IBMer feared lost in Second Life


Just heard this from Jon Ive. Apparently renowned IBM computer scientist and tech “visionary” Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger has been missing since Saturday. Told his wife he was going upstairs to his office to play with Second Life — and never came out. Irving has been going around raving about this new virtual world, and now it looks like Second Life just got the better of him. Linden Lab has sent in a search team. Someone claims they saw someone who looks like Irving’s avatar going into some seedy Second Life neighborhood on Sunday night. No word yet but everyone is hoping for the best. Sergey Brin has a team of engineers scanning Google Earth images. IBM is putting out a statement thanking everyone for their help and prayers and urging people not to give up hope. Statement has to go through channels in Irving’s organization and then get vetted by IBM’s corp comm staff before a final run-through by Jon Iwata and then a quick zip through the executive management committee. Should have something out by the end of this week or early next, is what we’re hearing. Man, poor Irving. Weird thing is I just got email from him back in December telling me all about IBM’s strategy around open-source software. Great guy. Hope he’s okay in there.