"Second Life" becomes more like the first one

If you haven't heard of the internet phenomenon Second Life, you probably will soon. It's an online world where players create virtual representations of themselves, or rather, themselves as they'd like to be. Then they go about "life" in the way they would if the tedious flaws of everyday life -- gravity, jobs, cellulite, and so on -- didn't exist. It's not that people don't work in the world of Second Life. In fact, people have made thousands of real-world dollars by selling items they created in Second Life.

Now Second Life is about to get an upgrade. Currently, to "talk" to others in the Second Life world, you have to type messages on your keyboard. In the new version, you'll be able to talk to anyone nearby using a microphone or headset:

Linden Lab, the company behind "Second Life," says it is implementing voice-over-Internet software that will let the thousands of people online at any given moment talk to each other over their computers' microphones and speakers.

One key feature will be something called spatial audio. To mimic sound in the physical world, the ability to talk and hear conversations will be contingent on the separation between people in the virtual environment, said Joe Miller, a technology executive for Linden Lab. A group close together will be able to chat normally, but once a certain distance is reached, not even shouting will be enough, Miller said.

Second Life's talk feature will offer one key improvement over the real world: if you don't want to talk to someone, you can just turn their voice off.

David Pogue recently interviewed Second Life CEO Phillip Rosedale in the New York Times:

Second Life is a little bit like being dropped from a helicopter into New York City, and all you have is sort of a tattered bus map. You have to ask other people.

The biggest piece of advice is to find friends. Go and say hi and ask someone for help. And what you'll find is that because the environment is a little tricky to get around in, people are eager to help teach newcomers those skills.

Despite the disorientation, the world of Second Life has over 4 million inhabitants. Apparently, once you're settled in, a Second Life can be quite enticing.

How "real" can this virtual world get? You can already exchange the currency of Second Life for real-world dollars. Perhaps it's only a matter of time before people take to living in cubicles, taking nourishment from IVs and living their primary lives in the virtual world of Second Life.