Second Lifehas launched a standalone
firewall, boosting the number of possible business uses of the
service.
Organisations - including the US Army, Unilever and Accenture -
have used the virtual world service for recruitment and training.
The secure firewall means companies will be able to use it for
confidential meetings, information sharing and exercises.
Linden Lab, owners of Second Life, said in its official
blog: "Although Second Life is a safe place to work, many large
enterprises and government institutions require complete control
over their IT systems due to privacy and confidentiality
concerns."
The stand-alone firewall is in the alpha stage of development,
with general availability expected later this year. IBM,
Naval Undersea
Warfare Centre and Intel are helping to test the new
software.
The firewall is a server completely disconnected from the main
Second Life environment. The company is looking for organisations
interested in helping to test the service during the beta phase of
development - visit the
Second Life website and choose the "I'm interested in running
Second Life behind my firewall" option in the pull down menu.