We asked Linden Lab about the future of voice for Linux-using residents. As you probably know, the addon modules for voice in Second Life are third-party and aren't apparently supported outside the Mac and Windows. Inworld a number of Lindens have mentioned that they are pushing hard for voice-on-Linux, but it's been unclear as to whether they meant they were pushing for it personally, or whether they were speaking for Linden Lab as an entity.

Linden Lab responded to our query that they did not "have a timeline for a voice enabled Linux viewer at this time". To me, that pretty much means "Not for the foreseeable future" considering how these things generally work.

Well, I downloaded the voice-enabled First Look viewer, and went out to one of the PG welcome areas to have a listen. Results were ... mixed, to say the least.

A cluster of ten people were standing around talking. It only took a few minutes to identify six distinct issues. We could call them the big six, but that's already taken, right?

Want to try voice out on the main Second Life grid? Well now you can. Linden Lab released a First Look viewer that is voice-enabled this-afternoon. You can grab it here right now. As is usual, Linux is not being supported for voice.

Person-to-person calls are having a few issues which may cut you off from hearing anything locally, and require a relog, but there are workarounds listed on the official announcement. Windlight is not included in this release, as it is heading back into development to incorporate user-feedback.

The First Look browser is a beta-test browser that runs against the main (agni) grid. If it eats your inventory, your files and your dog, that's at your own risk. You can download the First Look viewer from the usual place.

Are you thinking of taking advantage of the deep discounts Linden Lab has obtained through GBH on the Plantronics Audio 550 Binaural USB Headset with DSP? Think again.

As noted on VTOR, it's easy to get these headsets delivered to you, a good $15 to $20 US Dollars cheaper than the 'deeply discounted' price through Linden Lab's partnership with GBH. In fact, $80 USD (delivered) looks a bit steep for this item. Just take a look at cnet or some other comparison shopping sites. As discounts go - I'm just not seeing it. Perhaps I'm missing something.

First, it's not really in dispute that the upcoming voice features are divisive. The reason for that is that we are observing the clash of not one, but two segregative technologies: Voice, and text.

As soon as we start to talk about enablement and accessibility, ideologies begin to clash.

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According to Linden Lab (who are taking pains to make the schedule for voice deployment clearer) a new First Look viewer will be made available "within the next few weeks" that supports voice on the main grid (Agni). Like other First Look viewers before it, it will be beta-code, in flux for testing, but being on the live grid, anything it does is as permanent as the official viewer.

After all the testing and tuning is done, the final version of this First Look branch will become the official mandatory download, becoming in essence, the official Second Life viewer. Linden Lab have also partnered with GBH (as anyone from the UK or Australia will laughingly tell you stands for "Grievous Bodily Harm" in conversation) to provide deals on headsets.

We'd already determined that there wasn't going to be a Wednesday update, because Linden Lab promised repeatedly that they wouldn't pull the system down with less than 5 day's notice unless it was absolutely vital. I'm guessing something in this next release has been deemed to be absolutely vital.

The grid is going down from 6am to noon SLT (US Pacific) tomorrow (Wednesday May 23) for an update to 1.16.0. So ... what are we getting? Sculpties, that is sculptable prims, that is displacement-mapped-solids; Also, group IM issues are to be fixed ... err again; llRegionSay() to reduce the need for many sorts of communication relays (almost all of which have been phased out in the last 12 months, but heck, a new lower-lag interobject communications option isn't going to cause a lot of complaints); Fixes to content loss when taking no-copy objects.

Smart money says there's a fix for a key exploit or two in there as well, hence the sudden mad rush.

What are we not getting? Voice. Guessing that's not ready yet.

As this blogpost indicates, successfully masking the quality of one's voice is a major concern for many when considering the advent of voice chat integration into SL. Of course, it shouldn't be assumed that the only reason one would want to do this is to pretend to be a different gender; certainly, in the same way that assuming an avatar provides an extra level of security to some, having another layer on top of that is likely even more comforting.

Long gone are the days when I played around with a vocoder as a singer for a band (shades of Peter Frampton!), so I'm not up on the latest advancements. I assume making oneself sound like Darth Vader is right out, which is a shame, because you can get those little units at virtually any decent toy store. The article notwithstanding, have any of you run across decent voice changing software/hardware?

(Via Razorwire)

The voice chat beta has been in effect long enough now for people to have tried it, and some of my fears have been realized. Peasan Kuu reports her experience:

• In a group of 10 - 12 people, 2 or 3 dominated the conversation just like RL
• If any one person had microphone issues, like feedback, it affected everybody
• Voice chat effectively kills text chat
• It was difficult to tell who was speaking at any one time
• The spatial effect works well; nearer avatars were louder than those farther away
• The most common comment by those voice chatting: "Whoa, this is so cool"

And it goes on: Hamlet brings up the idea of groups segregated by language, and how established residents' acceptance or rejection of voice might doom its inclusion. There's a lot of talk (no pun intended) over this latest development, and it seems fairly split, both yea and nay. Time will tell, of course, but will it say it in text or voice?

Voice is on the way, with closed beta trials set to start very soon. For some people it can't come fast enough. Others are irritated or indifferent. Some just fear not knowing what the change will bring.

Like most big issues (and this is a big one, considering the amount of media attention it's starting to pull already) there's a whole range of opinions and reasons for those opinions. Where do you stand on voice? Will you be trying to get into the beta? Will you be a voice user, or one of the silent?

For those of you who have a usable voice, and good hearing (a quarter of the people on my friends-list do not), voice is coming to SL with closed beta trials to begin very soon, according Joe Linden.

One telling tidbit though is that the voice system will apparently not be completely free, as suggested by such statements as: "There will be no additional charge for using voice for residents or land-owners during the both of these beta trial periods." and "Private island owners also have the ability to turn on voice as they wish if they're on a current payment plan (grandfathered plans may require an additional fee)."

Joe's posted an explanation and FAQ, and invites people who are interested in the beta voice trials to send an email to 3DVoice@lindenlab.com. Now, as long as someone doesn't walk up to me and expect me to be able to hear them speaking, I'll be just fine.

Marcel de Ruiter on his blog Shaping Thoughts has said that we can expect a voice component in SL by the end of March.

Now, I've talked about this before, and after seeing a video of someone's bachelorette party in There with full voice going on, my concerns remain in full force. And are we talking about the sort of voice chat where you need to invite people to the session, leaving others out of the loop? There's nothing more fun than standing around a large group of people IMing each other when you're not one of them; this will likely be more of the same.

Or, if it is an open chat, mixed voice and text chat, imagine the chaos as people try to sync up typing with a comment someone made aloud 10 seconds ago, which is a long time in a verbal conversation. I don't mean to be a downer here, but what about those avatars who are genders other than the person driving them? For someone playing the Crying Game, the conversation could go like this:

Among some quarters of our expanding virtual worlds, there's a big push towards sound. Live music, voice-chat, and so on. Philip Linden does Town Halls by voice. People want to pull out their headsets and address the people around them. But what if they can't hear you?

You're in a public place, and espy someone you want to talk to. You lean on your push-to-talk key, and say hi, and ask how they are. Meanwhile they just stand there. Are they ignoring you? Are they being rude? Maybe they just can't hear you. Some people are in Second Life for business, they might not have any speakers on their computer -- and headphones are much frowned on in the workplace if there's any chance that they might interfere with you being able to hear co-workers or speak on the phone. The business-person in Second Life probably can't hear you.

The second major class are the handicapped. Second Life has many deaf or hearing-impaired residents -- it's a great environment for them. Likewise some people cannot speak -- or cannot speak the all the languages they can read or write. Some can type a perfectly acceptable grade of English, but have no idea how the language sounds, never having had much opportunity to hear an English-speaker. They probably can't understand you speaking, anyway, let alone respond in sounds you can understand.

Leif, over at Geeking Out Loud, has posted 4 reasons why he prefers SL competitor There to SL. Going over them one by one, here are my questions:

1. Is voice chat really that compelling? Can we imagine the chaos of a room full of people all talking at once?
2. Smoother graphics, but where are all the furries, animals, elves, etc.?
3. If you want good vehicle physics, wouldn't you just go play a regular game instead?
4. Where is this guy hanging out where ALL he hears is obnoxious sex talk? Send me the link!

Anyway, I'm only having a reaction to this guy's contention that these are the reasons There is 'better' than SL. I think he probably had the typical newbie experience, didn't know where to go, what to do, didn't meet the good people right away, got impatient, and left in a tiff. Chime in with your comments on the above; let's see if we can change some outlooks!

I think, all in all, I'm pretty happy with the sound features of Second Life. I only hear music when I choose to, and the occasional ambient sounds are a nice touch. However, recently I got to thinking about the idea of having live voice chat capabilities the other day, and... I dunno. I think it might be more harmful than helpful. Consider:

When you read a good book, you supply the character voices, so they are ideal. When you see the movie version, or even see a cartoon version of your favorite story, you're usually bound to be disappointed somewhat; 'that guy doesn't sound like what I thought he should!' And I imagine that this effect would carry over to SL. You're talking with a gorgeous avatar, when you decide to enable voice chat. Suddenly, a new dimension to the flirtation enters the picture, and it can go either way. Don't downplay the power of voice: some people have the aural equivalent of 'a great face for radio'. As shallow as it may sound, an unsexy voice (or accent) can be a deal-breaker.

Let's also consider that many of us are simply more glib and witty when it comes to writing. I myself tend toward mumbling and repeating 'Uhh' when speaking aloud. I'm not saying that everyone does this, but when you've known a person through their visuals for so long, you have, realize it or not, come to expect that their speech patterns are exactly the same as their writing style.

I'd like to be proven wrong about this, but it's occurred so often before that it'll be interesting to see (and hear) what happens when voice chat is finally implemented. Sound off in the comments section!