Big Spaceship, WALL-E, and Our Newest Linden

M Linden announced on the Second Life blog today that innovations in the next generation of viewer would be ready by the middle of 2009, with continuous updates for the present viewer. The construction of LL Net, a fiber optic ring supporting Linden Lab data centers, is ahead of schedule.

Big Spaceship, the innovation-led digital design team that has been tasked with creating a new "first-hour" experience for new users in SL and designer a new SL website, are also progressing.

The most exciting news, however, was the announcement of Howard Look (Howard Linden), software engineer on Ratatouille and WALL-E, as the new Senior Vice President of Customer Applications. Aside from Pixar, Howard Linden has been a member of the founding team of TiVO, and was on the Inventor Team at SGI.

"When I met Howard, it was clear he was a great fit for Linden Lab - rich content creation tools (Pixar), intuitive interfaces (TiVo), 3D worlds (SGI) and a bonus attribute in his passion for education. I'm very pleased that Howard decided to join the executive team at Linden Lab," M Linded stated in the blog. "We're assembling a world-class team to deliver on our promise of a highly relevant and delightful user experience and a stable and reliable platform."

"Very early on in my career I recognized the transformative power that 3D technologies can have on human interaction and communication. Linden Lab is taking the power of 3D technologies much further than I had originally thought possible," said Howard Linden in the official Linden Labs press release. "The Linden Lab team, the Second Life Grid and the incredible opportunities ahead are exactly what I was looking for in the next stage of my career."

At SGI Howard Linden led the team that created the first Virtual Reality Modeling Language-based (VRML) 3D workstation setup environment.