Braving The Arctic in Inouk

Another sim that's been open a few months, but I've only just stumbled upon is: Inouk. The word has a distinctly Arctic ring to it, and the sim itself is indeed decked out in sub-zero fashion, with igloos, ice floes, snowballs and all the trimmings. The mystery of the sim's name is soon resolved - if I told you it belonged to a well-known tour company, would you be any the wiser? Howzabout if I suggested you reverse the name?

Kuoni has been providing holidays to the discerning for over 100 years now. Although headquartered in the UK, the founder of the company, Alfred Kuoni, was actually Swiss - which is suitably apt, since this sim is, in fact, owned by Kuoni Switzerland. Kuoni's first package trips, in May 1906, were journeys by mountain railway up the Uetliberg on Zurich's western side and the Dolder on itd eastern side. A year later he was offering package tours of Egypt! Since then the company he created has gone on to offer high-end holidays around the globe.

The sim itself is quite good fun, and not overly pushy about Kuoni holiday offerings. You can pick up a "Travel Book" - a heads up display that will compare and contrast RL and SL locations, offering you brochure page links for the former and teleports for the latter - and there are other freebies, like an animal rug (choose the fur you want). The most complex element of the build is the Ice Labyrinth. Enter and find the six keys (while in theory absorbing messages about holiday locations), locate the treasure and win some money! I got 20L$ - which is more than I had when I went in. You are also invited to complete a questionnaire and get another 40L$. For those wanting free money, it beats camping.

The sim is mainly aimed at "doing stuff" - like the Labyrinth - or the Snowball Battlefield: pick up a pile of snowballs, and over the course of a week, see how many people you can hit - within the designated battle zone. A rather elegant and sinuous bridge leads you across the freezing inlet that nearly splits the sim in two. On the far side is a large globe, with map pins suggesting the location of Kuoni holidays; a bar and ice piano (nice touch, that); a dance floor; a video area and an explanation of the Travel Book.

In construction and ambience, it reminded me of a refrigerated version of the TUI tour company site in Second Life - you can read my post about that here. I didn't see much sign of events - which is regrettable. However, if you wanted, you could perhaps fix that since you can rent one of the large igloos for your own shop. I don't know if the Planning Regs allow events and parties - but it would be one way of livening up the place.

And here's what it looks like:

WnG Island

Here's another sim that is probably not going to set the pulse racing, but in the manner of philatelists, train spotters and lepidopterists everywhere, I am nevertheless adding it to my collection.

It belongs to Swiss "web and new media agency", WnG. Based in Lausanne, the company has now branched into the virtual world, viewing it as a natural extension of their website. Visitors can get up-to-date company news and register for a newsletter, as well as obtaining links to their portfolio of customer websites. While it is still early days, the company also wants to offer its customers the opportunity to have their virtual presence, built and hosted on the WnG island. You can find a more detailed description of their proposal, in French, here.

At the moment, there is only WnG's building on the island. It is hard to get much of an impression of the place, since there is so little to get much of an impression of. The building is fine, with displays linking to both their own and their clients' web pages - but it so far fails to excite. It is perhaps too early to talk in terms of community and interactivity - but if they expect the island to function solely as an extension of their website, then I think they are misinterpreting the value and use of virtual worlds. That said, I assume the build is home-grown and the capital outlay is small, so right now it is a case of "nothing ventured, nothing gained". I took a few pictures - but as you can see, there's not much to show right now:

Google's Engineering HQ in Zurich

While browsing the BBC News website, as I tend to do, I came across a fascinating item on Google's Engineering HQ in Zurich. I thought you might be interested, too.

Yeah... And? What's that got to do with the main themes of Ambling in Second Life?

Simple. I have been asked on many occasions by non-SLers: "What is SL like?" It struck me while watching the video that this is what Second Life is like, and what a corporate site in Second Life might offer. And here it is... slap bang in the middle of the atomic world. OK, there may be a lack of teleports, and flying is not recommended, but the look and feel is spot-on.

If the link doesn't work - or you want more - there's more images and videos here. Or there's a great selection of photos here - which you can view on this slideshow.

Patrick Hufschmid Guitars

Following my recent post, it seems like Gibson Guitars have taken my(?) advice, and closed access to Gibson Island until it is in a better state of readiness. So having piqued your interest, it seems you will now need to wait a few months before you can go and pay your respects and perhaps blag a virtual copy of one of their iconic guitars. [ Actually, I have no idea if they plan such freebies, so be prepared to settle for a t-shirt. ]

But in the brief gap between posting about the island and it getting closed, I got the opportunity to meet another guitar maker, a guy who has been building fine guitars in both RL and SL. Born in the Netherlands but now based in Switzerland, Patrick Hufschmid (or PatrickHufschmid Beaumont in SL) has been producing his beautiful, hand-crafted guitars for around 11 years. In fact, even the pickups are custom-built to his own specification. More recently he has built an extensive range of both electric and acoustic virtual guitars for Second Life musos. They come with a range of animations, loops and special effects, "our goal is to create the most realistic and practical guitars in SecondLife."

If you like the virtual guitars and fancy a custom-built atomic guitar, then a 6-string will set you back around 3,350 USD (same for a 4-string bass) - and take about 3 months to build.

Here is a (newly revised) SLURL to his shop in Second Life. The shop is not a great architectural achievement, it's just a shop. On the ground floor you will find the full range of virtual guitars, while upstairs you can find out more about the real life guitars. My friend Xantherus might like to note that there is a virtual guitar that bears some likeness to a Flying V, though obviously it isn't actually one. So if you're disappointed that you can't get your hands on a Gibson, why not step up to the bespoke world of Patrick Hufschmid?

Here's a few snaps of the store - and of me twanging the MasterCoustic Dreadnought Spruce, which comes with a stack of animations and effects:

Raymond Weil's Nabucco

I am not really one for ostentatious amounts of bling (as I believe young people used to say, once upon a time) or, for that matter, the restrained elegance of inconspicuous excess. For example, for me, a watch is a thing you wear on your wrist to help you know the time - not a bizarre, chronofetishistic piece of over-priced jewellery. Perhaps that's why I had not visited the Raymond Weil Nabucco sim before - or even registered its existence though it has been open since September, 2007. However, last night my peregrinations took me into the general area, so I popped in for a look.

Raymond Weil (of Geneve, y'know) was founded in 1976 by watchsmith... umm... Raymond Weil in... errm... Geneva. All quite logical really. Although Herr Weil has now retired, the company has continued to make "mid-range luxury" hand-made watches. To promote their new Nabucco collection the company has launched its site in Second Life, described in their press release thus: "It is a place of sharing between the brand and the Second Life residents, where RAYMOND WEIL is there to listen and to gather comments and information. But the principal idea is for the visitors to have the opportunity to live the story of the brand’s new hero 'Nabucco'. An experience in 4 acts..."

The visitor is invited to "live the story", which basically consists of finding your way through a tunnel, climbing a rock face, finishing a game of chess and finding the way out. There are some nice graphics to make this slightly more interesting than it sounds. When you have finished, you can watch the Nabucco promotional movie/story - an experience that left me almost speechless, but not in a good way. Incidentally, before you ask, the story bears no resemblance to the Verdi opera of the same name, as far as I can tell. The sim is rounded off by an information desk, with links to the website, a RW Club meeting area and a Nabucco collection information area, with close-up photos, technical specifications and all that.

Here's a few snaps for you:

Banque Cantonale Vaudoise

While pottering about today I noticed a coupled of islands with the initials "BCV". I last tried to access these (unsuccessfully) some months ago - but they are open now**. In my RL world BCV is an acronym for Business Continuity Volumes, something techie in the world of data centre storage. So I was half-expecting to find another IT company - perhaps with a walk-in SAN, where you could surf on a disk drive, fly down some fibre optic cable... or somesuch nonsense. In the event, BCV turned out to be Banque Cantonale Vaudoise, a Swiss bank. "Founded in 1845, BCV is a banking group offering a full range of retail,private and corporate banking services -concentrating most of its general banking business in the Canton of Vaud."

The primary BCV island is solely for the bank itself, while BCV island 2 seems to be given over to various Swiss companies. The whole place is rather intensely green, with the occasional pale blue - part of the bank's branding. The main building is rather nicely made, and contains a gallery along with the usual information displays one might expect. Next door is a rather odd auditorium that took some getting into and aside from a funny little, black office, that is about it for the main island. A causeway links the two islands (so I guess that makes it only 1 island really), in the middle of which is curvy, shiny, faintly-mushroomy sculpture. The second island is split into a variety of plots, none of which particularly grabbed my attention. There are a few fun items here: you can fly a UFO (hitting Page-Up to make it hop upwards); be fired from a cannon or be catapulted off a water slide. There may be other hidden pleasures, but I didn't spot them.

While Blogger sorts out the issues with images, I will post up another Flickr set - only 3 pictures tho.



** VeeJay points out in comments that he was here back in July. My, how time flies! I coulda sworn it was more recently than that when I tried to get in. Oh well.