Second Life is coming to your phone… in Japan

I tried to run the Second Life application on my much-loved Mac Mini the other day: you could practically hear its gears grinding. And I didn’t even know it had gears. It’s fair to say that you need a fairly ninja computer to get the most out of Linden Lab’s virtual world.

However, not for much longer: it appears someone’s working on a mobile phone SL browser. Check this on the TokyoZERO website. Yes, it’s entirely in Japanese, but you should be able to make out that a.) it concerns Second Life running on a phone, b.) Sun is involved (the people behind J2ME), and c.) it’s got something to do with mobile operator NTT DoCoMo too.

The obvious question is why you’d want to access Second Life on a phone when you could be metaverse-surfing on a big-screen PC. But the ability to dip in while away from your desktop could be a welcome feature. Anyway, I’ll keep my eyes peeled for more news in the coming months – hopefully at least one Western firm is working on a similar mobile client too.

(via Virtual Worlds Forum Blog)

Related posts
VWFE: Spotlight on five hot new virtual worlds
VWFE: IBM on why virtual worlds need to be interoperable
Lord Puttnam: “Broadcasters not engaging enough with virtual worlds”