Mr. Ubuntu Discovers Second Life

Mark Shuttleworth, he of VeriSign and Ubuntu, has noticed Second Life:

Second Life of course brings a new twist to the idea of immersion, though for now it’s immersion on the virtual side of the looking glass. What interests me are the ways in which there is cross-over between the virtual world and the real world. When I’m walking around town, does my mobile phone alert me to changes in the virtual world? And when I’m working at my PC, how much can I stay focused on work, say, while my PC also keeps me abreast of what’s going on with my avatar?

I think there’s going to be a need for innovation around the ways we blur the lines between real and virtual worlds, and this is again one of those places that I think the free software community cold steal a lead on the proprietary world.

Well, yes; or maybe no. (Via tuxmachines.org.)