NEWS

Second Life Running on a Phone

Wired
April 21, 2008
By Susan Arendt

Years from now, when historians try to determine what caused the dramatic drop in productivity that ultimately led to the downfall of civilization, they perhaps will point to the moment Vollee got Second Life to run on a cell phone.

Newsweek has video of the virtual running surprisingly smoothly on a phone, though there seems to be a fair amount of loading involved. You can apparently find your friends, chat, and transport yourself wherever you would like within Second Life. It's not clear from the video whether you'll be able to do anything other than just pop in for a quick hello, though.

The Vollee client makes it possible for phones to handle games that would normally be too graphics- or CPU-intensive. It also remaps the controls and optimizes the game to fit on a phone's smaller screen.

If Vollee can cram Second Life -- admittedly, a dumbed down version -- into a cell phone, perhaps phone versions of other virtual worlds will be soon to follow. Having access to World of Warcraft in your pocket at all times? That really would be the end of productivity.