Archives for June 2010

1. BusinessWeek (USA) – Linden Lab’s Virtual Second Life Eyes Second Life. “Linden Lab’s virtual world called Second Life was seen as the Web’s next big thing following its 2003 debut. Investors including Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos and EBay Inc. founder Pierre Omidyar poured millions of dollars into the project, where 3-D avatars sunbathe on virtual islands and operate virtual companies. Businessweek featured Second Life on a 2006 cover, and Reuters opened a virtual bureau. Coca-Cola Co. held a virtual contest. Philip Rosedale, who founded San Francisco-based Linden Lab, said Second Life has yet to reach its potential. He was named interim CEO today, replacing Mark Kingdon, who stepped down. In 2008, Rosedale predicted that virtual worlds will become “bigger in total usage than the Web itself.”

2. Ars Technica (USA) –Saving “virtual worlds” from extinction. “Sometime this August, librarians at the University of Illinois will finish archiving over a dozen famous computer games, then step back to consider where to go next with their project. These programs go back over four decades, and include a 1993 version of Doom, various editions of Warcraft, and even MIT’s Spacewar! circa 1962. We wondered, given the gaming nature of most of the software being preserved, why the venture is calling itself the Preserving Virtual Worlds project. So we called up the project’s coordinator, Jerome McDonough, Assistant Professor of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois, to ask him about the name.”

3. University World News (UK) – Save money switching to OpenSim. “Educators in post-secondary institutions, colleges and schools looking for lower costs, better controls and no age restrictions might consider switching from Second Life to its open source alternative, the OpenSim virtual world server platform. The OpenSim server software can be used to power an entire public grid or a small private, behind-the-firewall installation, and can be run on an institution’s own server or hosted with third-party providers. Educators say they find OpenSim offers significant cost savings over Second Life although there may be hidden costs. “OpenSim is far less expensive to us to run,” said Shenlei Winkler, President of the Fashion Research Institute, in an online comment to the International Society for Technology in Education. “We pay less a year for most of our regions than we do for a month of our Second Life region’s hosting bills,” Winkler said.”

4. Inside Higher Ed (USA) – ‘Rebundling’ Liberal Education. “In 2009 a group of 42 researchers, educators, and entrepreneurs met together at the invitation of Union Square Ventures, a venture capital firm, to discuss how the Web could transform education. A major theme of the daylong discussion, which took place under the theme “Hacking Education,” was “unbundling,” the process through which online distribution of digital media and information breaks apart and erodes existing industries. At the center of “unbundling” are new technologically-enabled relationships that democratize access to the means of production and collectively create plenty where scarcity once existed. An often-cited example of “unbundling” is newspapers: with blogs and other online tools, one no longer needs a printing press or fleet of delivery vehicles to be heard. The newspaper editorial room competes with an army of bloggers and other online media outlets. Craigslist emerges as the marketplace for used household items, local job listings, and community announcements, replacing the advertising function of the traditional print newspaper. The combination is a perfect storm leading to a steady, nationwide stream of newspaper closures.”

5. VentureBeat (USA) – VenueGen lowers pricing to take virtual meetings to the masses. “VenueGen said today that it’s taking its 3D virtual meeting tools to a new audience, with a version aimed at freelancers, small businesses, bloggers, and do-good organizations. Company president Jeff Crown said that most of the existing virtual world products for businesses, such as those offered by Inxpo and Unisfair, are out of reach for smaller organizations, because they cost tens of thousands of dollars per year. And VenueGen’s initial service, which it launched at the DEMO conference coproduced by VentureBeat, was similarly priced for large enterprises.”

6. BusinessWeek (USA) – Second Life: Reality Intrudes on Virtual Reality. “While you were worrying about keeping your home, you may have missed the popping of the virtual-reality real estate bubble. In Second Life—Linden Lab’s immersive, 3D game that allows players to trade real dollars for virtual dollars—a nice stretch of mainland coastal property that would have fetched around $65 in 2007 today goes for $16. That’s partly because the financial crisis crimped spending for the 1.38 million users, known as residents who have logged into Second Life in the past 60 days. “The real real estate crisis had a direct effect on the real estate” in virtual worlds, says Guntram Graef, a business partner at Anshe Chung Studios, which sells “land” in Second Life. It’s also because the pell-mell growth of Second Life has slowed dramatically since four years ago, when BusinessWeek put Anshe Chung—the avatar for Ailin Graef, Guntram’s wife— on its cover.”

7. Scientific American (USA) – Grand Theft Auto Is Good for You? Not So Fast… “If your children are like 99 percent of boys and 94 percent of girls, they play video games. And, if they are like 50 percent of boys and 14 percent of girls, they prefer games with “mature” – read: violent — themes, such as Grand Theft Auto, an urban dystopia of gun fights, car chases, pole dancers and prostitutes, where blood splatters realistically on the “camera lens.” Should you worry whether such a game will warp your children’s minds? A new paper by Cheryl Olson, a public health specialist at Harvard, suggests the answer may be: au contraire. Olson surveyed children’s reported motivations for video game playing and found that their top rated choices were to have fun, compete well with others, and to be challenged. She then elaborates on the psychological benefits such play might afford, describing how video games facilitate self-expression, role play, creative problem-solving, cognitive mastery, positive social interactions and leadership. Sounds more utopian than dystopian, right?”

8. Wall Street Journal (USA) – Real Economist Learns From Virtual World. “In the first quarter of this year, while Chinese demand for copper, aluminum and nickel helped the London Metals Exchange’s index of prices rise to a 4% gain, the minerals price index for EVE went in the opposite direction, dropping by 1.8% over the same period. The deflationary trend in EVE was led by sharp declines in high-end metals Zydrine and Megacyte, mostly explained by a positive supply shock. A hitherto inaccessible asteroid belt was opened up in null security space, which created an important new source for the two metals and counteracted the upward effect of stronger demand from spaceship builders. These observations and more are laid out in the latest quarterly report on economic activity in EVE by Eyjolfur Gudmundsson, chief economist for Reykjavik, Iceland-based CCP Gaming, the company that designed, created and now manages EVE.”

9. TechCrunch (USA) – Amidst Turmoil, Linden Lab’s CEO Steps DownJune has not been a good month for Linden Lab, the creator of virtual world Second Life. A few weeks ago, the company announced that it was laying off 30 percent of its staff and taking Second Life into a new direction. Today, Linden Lab is announcing that current CEO Mark Kingdon (pictured here) is stepping down. Company founder Philip Rosedalehas been named interim CEO, and CFO Bob Komin has assumed the additional role of COO. The company did not give a reason for the reshuffling of the executive team but it’s safe to assume that it reflects Linden Lab’s new strategic direction. When announcing the layoffs in early June, Linden Lab also said that it aims to make SeconfdLife more browser based, eliminating the need to download any software. The company is also pushing for Second Life to extend to social networks.”

10. Escapist Magazine (USA) – Rumor: Star Wars: The Old Republic Closed Beta In Progress. “The Star Wars: The Old Republic community has been in a fervor over nearly confirmed rumors that the game has entered a public closed beta phase for this weekend only. The game isn’t expected until mid-2011 at the earliest, but those with the force in them may be playing as we speak… err… write… as I write… and you read. They’re playing it now is what I am saying. BioWare has not confirmed the beta, but rather than a denial, Star Wars: The Old Republic community manager Sean Dahlberg wrote in this forum thread: “Thanks for the information and it’s definitely interesting that people are posting about our Game Testing Program. We don’t have anything official to say at this moment.” He also said that members of the beta were only allowed to say that there is a beta, and that they are in it, if one were to be ongoing.”

1. Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) – Log on for a dose of reality. “Fifteen years ago, or thereabouts, my then employer sent me to a conference on “business communications”. It was a largely forgettable and dreary two-day event, the high point of which, I seem to recall, was the muffins at morning and afternoon tea. Baked goods aside, the only thing I remember with any clarity was part of a presentation by a chap from, of all places, the NRMA. Mr NRMA recommended some rules we should adopt at work when using this newfangled email thing. Bear in mind that this was in the dim pre-history of the web. Tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube were barely a gleam in the eyes of a few hardcore geeks.Most of us were still grappling with the ground rules of how we should behave towards each other online.”

2. Stuff.co.nz (New Zealand) – Big brother watches in this virtual world. “RICK Earl is a virtual world sheriff. The 34-year-old Aucklander is executive producer and director of Customer Support for SmallWorlds, a Kiwi-created international virtual community with more than 350,000 active users every month. Earl is largely responsible for writing the rulebook on SmallWorlds’ crime and deciding the consequences for breaking it. He deals with everything from swearing to attempted grooming for under-age sex. In the R13 SmallWorlds, users can create up to five avatars [on-line alter egos] to interact with each other and trade virtual property. Virtual users’ representations are often idealised versions of themselves, and are free to engage in activities often beyond users’ abilities in real life. Earl said SmallWorlds, which has been designed with age 13+ players in mind, is cartoon-like with no nudity and it filters swearwords automatically.”

3. Inside Social Games (USA) – World Cup Goods Fill Facebook’s Virtual Stores. “The sale of virtual goods has always been a primary monetization method for social games, and with the world’s most popular sport, soccer, already in the heat of the 2010 World Cup, you can bet that a number of social developers are taking advantage. We’ve already tracked a number of recently-released soccer apps, so below we’re taking a closer look at what non-sports games are doing in recognition of what is, arguably, the world’s largest sporting event.”

4. VentureBeat (USA) – Which startups will bridge the physical and virtual worlds? “In our pockets sits unprecedented processing power, in the form of smartphones that are morphing into superphones. And they’re on the verge of having next-level software that can provide us with deeper immersion and more interactive experiences. As networks improve, we’ll roam the world virtually, seeking relevant information regardless of time and place. Still, there is a gap between the physical world and the digital experience of it. The question: How do we cross it?”

5. ZDNet Asia (Singapore) – S’pore tech shines at CommunicAsia 2010. “Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) showcases some of its market-ready technologies at the trade show. The exhibition is organized by two of its arms–Institute for Infocomm Research which focuses on research and development and commercialization wing Exploit Technologies. In what looks like a CSI (Crime Scene Investigation) setup, A*Star shows off its digital forensic evidence and file recovery technology. A spokersperson explained that the files are stored in fragmentation on the hard disk, and contrary to popular belief, files do not disappear when deleted but become shreds of unrelated memory. Contrasted with “state-of-the-art”, commercially-available technology seen on the right, which is only able to recover two-thirds of a deleted image, A*STAR’s technology is able to completely recover a deleted file. A*Star achieves this through its “patent-pending technology” using a novel algorithm with more complex scenarios, she said.”

6. BusinessLine (India) – World’s becoming more ‘playful’. “What do video games do? They amplify particular human tendencies — our innate hunger for learning, our delight in solving problems and challenges, our sociability and rivalries, our pleasure in escaping the uncertainties of the world for more predictable rewards — says Tom Chatfield in Fun Inc. (www.landmarkonthenet.com). He adds that, additionally, ‘games as interactive systems increasingly connect to the ways in which we work, communicate, plan and express ourselves in a digital age, a process that is making the world more playful, and where the business of play is becoming ever broader and more profitable.’ Over the next half-century, in the author’s view, video games are going to become as much a part of everyone’s daily experience as television, radio, automobiles, refrigerators, type and the written word. Another certainty that he sees in video games is money, lots of it!”

7. San Diego Business Journal (USA) – In a Galaxy Far, Far Away … “While console games such as those played on a Sony PlayStation or Microsoft’s X Box still dominate the video gaming industry, a shift is under way that will result in a much larger amount of revenue coming from online games such as a new one now in beta testing at San Diego’s Sony Online Entertainment. “Star Wars: The Clone Wars Adventures” hasn’t been released yet, but when it is sometime in the fall, the game is expected to garner a lot of attention, not only from a target group of young boys from ages 6 to 14, but from their parents, who grew up with characters such as Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi. “We want to make this game a destination where kids can play with their parents,” says Taina Rodriguez, spokeswoman for SOE, which makes its headquarters in Sorrento Valley with some 500 employees locally. To ensure that the Star Wars game has the highest level of authenticity, the folks at SOE worked closely with LucasArts, the video game division of Lucasfilm, which created the blockbuster movie that is still generating revenue for the company.”

8. VentureBeat (USA) – Rixty, Coinstar turn spare change into virtual goods. “Rixty has a system that lets kids and other gamers turn in their coins at stores and then get credits that they can spend in online games. Today, the company says that more than 50 companies have signed up to integrate its alternative payment method into games. With Rixty, you can break that piggybank and take your coins or cash to 20,000 locations such as Coinstar coin-counting machines in grocery stores. The machines count your coins and give youcredit (via a 16-digit pin code) to spend on games. So far, Rixty’s users are spending an average of $30 a month on games. The users spend about $28 a month for games on Facebook.”

9. Tekrati (USA) – Immersive Tech Experts at ThinkBalm End Research Operations. “Erica Driver has announced that she will depart ThinkBalm next month, citing slower than expected enterprise adoption of immersive technologies. While partner Sam Driver will continue consulting with clients on immersive technologies, the firm will discontinue industry research operations and disband the ThinkBalm Innovation Community. Ms. Driver will join QlikView in July as senior director of Global Partner Marketing. ThinkBalm has been dedicated to enterprise adoption of immersive technologies — including virtual worlds, immersive learning environments, and virtual event platforms — since its founding. The small firm has racked up an impressive list of accomplishments during its two-year run: a blue ribbon client list, valuable research available free of charge, and a vibrant community of innovators. ”

10. The Ledger (USA) –Merely Human? That’s So Yesterday. “ON a Tuesday evening this spring, Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, became part man and part machine. About 40 people, all gathered here at a NASA campus for a nine-day, $15,000 course at Singularity University, saw it happen. While the flesh-and-blood version of Mr. Brin sat miles away at a computer capable of remotely steering a robot, the gizmo rolling around here consisted of a printer-size base with wheels attached to a boxy, head-height screen glowing with an image of Mr. Brin’s face. The BrinBot obeyed its human commander and sputtered around from group to group, talking to attendees about Google and other topics via a videoconferencing system. The BrinBot was hardly something out of “Star Trek.” It had a rudimentary, no-frills design and was a hodgepodge of loosely integrated technologies. Yet it also smacked of a future that the Singularity University founders hold dear and often discuss with a techno-utopian bravado: the arrival of the Singularity — a time, possibly just a couple decades from now, when a superior intelligence will dominate and life will take on an altered form that we can’t predict or comprehend in our current, limited state.”