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Second Life
''Second Life'' is a multiplayer virtual world that allows people to create an Avatar (computing), avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user-created content within a multi-user online environment. Developed for personal computers by the San Francisco-based firm Linden Lab, it launched on June 23, 2003 and saw rapid growth for some years; in 2013 it had approximately one million regular users. Growth eventually stabilized, and by the end of 2017, the active user count had fallen to "between 800,000 and 900,000". In many ways, ''Second Life'' is similar to massively multiplayer online role-playing game, massively multiplayer online role-playing video games; nevertheless, Linden Lab is emphatic that their creation is not a game: "There is no manufactured conflict, no set objective." The virtual world can be accessed freely via Linden Lab's own Client (computing), client software or via alternative third-party viewers. ''Second Life'' users, also called 'r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linden Lab
Linden Research, Inc., doing business as Linden Lab, is an American technology company that is best known as the developer of ''Second Life''. The company's head office is in San Francisco, California, with additional offices in Boston, Massachusetts; Seattle, Washington; Davis, California; and Virginia. In addition, the company employs remote workers that communicate and collaborate on projects using ''Second Life'' technology. History The company, founded in 1999 as Linden Research, employs numerous established high-tech veterans, including former executives from Electronic Arts; eBay; Disney; Adobe Systems; and Apple Inc., Apple. The company's founder and original CEO is Philip Rosedale, a former CTO of RealNetworks, one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World in 2007. The company name "Linden" originates from the street name where the company premises were initially based, at 333 Linden Street in San Francisco. The hexagonal Linden Lab logo is influe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virtual World
A virtual world (also called a virtual space or spaces) is a Computer simulation, computer-simulated environment which may be populated by many simultaneous users who can create a personal Avatar (computing), avatar and independently explore the virtual world, participate in its activities, and communicate with others. These avatars can be textual, graphical representations, or live video avatars with auditory and touch sensations. Virtual worlds are closely related to mirror worlds. In a virtual world, the User (computing), user accesses a computer-simulated world which presents Perception, perceptual stimuli to the user, who in turn can manipulate elements of the modeled world and thus experience a degree of Immersion (virtual reality)#Presence, presence. Such modeled worlds and their rules may draw from reality or fantasy worlds. Example rules are gravity, topography, animal locomotion, locomotion, real-time computer graphics, real-time actions, and communication. Communicati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Havok (software)
Havok is a middleware software suite developed by the Irish company Havok. Havok provides physics engine, navigation, and cloth simulation components that can be integrated into video game engines. In 2007, Intel acquired Havok Inc. In 2008, Havok was honored at the 59th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for advancing the development of physics engines in electronic entertainment. In 2015, Microsoft acquired Havok. Products The Havok middleware suite consists of the following modules: * Havok Physics: Originally from Ipion Software (Ipion Virtual Physics), it is designed primarily for video games, and allows for real-time collision and dynamics of rigid bodies in three dimensions. It provides multiple types of dynamic constraints between rigid bodies (e.g. for ragdoll physics), and has a highly optimized collision detection library. By using dynamical simulation, Havok Physics allows for more realistic virtual worlds in games. The company was developing a specializ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Russian Language
Russian is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic languages, Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is the native language of the Russians. It was the ''de facto'' and ''de jure'' De facto#National languages, official language of the former Soviet Union.1977 Soviet Constitution, Constitution and Fundamental Law of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 1977: Section II, Chapter 6, Article 36 Russian has remained an official language of the Russia, Russian Federation, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, and is still commonly used as a lingua franca in Ukraine, Moldova, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and to a lesser extent in the Baltic states and Russian language in Israel, Israel. Russian has over 253 million total speakers worldwide. It is the List of languages by number of speakers in Europe, most spoken native language in Eur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game
A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game. As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a Player character, character (often in a fantasy world or science-fiction world) and takes control over many of that character's actions. MMORPGs are distinguished from Online game, single-player or small Multiplayer online game, multi-player online RPGs by the number of players able to interact together, and by the game's persistent world (usually hosted by the game's video game publisher, publisher), which continues to exist and evolve while the player is offline and away from the game. MMORPGs are played throughout the world. Global revenues for MMORPGs exceeded half a billion dollars in 2005, and the western world's revenues exceeded a billion dollars in 2006. In 2008, the spending on subscription MMORPGs by consumers in North America and Europe gre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of 2024, San Francisco is the List of California cities by population, fourth-most populous city in the U.S. state of California and the List of United States cities by population, 17th-most populous in the United States. San Francisco has a land area of at the upper end of the San Francisco Peninsula and is the County statistics of the United States, fifth-most densely populated U.S. county. Among U.S. cities proper with over 250,000 residents, San Francisco is ranked first by per capita income and sixth by aggregate income as of 2023. San Francisco anchors the Metropolitan statistical area#United States, 13th-most populous metropolitan statistical area in the U.S., with almost 4.6 million residents in 2023. The larger San Francisco Bay Area ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Personal Computers
A personal computer, commonly referred to as PC or computer, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as Word processor, word processing, web browser, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and PC game, gaming. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or technician. Unlike large, costly minicomputers and mainframes, time-sharing by many people at the same time is not used with personal computers. The term home computer has also been used, primarily in the late 1970s and 1980s. The advent of personal computers and the concurrent Digital Revolution have significantly affected the lives of people. Institutional or corporate computer owners in the 1960s had to write their own programs to do any useful work with computers. While personal computer users may develop their applications, usually these systems run commercial software, free-of-charge software ("freeware"), which i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Avatar (computing)
In computing, an avatar is a graphical representation of a user, the user's character, or persona. Avatars can be two-dimensional icons in Internet forums and other online communities, where they are also known as profile pictures, userpics, or formerly picons (personal icons, or possibly "picture icons"). Alternatively, an avatar can take the form of a three-dimensional model, as used in online worlds and video games, or an imaginary character with no graphical appearance, as in text-based games or worlds such as MUDs. The term ' () originates from Sanskrit, and was adopted by early computer games and science fiction novelists. Richard Garriott extended the term to an on-screen user representation in 1985, and the term gained wider adoption in Internet forums and MUDs. Nowadays, avatars are used in a variety of online settings including social media, virtual assistants, instant messaging platforms, and digital worlds such as ''World of Warcraft'' and ''Second Life''. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proprietary Software
Proprietary software is computer software, software that grants its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner a legal monopoly by modern copyright and intellectual property law to exclude the recipient from freely sharing the software or modifying it, and—in some cases, as is the case with some patent-encumbered and EULA-bound software—from making use of the software on their own, thereby restricting their freedoms. Proprietary software is a subset of non-free software, a term defined in contrast to free and open-source software; non-commercial licenses such as CC BY-NC are not deemed proprietary, but are non-free. Proprietary software may either be closed-source software or source-available software. Types Origin Until the late 1960s, computers—especially large and expensive mainframe computers, machines in specially air-conditioned computer rooms—were usually leased to customers rather than Sales, sold. Service and all software available ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Python (programming Language)
Python is a high-level programming language, high-level, general-purpose programming language. Its design philosophy emphasizes code readability with the use of significant indentation. Python is type system#DYNAMIC, dynamically type-checked and garbage collection (computer science), garbage-collected. It supports multiple programming paradigms, including structured programming, structured (particularly procedural programming, procedural), object-oriented and functional programming. It is often described as a "batteries included" language due to its comprehensive standard library. Guido van Rossum began working on Python in the late 1980s as a successor to the ABC (programming language), ABC programming language, and he first released it in 1991 as Python 0.9.0. Python 2.0 was released in 2000. Python 3.0, released in 2008, was a major revision not completely backward-compatible with earlier versions. Python 2.7.18, released in 2020, was the last release of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lua (programming Language)
Lua is a lightweight, high-level, multi-paradigm programming language designed mainly for embedded use in applications. Lua is cross-platform software, since the interpreter of compiled bytecode is written in ANSI C, and Lua has a relatively simple C application programming interface ( API) to embed it into applications. Lua originated in 1993 as a language for extending software applications to meet the increasing demand for customization at the time. It provided the basic facilities of most procedural programming languages, but more complicated or domain-specific features were not included; rather, it included mechanisms for extending the language, allowing programmers to implement such features. As Lua was intended to be a general embeddable extension language, the designers of Lua focused on improving its speed, portability, extensibility and ease-of-use in development. History Lua was created in 1993 by Roberto Ierusalimschy, Luiz Henrique de Figueiredo and Wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mono (software)
Mono is a free and open-source software framework that aims to run software made for the .NET Framework on Linux and other OSes. Originally by Ximian which was acquired by Novell, it was later developed by Xamarin which was acquired by Microsoft. In August 2024, Microsoft transferred ownership of Mono to Wine_(software), WineHQ. History When Microsoft first announced their .NET Framework in June 2000 it was described as "a new platform based on Internet standards", and in December of that year the underlying Common Language Infrastructure was published as an open standard, "ECMA-335", opening up the potential for independent implementations. Miguel de Icaza of Ximian believed that .NET had the potential to increase programmer productivity and began investigating whether a Linux version was feasible. Recognizing that their small team could not expect to build and support a full product, they launched the Mono open-source project, on July 19, 2001, at the O'Reilly Media, O'Reilly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
