In a recent presentation with Newsweek's Level Up, mobile gaming solution developer Vollee demonstrated its handset client by streaming Second Life with an adapted layout to a mobile phone.

Vollee is currently offering users the opportunity to try out its Second Life mobile experience themselves with a free, open beta. With the service, users will be able to look up friends, interact, and communicate online in Second Life.

Linden Lab business development manager Chris Mahoney commented when the service was first announced: “For Linden Lab, this represents an intuitive way to extend the reach and accessibility of the Second Life Grid platform. This is a great way for Second Life residents to stay connected to their friends, business and experiences in-world, wherever they are.”

Video from the demonstration can be viewed here.

Mobile gaming solution developer Vollee has launched a free beta application allowing users to access Linden Lab 3D virtual world Second Life through their qualified 3G or Wi-Fi enabled handsets.

Vollee’s technology intelligently adapts applications for screen size and key layout, and then streams the original application to mobile devices. The developer's interactive video streaming platform optimizes compression to minimize bandwidth, allowing gamers to navigate 3D spaces.

After downloading Vollee's client to their handsets and logging in to their existing Second Life, users will be able to look up friends, interact, and communicate online with other avatars in the online world.

Said Linden Lab business development manager Christopher Mahoney, "Vollee offers the perfect Second Life mobile service that brings our virtual world to handsets in a way that is ideal for connecting our Residents. We look forward to the new and exciting ways people will be able to extend their Second Life experience through this new service.”

Linden Lab has announced that it will celebrate Second Life's 5th Birthday by holding a two-week long Virtual World Fair, which will feature roundtable discussions, parties and exhibits showcasing the creativity of its users and innovative uses of the Second Life platform.

The fair will kick off with founder and former CEO Philip Rosedale and current CEO Mark Kindom each delivering an opening address. Lotus Development Corporation founder and Linden Lab board member Mitch Kapor will offer closing remarks.

The Virtual World Fair, which will take place in several Second Life regions from June 23 to July 7, will be open to Second Life users, Linden Lab employees, and industry thought leaders. The event will explore topics such as Second Life's evolving culture, the role of virtual worlds in business, and the platform's opportunities for areas such as health care and education.

Said Rosedale: “It’s amazing to look back and reflect on everything that we’ve accomplished in such a short time. From our initial launch, to the decision to allow Residents to retain their IP, to opening up the Platform to third parties, most of the decisions we’ve made have gone against the grain of conventional wisdom and that’s made all the difference."

He continued: “While we’ve come a long way in our first five years and have surmounted significant challenges, there’s still plenty of work left as we continue to advance the medium. With Mark’s leadership and the passion and creativity of our Residents we are extremely excited about what the future holds and the evolving role that Second Life will play in business, arts, education and communication in general.”

Health service organization CIGNA HealthCare has announced the development of a 3D virtual health care community in the form of a Second Life island. The project hopes to provide visitors with seminars, interactive displays, educational games, and virtual health consultations to help foster help foster real and sustainable behavior change that improves health.

Developed by brand experience agency Method, the community welcomes arriving users with an avatar, which greets and leads them to the virtual seminars. The interactive presentation will allow users to participate in a variety of activities, such as learning about nutrition in the "nutrition zone" and voting on the fat content of particular food items.

Interactive games will also be available, such as "The Fridge," in which users click on food items to display their nutritional labels, and "Whack-a-Food," where players compete to test their knowledge of healthy foods.

Said Keith Dixon, Ph.D., president of CIGNA's health solutions unit: “As a health service company, we are always looking for new and creative ways to reach people with important messages about living a healthy and productive life. With a social interactivity that extends beyond geographic boundaries, and an exciting and appealing visual experience, CIGNA's virtual community enables us to reach an entirely new group of people that might not respond to health education messages delivered through more traditional channels.”

Analyst firm Gartner's vice president Carol Rozell added: “Companies are seeing measurable returns from using virtual worlds to create a more engaging communications experience with their employees and customers. The key to launching and maintaining a successful virtual world is to clearly identify a targeted audience, determine their needs, understand how they learn, and design a user experience that encourages interactivity.”

Developer of the "virtual life" social networking site Koinup has announced that it is going to expand its presences in Second Life – by building and placing kiosks "strategically" on Second Life sims that have a high traffic count to drive users to the Koinup site. Wyatt Benoir, owner of Second Life location The ARTist Park and in-world photography magazine The Artisan, is to build the kiosks .

Koinup has also announced new features for the site, which combines "social networking, photography, machinima display, weekly events and contests for all virtual world platforms," including Best Places, which allows members to take pictures of their favorite locations in Second Life and to add them to a list of Best Places.

Koinup continues to be "strictly" for users of virtual worlds only, setting it apart from other social networking site.

"Koinup is quickly becoming the preferred site to display your 'Second Life'," said a Koinup representative, "It's a diverse virtual community in which you can share commonalities with fellow members -- it has something for everyone and is free and open to all."

New Second Life news from their blog; according to a recent post, in roughly a month the virtual world is to be available -- completely translated -- in German, French, Korean and Japanese, thanks to the work of Second Life residents working in tandem with a "small number" of staff members.

The world is also to be partially localized into Spanish, Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese and Danish by that point, with "Italian and Dutch" to come next. The translation includes not only the Second Life "viewer" but also the site's web pages, including Knowledge Base articles.

According to the announcement, the project is in preparation for a new translation portal which is to open "later this year," that is to contain several new localization tools to "easier, quicker and better quality translations, not only for German and French but for many more languages."

"The goal is a high quality Second Life viewer and website available to all residents communicating in each language," continued the post from Robin Linden. "What makes this project successful is the extraordinary effort of the international community of Second Life resident volunteers."

Linden Lab, developer of the virtual world Second Life, has announced that it has acquired two web-based virtual good marketplaces trading in Second Life items -- Xstreet SL and OnRez.

According to their announcement, these acquisitions are to allow Linden Lab to "reach a broader global audience for Second Life in 2009" and are to consolidate the two marketplaces on the Xstreet SL platform, "offering one online shopping experience for customers and merchants."

For the immediate future, Xstreet SL is to continue to function as it has with "only minor changes," while OnRez is remain active for a few weeks to give customers and merchants an opportunity to migrate their accounts and product listings over to Xstreet SL.

Similar to e-commerce sites for real world goods Xstreet SL provides an online catalog, where Second Life users can browse, purchase and sell Second Life-related virtual goods and services, as a complement to shopping "in-world".

In 2008, Second Life users purchased and sold more than $360 million USD in virtual goods and services.

“Linden Lab is expanding its footprint in the virtual world industry through four major initiatives – localizing the Second Life experience in key markets around the world, simplifying the ‘first hour experience’ to broaden consumer adoption, enhancing the platform for enterprise users and building our virtual goods marketplace,” said Mark Kingdon, CEO of Linden Lab. “Content creators and merchants are pillars of the strong Second Life economy. With these e-commerce acquisitions, we will now be able to offer content creators and merchants an opportunity to substantially improve their businesses, while enhancing the Second Life experience for all of our residents.”

It's always useful to see "how others see us", and I found this episode of the Canadian Broadcasting Company's "The Fifth Estate" investigative journalism show very illuminating on that score.

You can watch the full episode online and its surprised and befuddled look at the "online game" of Second Life (seriously; they call it a game so often it grates, and they never once, to my recollection, refer to it as "virtual world") is at least a couple of years too late on the bandwagon.

Howvever, it's clearly still how the majority of the mainstream media view virtual worlds, so worth a watch—even if I doubt you'll manage to make the whole way through it.