On Wed, May 24th Second Life upgraded to 1.10.0 to bring several new, big features including a new lighting system, flexi prims and occlusion culling.

Release Notes for Second Life 1.10.0(31) May 24, 2006
=====================================
Features:
* Hardware lighting
** Any primitive in Second Life may be turned into a light
*** Light properties are radius, color, intensity, and falloff
** New options in the Preference panel indicate the type of lighting you want to use
*** "Sun or Moon only" is best for low-performance hardware
**** Everything in-world is lit in real time by the sun or moon only
*** "Nearby Lights" is available for any hardware configuration
**** Everything in-world is lit by sun or moon and up to six nearby light sources
** More information about the new lighting system is available here:
*** http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=100128