NMC Campus Observer

Can You Hear Me Now?

CDB Barkley (aka Alan Levine) : Mar 30, 2007 03:29pm

This cliche phrase is something you may see in many chat windows. Up until now, voice communication in Second Life was limited to use of technologies that exisit outside of SL - TeamSpeak, Skype, Ventrilo, etc. But as rumors and announcements have rolled out this year, stand back as voice communication is coming as an integrated feature within Second Life.

A few weeks ago we were able to invite a group of 100+ avatars (spread over a few time sessions) onto a beta grid copy of NMC Campus to try out the new voice capability.

A group beta testing Voice communication

With this new feature, the presence of voice capability is indicated in the wave forms that hover over avatars — a green “squiggle” indicates you (or others) have voice and/or are speaking. The great thing about the audio is there are no special commands– you plug in a headset, and activate the voice capability as a preference. The easiest to use just sends your voice when ever you speak, but if you want to be more discreet, there is a push-to-talk setting.

What what is even better are the spatial effects. Walk away from someone talking and their voice fades- and falls off to a low whisper as you reach the edge of chat distance. As you rotate around, or as sound sources move, the sound moves in a stereo effect between left and right channels of your headphones. And if there is a crowd speaking, if you alt/option zoom in an an avatar, you not only zoom in visually, the audio grows louder was well.

In our tests, it did not work automatically for all users, and sometimes dropped for everyone at the same time (it is “beta”). The work arounds were logging in and out of SL, or toggling the preference for enabling voice on and off.

And now Linden Lab has made the Voice Beta public, so you can try it yourself. Not all locations are voice enabled on the beta grid, but NMC Campus and SpacePort Alpha are.

We fully expect audio capability to change the mode and dynamics of communication in SL. You can anticipate some people not liking it at all, as they may wish to preserve an aspect of anonymity with an avatar (it’s a choice, you do not have to speak). Yet we think the advantages, especially for teaching and collaboration, really are exciting.

Speak up, now, in Second Life!

Story filed under: Second Life News

See all stories by CDB Barkley (aka Alan Levine)