Comverse demos Second Life on mobile phones

Thu Feb 8, 2007 1:24pm PST

By Adam Reuters

SECOND LIFE, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Software firm Comverse Technology has created an application that runs Second Life on Java-enabled mobile phones, along with other software that allows integrated SMS and instant messaging and the streaming of mobile video directly in-world.

“People are spending more and more time in virtual worlds,” Daphna Steinmetz, head of Comverse Innovation Labs, told Reuters in an interview on Thursday. “We want to bring closer the first life and the Second Life.”

The software was developed over the last six months, well before the open-sourcing of the Second Life client, and relies on using a separate PC or server as an intermediary. Comverse, which plans to demonstrate the products at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona next week, has also created an application that allows Second Life to run on IPTV platforms.

“On IPTV you can actually do most of the things you can do on the PC because the screen is very large, and the remote has lots of keys, so you can jump, fly, write a message,” Steinmetz said. “On the handset it’s a little more limited — it’s hard writing long sentences. It’s more just popping in, seeing who’s visiting your area.”

During a demonstration for Reuters, an avatar named Claude Minnelli (below) was logged in via mobile phone, walked around and chatted with others in the room. However, at one point the connection was lost, the avatar slumped over and his status shown as “Away.”

The company is in discussions with mobile phone carriers about rolling out the Second Life software.

Porting Second Life to other platforms is likely to accelerate following the open-sourcing of the client, but Comverse emphasized that its product is ready to go now.

“We are of course going to benefit from the opening of the client and possibilities it will give us,” said Comverse Innovation Labs’ Idan Cohen. “But the service we will offer now is ready for deployment.”

Comverse said on last month that it will be delisted from the Nasdaq stock exchange, joining a handful of companies that were kicked off the exchange as a result of irregularities in the way they accounted for stock options.