communication

I am just wondering,Is thier voice chatting coming to Second Life any time soon.

It's already here, you can chat with me @ 1-900-SENSUAL, only $5.99 a minute

I use skype is that alowed im new?

Soon is certainly an interesting word in regards to Second Life development.

There was mention of integrated voice chat by Philip Linden before the start of the last Town Hall. The stumbling block appeared to be his need for a viable voice masking system unlike those in other systems, Xbox Live being the only one mentioned.

Voice chat for Second Life should not be held back by voice masking. It should not be handled by an exterior client. Ultimately I hope they roll in out in phases. While I'd prefer an all-inclusive solution, there's no reason to wait to implement every feature, start slow and prove that it works and determine its effect on bandwidth.

1. Voice Message alternative to Instant Message
   
2. Voice Chat with Group alternative to Group Chat
   
3. Voice Chat with added "Invite to Room" feature
   
4. Voice Chat channels with named insances and public/private join status
   
5. Proximity Voice chat within a simulator
   

All modes should support mute. Voice should be implemented so that the chat ausio doesn't use the same sound channels as in-world effects or music streaming.

Ultimately I'd hope for a true in-world message system like that in Xbox Live where you could send a message to a resident wth a 30 day timeout:

1. Attach Text
   
2. Attach Voice
   
3. Attach Image
   
4. Attach Inventory
   

Since this was a detailed part of my un-used SLCC presentation I will try to finish the dialogs I had sketched and present it in another form.

Ultimately we don't know where voice chat sits on the Big List Of Things To Do (BLOTTD), or in what form it would take. Since it would not replace text chat, I don't think voice masking should delay its arrival. As I've said since I first joined, Second Life was a huge leap backward in terms of community because Xbox Live has supported integrated voice chat at the "platform" level since its introduction at nearly the same time as Second Life's release, and PlayStation 2 Online has had voice chat in the majority of its titles for the same time period. Voice chat is easier, faster, and allows you to do other things (like move or build) while continuing to interact with people.

It will be great in helping to identify minors!

Real voice can be done with existing out-of-band mechanisms. SL voice is just a convenience.

HOWEVER, there is an alternative that I would like to see.

My Mac (and probably your PC) has simple, built-in voice synthesis. I'd like to be able to tie that to chat.

The simplest version is that all incoming chat gets spoken by the voice of my choice.

Better: I can assign a different voice to each chatter. Sexy babe for my darling, whiny teen for that griefer, or whatever.

Better: Each person can assign attributes to self, such as young/old, male/female, slow/fast. Then, when I select speak chat, my local voice synthezier tries to match those attributes.

You type, I hear a unique you. I type, you hear a unique me.

Why not my real voice? Well, for the same reason the avatars don't look like the real me.

Lee, a vocoder plugin could take care of all the identity / character / roleplay attributes you mentioned. Vocoders have been around for ages.

Embedded voice chat might add more complications and confusion than it removes, particularly if proximity chat were implemented. I've never used voice chat anywhere, personally, but as I understand it, third party software already exists for those limited situations (group builds and pillowtalk come first to mind) in which voice would be desirable in SL. An embedded, instant-access voice system could be intrusive for SL business people and better-known avs, or for anyone in certain situations, and it would be chaotic in a crowd. Sure, you could slap a slew of options on it and another set of Ignore buttons, but why not just use the third party software? Yes, it takes a modicum of additional planning/effort for those who want it, but those barriers also make it less intrusive on those who have no interest.

Integrated, official voice chat is at least a year away, if I had to guess.

The next / final major feature being released (in theory) is the physical avatar update thing. (said at SLCC keynote)

After that it's all bug fixes and code rewriting until the platform is stable.

In theory.

This is what ya'll wanted, so that's what ya'll get.

I only got 3 calls so far

I only got one call, and that was a wrong number.

If voice chat does come to SL i won't be using it. I know some people find it easier to talk then type, but some of us find it easier to understand if you don't have a foreign accent (text has no accent).

I like foreign accents.

I have SecondVoice, but so far I have only used it to talk with its programmer. Works just fine, even though 3rd party software is needed. It would be cool if more people in world used it until voice is integrated with the SL client (if that will ever happen).

aww shucks, wish I had a foreign accent

It's not that i don't like some accents. I think a french accent is sexy. But some accents i just can't even understand a word being said and i anoy them after every sentance by saying "Huh? o.o".

I like an Irish accent, but get a Cockney Brit going with rhyming slang, and I get dizzy.

You are making me laugh so much! lol

The place I work for called my place and thought a woman answered the phone.
Voice will not prevent minors or allow you to even decide if it is a he/she/it .

I think the techinal issues are probably the most important as LL wants the platform to work with a large majority of users. Right now streaming audio requires a remote server to resend the audio to mutiple clients. This would put a SL under a lot more stress as music and videos are curently handled outside of LL's servers.

Tyrant - I use Skype too - works great, specially for hands free communication while wandering about. As it is totally independent from SL I'm sure there are no issues with Linden Labs when you use it................

And just what do ya need those hands free for?