The Drax Files Radio Hour – Daniel Voyager

A look back at 2016 in Second Life – Year In Review

Posted on December 28, 2016 by Daniel Voyager

10 years later — My 10th rezday – 31st October 2016

This is my special year in review post looking back at the biggest news, events and more during 2016 in Second Life. There have been so many good memories and some not so good ones during 2016. See the bottom of this blog post for month by month highlights of 2016. 🙂

Improved communications

I do think communications between the lab and the Second Life community have greatly improved during 2016 through various channels like the official Second Life blog, on the Second Life status grid reports page, via Twitter and inworld.

The lab have already posted their highlights of 2016 here including raising the land prims limit for the mainland/private estates, introducing the new horizons experience, adding 360 snapshots, extending Bento, adding new community gateways and much more.

new-grid-status-page — Improved grid status page

State of the grid in 2016

The amount of Main Grid regions and private estates have declined further during 2016 which is not good news but that’s what’s officially happening. I hope that in 2017 there will be some sort of region growth because that would be cool. The lab needs to work out and try to come up with workable solutions to stop the decline happening.

Back on 3rd January 2016

Total number of Main Grid regions: 24, 886
Private Estates: 17, 775
Linden Owned: 7, 111

As of 25th December 2016

Total number of Main Grid regions: 23, 975
Private Estates: 16, 792
Linden Owned: 7, 183

There have been many well known places that have closed down this year in Second Life because of various reasons and some places managed to be saved. Yay! 🙂

mont-saint-michel-region-returns_002 — Mont Saint Michel

Amazing Events This Year

There have been so many enjoyable events that have happened during 2016 including the Second Life 13th birthday celebrations, One Billion Rising, Lab Chat events, the VWBPE conference, Relay For Life of Second Life events,

Don’t forget the incredible Bay City 8th anniversary, BURN2 events, the annual faires and the list goes on.

Thanks to all those that organised and volunteered these amazing events this year. 🙂

Fantasy Fair 2016_006 — Fantasy Fair 2016

Bay City Eighth Anniversary_016_011 — Bay City Eighth Anniversary

SL13B Day 1_001 — Second Life 13th Birthday

London City 7th birthday_007 — London City 7th birthday

Sansar is almost ready

There was huge interest this year for Sansar with hundred’s signing up for the Creator Preview and testing it out. The lab have released various interesting Sansar photos, demos and updates during the course of 2016.

Sansar is due to open to the public sometime in January 2017.

Some shocks in 2016

The big shock of 2016 has to be when Donald Trump won the US Election 2016 and will become the next US president from mid January 2017.

donald-trump-wins_005 — Donald Trump supporters area

Another big shock of 2016 has to be the terrible Orlando shootings earlier this year because that was really sad. In Second Life the community came together and raised L$ to support the victims.

We lost some great talent during 2016

Sadly a few well known residents that I knew in Second Life passed away during 2016. If anyone knew anyone else that passed away in Second Life during 2016 – please let me know so I can add it below!

Ladyslipper Constantine – Involved with Virtual Ability events, Virtual Worlds Best Practices education events, One Billion Rising, BURN2 events and she was involved in past Second Life birthday celebrations
Latif Khalifa – Developer of the Radegast Metaverse Client, Singularity Viewer and Replex Viewer

Here is a month by month highlights during 2016 on what happened in terms of big events and news. All links below are from my blog posts 🙂

January 2016

February 2016

March 2016

April 2016

May 2016

June 2016

July 2016

August 2016

September 2016

October 2016

November 2016

December 2016

2017: the year ahead

I hope everyone has enjoyed reading my blog posts during 2016 and I am looking forward the blogging more in 2017. I will be covering Second Life, Sansar and OpenSim next year. Wooot! 🙂

I hope 2017 will be a good year 🙂

The Drax Files Radio Hour Show 95: Lab Chat!

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Daniel Voyager

On 20th November show 95 was aired of The Drax Files Radio Hour and you can listen to the show here. This week it’s all about the recent Lab Chat Q&A event featuring Ebbe Linden talking about Second Life and Project Sansar. It’s most interesting to hear what’s going on and I have to say great work to the team that made this happen. Great engaging conversation for sure! 🙂

There have been many bloggers that have already blogged about the first Lab Chat event and I recommend that you should check it them out.

The Linden Lab Chat summarised in 7 minutes – Canary Beck
Linden Lab’s “Lab Chat” Launches – Second Life Newser
Lab Chat Launches In Second Life With A Smooth First Show – Ciaran Laval

The full video of the event and transcript will be published soon.

The Drax Files Radio Hour Show #75 with Philip Rosedale

Posted on July 4, 2015 by Daniel Voyager

Check out the new special Drax Files podcast @75 featuring Philip Rosedale talking about High Fidelity and a little on Second Life. This show was broadcasted from within High Fidelity for the first time and the show runs for 1hr/29 minutes.

Skip to 54 minutes to listen to the special interview between Draxtor and Philip Rosedale talking High Fidelity. I found the interview pretty much interesting and fascinating.

Give it a listen if you are interested in learning more on High Fidelity.

The Drax Files Radio Hour #67: Reporting on SL & Getting it Right!

Posted on May 9, 2015May 9, 2015 by Daniel Voyager

Check out this week’s Drax files radio hour #67 featuring Cecilia D’Anastasio as she talks about her well written article named Avatar IRL.

It’s about a transgender women who uses Second Life to help her become more confident. In the article it mentions how people in real life can identify with their avatars and how that can effect their behavior in real life.

Cecilia D’Anastasio talks about why she wanted to do a story about Second Life and she talks about her gaming addiction.

The Drax Files Radio Hour #64 featuring Pathfinder Lester

Posted on April 17, 2015 by Daniel Voyager

This week on The Drax Files Radio Hour #64 Pathfinder Lester was interviewed and it’s now available to listen online. Pathfinder talks about Second Life, virtual platforms, Jibe, Unity and much more during this radio podcast.

As usual the weekly drax files radio shows are always informative on the latest happenings from across the metaverse. Spread the word and enjoy.

SL GO Interview with Dennis Harper on The Drax Files Radio Hour coming soon

Posted on April 9, 2015April 9, 2015 by Daniel Voyager

On Friday 10th April 2015 show #63 of The Drax Files Radio Hour will be available (7am) featuring an interview with Dennis Harper who is the project manager of SL Go. He will be sharing some new interesting information about what happened with OnLive/SL Go and hopefully more about what happens next / near future.

I think it will be interesting to hear what actually happened and I hope something can be done to save or something to replace SL Go in the coming months/years. The show #63 should be available here tomorrow morning.

Don’t miss this episode tomorrow morning.

The Drax Files Radio Hour #42: Been there, done that!

Posted on October 25, 2014 by Daniel Voyager

Show 42 of the Drax Files Radio hour is now available on YouTube hosted by Draxtor Despres and Jo Yardley. The hour is filled with interesting discussions with great coverage on the biggest virtual reality stories of the week. More info here about show 42.

Been there, done that!

Contact the show here > skype draxfiles, avatar draxfiles or email radio@draxfiles.com.

The Drax Files Radio Hour #41: Confessions of a Lifer

Posted on October 18, 2014 by Daniel Voyager

Show 41 of the Drax Files Radio hour is now available and this week Salazar Jack aka Justin Esparza is featured on the show who has been active in Second Life for a decade. Salazar Jack aka Justin Esparza talks about the things that worked well and things that did not work out in Second Life. Interesting stuff! 🙂

Main Hosts: Draxtor Despres and Jo Yardley.
Guests: Salazar Jack aka Justin Esparza

Contact the show for future suggestions > skype draxfiles, avatar draxfiles or email radio@draxfiles.com.

The Drax Files Radio Hour #38: Nothing but Oculus!

Posted on September 28, 2014 by Daniel Voyager

Show 38 of The Drax Files Radio Hour is available to listen to and this week it’s nothing but Oculus Rift!. As usual the radio hour informs you about the latest Oculus Rift news, Second Life updates and all things metaverse.

Main Hosts: Draxtor Despres and Jo Yardley.

Contact the show via skype draxfiles, avatar draxfiles or email radio@draxfiles.com.

The Drax Files Radio Hour Show #36: Virtual Harlem

Posted on September 13, 2014 by Daniel Voyager

About Show 36

A fascinating conversation with Bryan Carter, the mind behind Virtual Harlem, about identity and ethnicity in virtual reality, about time travel, immersive education and generally about where the train is headed! More info at our blog: http://draxfiles.com/2014/09/12/show-36-virtual-harlem/