Last week, Linden Labs hosted the first Architecture Working Group, whose “…aim is to build the technology and standards for such a vision by developing them through the direct involvement of Linden Lab, external developers, and the community.”

In a Linden Labs blog post, they wrote: “We imagine a future where Second Life is able grow beyond the borders of Linden Lab. We see regions running on open source, alternative simulators. We see web services that allow people to build mash-ups of Second Life and the Web. We see organizations being able to integrate their members and their members’ avatars.”

This is a very interesting future, or at least proposition, for Second Life and the evolution of virtual worlds, and we must keep a close watch on what Linden Labs will be doing to stay ahead of the virtual world game (so to speak). I commend Linden Labs in keeping open ties with the great SL community. Check out the post here.

Linden Labs is rolling out an age verification program called “Identity Verification (IDV).”

Linden Labs states “Identity verification provides an additional layer of trust for in-world businesses and Residents. It also helps ensure that minors can not gain access to inappropriate content in Second Life or have access to restricted content in-world.”

As Reuters points out, this will allow “Linden to tie a real-world legal jurisdiction to an avatar, allowing the company to selectively enforce local laws.”

Identity Verification is voluntary, but allows estate owners to mark land as restricted to a certain age group. However, if an avatar is interested in entering an adult area, they will eventually, according to Linden labs, be restricted from entering adult-flagged land unless their account is verified.