Andy Nyman’s Polarbear Podcast, a weekly radio show about all things Swedish in English, is now being piped into the Swedish Orientation sim. Press play on the music player while walking around there, going for a swim or while sitting in the Sauna to listen to the latest edition.
The only tricky bit — moving from one sim to the other interrupts what you’re listening to. That, alas, is the limit of Second Life technology today:-) Best to stay put in the sauna then.
Since the launch, we’ve been manning the Second House of Sweden for a few hours every weekday, using our own existing internal resources. But we’re short on manpower at the Swedish Institute (in real life), and an embassy needs to be manned for longer than that — even a virtual one, as people can visit at all hours.
Starting September 1, we’ll be raising the number of hours you can find somebody staffing the sim to a minimum of six hours per day, seven days a week. If you want to learn something about Sweden, its virtual embassy in Second Life, or even just Second Life, come and pay us a visit; chances are good you’ll find someone to talk to.
To help us in this endeavour we’ve hired Praetores Laboratory AB to recruit bright and knowledgeable Second Life residents. You might have heard of Praetores Laboratory before: They’re the very talented people behind the “Second Sweden” sims.
We’ve had many people responding to the “We’re Hiring” sign at the reception desk. Praetores Laboratory will now be interviewing people, with a view to hiring suitable candidates.
Nevermind the mugshot quality of the mug on that image:-) On the left, the computer is encoding the built-in iSight camera’s video stream in real time using Wirecast, and sending it on to a server hosted by Qbrick, where it is broadcast to the internet, including to the screen at the Second House of Sweden’s auditorium, seen on the right.
All that’s different between the two video screens is 12 seconds of lag, because the QuickTime technology likes to buffer. Second Life, then, is just 12 seconds behind real life:-)
The upshot? We’ll be able to do live broadcasts of Swedish jazz concerts, DJ sessions and debates straight to Second Life, as well as to the web (which is the usual way to broadcast). Why is the Second Life stream much more fun and groundbreaking? Because it can be viewed socially; comments can be made among the audience, questions can be sent to the real-life event, or — just as likely — spontaneous dancing can erupt.
There are plenty more other things we’ll likely be able to do with this cool setup, but first, we need to test a bit more. Watch this space.
What: Gallery Talk by Nationalmuseum at Second House of Sweden
When: Wednesday, August 22, 15:30 Stockholm time (06:30 Second Life time)
Where: Second House of Sweden, Swedish Institute, Second Life
Who: Helén Hallgren Archer, Nationalmuseum’s curator for art education
How: Using Second Life’s new voice technology
Helén writes:
I will give a gallery talk about four of the artworks from Nationalmuseum that are on display at the Second House of Sweden. These four motifs were made at the end of the 19th century and the early 20th century. We can see how nature inspired these Swedish artists in different ways. Nature reflects the inner moods of these artists, while at the same time the artists express Swedish tradition and culture through these motifs.
The four art pieces are by these artists: Ernst Josephson (1851-1906), “The Water Sprite”, painted 1882; Anders Zorn (1860-1920), “Midsummer Dance”, painted 1897; Prince Eugen (1856-1949), “The Cloud”, painted 1896; Märta Måås Fjetterström (1873-1941), “Unicorn in the forest”, textile from 1920.
See you there! It’ll be interesting to see how the new voice technology can be used in this setting.
The Stockholm School of Economics held a seminar on Second Life on June 14. PDFs of the presentations are now online here. (They’re in English even if the page linking to them is not.)
You can still visit the Wallenberg room in the Second House of Sweden even if you are on a computer that doesn’t have the Second Life client installed. Budapest’s OSA Archivum, who contributed the material for the room, also have a web page up describing the room, with plenty of screen shots. There is even supplementary material, such as a complete transcript of the radio play (mp3) that you can hear while in the room.
We’ve had some interesting feedback on the Second House of Sweden in Second Life, much of it positive, but of course the most interesting part is the constructive criticism, especially if I agree:-)
One Finnish visitor writes:
… How about having a big panel outside in front of the house, that gives you a notecard with the info of the house? A floor plan? A sign post? For the Feedback panel, it would be better to have the same info in a notecard as panels take time to rez, and also the possibility to drop your opinion in a notecard to the stand, as many would not want to send email from their normal account.
Well, I hope I’m not being too critical, I absolutely admire the Sweden House and I think Second Sweden, too, is a fantastic idea, have been following closely its development. I hope to see interesting exhibitions in the future and wish you all the success!
Yes, we need to help people navigate the place via a teleportation panel — we ran out of time to make a good-looking one before the inauguration, and so we preferred to have none at all. But it is true that exploring Second House of Sweden can be a hit-or-miss affair, especially if you don’t know what’s available. So a teleportation panel really is necessary in the long run.
Even more necessary, of course, is a roster of events. This is probably the most important long-term component to the success of Second House of Sweden. The Swedish summer, however, is not proving the best time to build up momentum for events — everybody here is enjoying the first life on their farm or island rather than sitting in front of the computer. So a proper set of events may have to wait until the Swedish summer is winding down.
Now that we have the raw video feed from the inauguration on DVD, here is the part where Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt inaugurates the Second House of Sweden. Taken on May 30, 2007 at the Swedish Institute in Stockholm:
Stefan Geens (email) (aka Belmeloro DiPrima) and Karl Peterson (aka Nex Canning) work at the Swedish Institute, where they manage Sweden's virtual embassy in Second Life, the Second House of Sweden. This blog is about what we're learning in the process.
