh. Contact Austin Tate <a.tate@ed.ac.uk> to be added to the list. [vue@lists.ed.ac.uk (alias vue@ed.ac.uk)] [Admin: https://mlist.is.ed.ac.uk/lists/admin/vue]
• Wiki: https://www.wiki.ed.ac.uk/display/VueWiki/

Vue Regional Planning Authority (VRPA)

The rather grandly named “Vue Regional Planning Authority” (VRPA)* is a small group of people from across the University of Edinburgh who raised funds for the Second Life and OpenSim Vue regions and servers and were involved in the design and creation of the facilities. The group continues to be involved in explorations of other virtual world platforms in their own Schools, groups and across the University for the potential benefit of others. [vrpa@lists.ed.ac.uk] [Admin: https://mlist.is.ed.ac.uk/lists/admin/vrpa]

*name suggested by Hamish Macleod.

Making Fresh OSGrid Addon Regions

A new set of regions could be created with new region owner avatar(s) and content restored via save and load OAR (OpenSim Archive files) which are now archive on open.ed.

Temporary region names would be used, but once the new regions are established and running well, the original Vue addon regions on OSGrid can be closed down, and then the new regions can be renamed to their original counterparts.

Continuation of Second Life Capabilities

The University and Schools no longer own specific regions in Second Life, but a foothold could be achieved by having a small home/office setup. This could perhaps be most effectively done by having a user (normally free) become a Premium Member (approx. US$99 per annum) which gives a weekly stipend of around US$1.25 per week and allows a 1024sq.m. personal space with options for a range of prebuilt home styles (Linden Homes), e.g. such as this “Houseboat” style used by Ai Austin.

Making a Fresh Openvue Grid

Over time the databases and content for the OpenSim-based Openvue and the Vue regions added onto the openly accessible OSGrid have grown and an occasional tidy up can be be beneficial to ensure only truly accessible content and active avatar users are included and the data base size is reduced. As at July 2021 the Openvue MySQL data base when dumped to an SQL file as a backup is 18GB. There are 36 avatars included, quite a few of which are inactive.

A new OpenSim “ROBUST” grid can be set up with a new administrator and a single new region owned by the new administrator. This can become the welcome or landing region for the new grid. The grid and any regions can be renamed later. Further regions and active content can then be added via recreating the key content owning users (create user with previous UUID) and loading their inventories (via save and load IAR – Inventory Archive files) and then setting up the regions afresh and restoring their content (via save and load OAR). Once the new grid is established and running well, the original Openvue grid can be closed down.

Issues for the Future

To improve security, the University of Edinburgh may not permit non-central services staff to run or manage services and applications accessible outside of the University and may require use only by internal users or those with login access via VPN to ed.ac.uk. This could mean that OpenSim Hypergrid access to external users and potential external visitors to meetings or viewing content held on OpenSim (Openvue) would not be able to gain access.

OpenSim Openvue grid and OSGrid Vue regions make use of a free vivix voice license that was offered to educators, non-profits and small grids on a free basis. Vivox is now owned by Unity and they have announced that new free licenses will not be offered. Voice is an important facility cor Vue uses of virtual worlds. An alternative may have to be found in future. Dome people have experimented with self hosted open source “Freeswitch” servers for voice.

Notes on Security for OSGrid Regions Running in ed.ac.uk

To enable discussions about the risk of running OSGrid addon regions in inf.ed.ac,uk or ed.ac.uk the following notes might be helpful.

OSGrid is the main development, testing and community hub for and provides free avatar registration for users. It is a non-commercial grid that runs on community support and donations. It allows self hosted regions to be added in a simple way. OSGrid central servers and the core databases are hosted in the USA. OSGrid allows a simple way for anyone to host their own add on regions and manage that virtual world space. Users agree to the terms and conditions of usage centrally and their details are not managed at all locally by regions. For each region one port (typically port 9000 and upwards for more than one region) has to be accessible for TCP and UDP. Local regions can set a very wide range of policies for users to their own regions, e.g., to allow access to members of specific users or groups, prevent local building. etc, and even close the region completely when needed. The default policies have safe limits on what scripts can run and are set to prevent external interaction with the underlying operating system.

Virgin Orbit launched their first commercial orbital mission on 30th June 2021 following a successful orbital test mission in January 2021. The mission was called “Tubular Bells Pt. 1”.

Hosted by the University of Hull on 27th may 2021, there was a live screening, Q&A, discussion and live onstage filming re-creation of a key scene with the team behind the web series Nebula 75, which was created during the Corvid-19 lockdown of Spring/Summer 2020. The productions uses ‘Supermarionation’ puppetry techniques originally developed by Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson as well as the ‘Superisolation’ techniques that the team developed themselves by necessity as the series was recorded in their London flat.

Ron Miller gave a presentation at the British Interplanetary Society (BIS) online event on 19th May 2021 (web page). Ron Miller is an internationally acclaimed artist who is focussed on space themes. I have been a fan of his work since the 1990s when I got his book with William K. Hartmann entitled “Grand Tour – Traveller’s Guide to the Solar System” and later books.

“Long Distance Traveller – the Life and Work of Space Artist Ron Miller”

Replay of the event on the BIS YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBritishInterplanetarySociety

During the presentation and discussion Ron described some of his techniques and tools. Having started off with traditional painting techniques, he changed to digital art. He typically takes 3 to 4 days for each image. Much of teh work is done in Photoshop, but for some elements he composes into the scenes he uses a range of methods and tools. GHe uses TerraGen to create some landscapes as 3D models. He also uses 3D models of spacecraft, such as NASA models. He has 3D printed some parts to photograph and include in compositions. Recently for his own interest he went back to using traditional painting in acrylic for some images.

Blue Origin (blueorigin.com) is to auction the first seat on a crewed flight to space on the New Shepherd rocket and capsule planned tor 20th July 2021 with the proceeds of the auction being donated to the Club for the Future (clubforfuture.org) charity to inspire future generations to pursue careers in STEM and to help invent the future of life in space. The flight is a ballistic trajectory similar to that flown by Alan Shepherd, the first American into space 60 years ago.

Note: There are 29 A4 pages of Terms and Conditions, privacy notice and other information on the multi-step and US$10,000 deposit process to raise your bid limit to be competitive.

Bidding Status at 20-May-2021 – Highest Bid at $2.8m