Second Life on mobiles - it's here

Vollee announced back in February that it planned on bringing popular virtual world Second Life onto mobile devices this May. Well, its timetable seems to have slipped a bit, but Vollee’s Second Life plans are ready to go.

The beta of the service can be downloaded from Vollee’s website and there about 40 handsets, including the N95 and the Shine, that are supported at launch and Vollee is promising there’s more 3G and wi-fi enabled devices to come, including the iPhone.

When Vollee first made the announcement, I couldn’t help wondering how they’d be able to pull it off given the processing demands of the service. Here’s how: users download a thin client and Vollee streams Second Life to them. Meanwhile, the company’s VolleeX engine adapts applications for screen size and key layout so the virtual world fits your phone. Clever stuff from Vollee – sounds like just the sort of stuff that might crop up in an operator content bundle in the future.