Tag: Science Fiction

Sinespace: Come to the Lost in (Sine)Space Sci-Fi Party, on March 23rd, 2022!

The Lost in (Sine)Space party venue in Sinespace

The social VR/virtual world Sinespace is going to be throwing a massive science fiction-themed party on Wednesday evening, March 23rd, 2022, at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time/8:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Residents are encouraged to dress up in their best space or alien outfits, and there are some serious prizes for the winners of the costume contest!

Star Wars, Lost in Space, The Jetsons?

The mother ship veered off course and crashes into uninhabitable Dystopia. As we journey through an army of unknowns, aliens, robots, and green space creatures, random prizes drop from the celestial sphere (Prize-o-Matic).

Please shop local and support our creators and designers for this event!

• Best in Space or Alien Costume: 5,000 Gold [Sinespace’s in-world currency]
• Second Place in Space or Alien Costume: 500 Gold

DJ Spiral rocking us into Space!

The location of the party will be the SOS world, but it will not be open until just before the event starts. Just click on the Explore button in your Sinespace client, search for “SOS”, and you’ll easily find it! If you’re new to Sinespace, here’s a guide I wrote up on how to get started; it’s intended for those familiar with Second Life, but it should work for anybody.

See you there!

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This blogpost is sponsored by Sinespace, and was written in my role as an embedded reporter for this virtual world (more details here). 

Space Colony Island-4: Explore an 8 Kilometre-by-32 Kilometre O’Neill Cylinder in VRChat, with Curve Gravity!

The O’Neill cylinder (also called an O’Neill colony) is a space settlement concept proposed by American physicist Gerard K. O’Neill in his 1976 book The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space… An O’Neill cylinder would consist of two counter-rotating cylinders. The cylinders would rotate in opposite directions in order to cancel out any gyroscopic effects that would otherwise make it difficult to keep them aimed toward the Sun. Each would be 5 miles (8.0 km) in diameter and 20 miles (32 km) long, connected at each end by a rod via a bearing system. Their rotation would provide artificial gravity.

—“O’Neill cylinder”, Wikipedia article

There’s a new world in VRChat which is attracting a lot of attention! It’s straight out of a science fiction novel: an O’Neill cylinder that is 8 kilometres in diameter and 32 kilometres long, and it features curve gravity, where you can actually run around in a full circle to land up where you started!

(VRChat is not the first social VR platform to feature such a build; I have visited an similar O’Neill cylinder with curve gravity in NeosVR, writing about it here.)

Here’s the original announcement by its creator on Twitter, with the English translation below it, courtesy of the DeepL translator:

The world “Space Colony “Island-4” has been released! It is an enclosed space colony with a diameter of 8km x length of 32km. Please enjoy the huge scale of this cylindrical world!

Space Colony Island-4 is currently one of the most popular worlds in VRChat, so it’s on the VRChat home screen. Here’s a link to the webpage for the world (this page requires a VRChat account to sign in).

By the way, did you know that VRChat has just updated its Quick Menu user interface? Here’s a two-minute video with the highlights of the new design:

Thank you to Rainwolf for the heads-up!

UPDATED! Ernest Cline, Author of Ready Player One, Will Attend a Virtual Book Tour Event for His Sequel Novel, Ready Player Two, in Bigscreen Today (Saturday, December 5th, 2020)

Ernest Cline, the author of the phenomenally successful virtual-reality-based science fiction novel, Ready Player One, will be visiting Bigscreen (the social VR app which allows you to share movie viewing experiences with others; more here on my blog), chatting with Darshan Shankar (Bigscreen’s founder and CEO), and taking questions from a virtual audience.

According to the official blogpost announcing the event:

The Q&A with Cline and Darshan Shankar, the CEO and Founder of Bigscreen, will be streamed in Bigscreen on December 5th at 5:00 p.m. Pacific (8:00 p.m. Eastern). The event is open to audiences worldwide for free, and requires the Bigscreen application (www.bigscreenvr.com) and a supported virtual reality headset.

The cover of Ernest Cline’s eagerly-awaited sequel to Ready Player One

Bigscreen supports all major VR headsets, including the Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index, and Windows Mixed Reality headsets. Bigscreen is available as a free download from the Oculus Store (PC, Quest) or via Steam. (Please note that although the Ernest Cline event today is free, you must purchase tickers to see some premium movie content on Bigscreen.)

For more information on Bigscreen, visit their website, or follow them on social media: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Reddit. You can also join the Bigscreen Community Discord server, with over 15,000 members.

UPDATE Dec. 6th, 2020: I, unfortunately, was unable to attend this event, but someone who did informed me that it was pre-recorded, and there was no Q&A session from a virtual audience. Please accept my apologies for the error!

Sansar at the Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas

I’m a little late in reporting this, but Linden Lab is present at the Official Star Trek 2019 Convention in Las Vegas from now through to August 4th in Las Vegas. Lacie Linden posted a cute picture to her Twitter:

In addition to having a booth at the convention, Linden Lab is also bringing in various people associated with the Star Trek franchise into Sansar to meet with fans in VR! Check the Sansar Events page for more details on events today and tomorrow:

Sansar: LIVE from Star Trek Las Vegas, Day 4 is running from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time/Sansar Time tomorrow, August 4th:

Come hang out one-on-one with:
– Suzie Plakson (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Voyager, Enterprise)
– John Billingsley (Dr. Phlox from Star Trek: Enterprise)
– Jeff Combs (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise and more)
– Casey Biggs (Damar on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
– Tim Russ (Commander Tuvok on Star Trek: Voyager, and a prolific writer, producer, and Trekkie)

All coming to you LIVE from Star Trek Las Vegas – only in the Sansar Roddenberry Experiences! Ask questions, meet other fans, and dive even deeper into Star Trek history. Be a part of the live STLV action without even leaving your desk.

See you there! And if you haven’t already, be sure to check out the Bridge of the USS Enterprise and the Roddenberry Nexus exhibit in Sansar. Here’s a picture from the official convention website inviting fans attending STLV to come and experience the latter:

You will need to install the Sansar client software on your computer and create an account to attend these events. Here’s a guide on how to get started.