I am starting to be almost obsessed with SecondLife, wishing I could already upload my brain somewhere and create multiple instantiations of myself to go after all that I have in my visor. But of course, for the time being I can not.

So instead of actively participating in SecondLife I am rather pursuing projects such as the further development of transLucid, our publishing-system geared towards users of knowledge-management applications that can be also used as a lightweight CMS.

SecondLife really offers us a glimpse of what the future for (hopefully) everyone on the planet might look like. Wired has great articles to dive into this new reality. I can only recommend to anyone faintly interested in SL the Wired Travel Guide to SecondLife. And yes, you may also have virtual sex in there, thanks for bringing that up.

Think that the Babylon tower of languages has to be overcome? With the Translator HUD, you can. It offers a real-time translation system. While you chat with people in languages other than... well, English... it translates to you their typings as fast and as best as it can.

Don't think you ought to consider reserving your spot in SecondLife yet? Think again, when organisations such as the BBC or Nature have already done so.

Nature recently opened up an island what they call Second Nature.

I have absolutely no doubt that SecondLife is here to stay. They might even open-source their underlying protocol which would open up a whole new world, literally. There are other good reasons why Google Earth will survive. It takes a different angle at creating and living in virtual environments in that it uses our actual, physical earth as the template. My hunch is that both virtual empires will have their role and say in defining the future of our lives.