The Watch – virtual worlds in the news

1. BBC (UK) – View from the end of the world. “Taking a journey to the end of the world might not be for everyone, but in the virtual spaces of gaming and online environments, it’s not as dangerous as it might seem. Robert Overweg in the Netherlands has been capturing virtual spaces since 2007 and his latest project has produced some of the most eerie and unexpected pictures from the worlds of first-person shooter video-games. He first found the edges of a world while playing a game called Left for Dead. “I saw normal road, walls and bushes but then the road just ended – it was foggy. So I decided to capture this and go into other games and explore their aesthetics of the ends of their worlds,” Mr Overweg said.”

2. The Guardian (UK) – Internet addiction driving South Koreans into realms of fantasy. “s dusk descends on the Sinchon neighbourhood of Seoul, a wave of Saturday shoppers melts away, on cue, into restaurants and bars. But in a windowless room several floors above the throng, Ji Yu-tae is steeling himself for a very different night’s entertainment. His only companions are a bottle of vitamin drink, cigarettes and a monitor displaying a scene from Aion, one of South Korea’s most popular online games. When the hunger pangs become irresistible, he will click a box in the corner of his PC screen and order instant noodles. By Monday morning, after two days of almost non-stop gaming, Ji will make his way to work, pale and sleep-deprived, but content that he has progressed in the virtual world that has been his second home for the past two years. Seated next to him among rows of screens at this PC bang, an internet cafe in the South Korean capital, are scores of fellow obsessives whose attachment to online gaming is fast becoming a problem in the world’s most advanced internet society.”

3. Ars Technica (USA) – Gamers crave anonymity, so Blizzard scuttles Real ID plans. “Blizzard did not make many friends with its recent decision to force users to post with their real names in its official forums. The response was immediate and deafening, with pages and pages of users complaining bitterly about the new rule. One Blizzard employee posted his own name to prove the system’s safety only to have his personal information, including address and phone number, posted on the forum. The company listened to the feedback, and is now reversing course. “We’ve been constantly monitoring the feedback you’ve given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums,” Mike Morhaime, the CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment, wrote. “As a result of those discussions, we’ve decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.”

4. Huffington Post (USA) – Overview: Asia’s Social Media Scene. “Asia’s diverse cultures, languages and levels of economic development have always made it an exciting place to work. Now, however, Asia’s wide range of digital ecosystems have created wildly divergent virtual worlds that few people understand. These virtual worlds are, however, having a very real impact on Asias economics, politics and culture. I run Ogilvy’s team of social media specialists in Asia and created this video for an internal meeting to show some recent developments across the region. Countries in Asia with a similar level of development can have extremely different ways of approaching the Internet. In Korea, broadband connections are available virtually everywhere, while Japan’s Internet population is highly reliant on mobile.”

5. Times Higher Education (UK) – Sceptics start to see the other side of Second Life. “Hostility between academics who advocate teaching through virtual worlds and those who scorn the idea is being blamed for holding back the evolution of higher education. The warning comes despite evidence that universities are slowly embracing virtual environments such as Second Life for teaching, according to a report from the Virtual World Watch consultancy. The report, Zen and the Art of Avatar Maintenance, says that like the two characters in Robert M. Pirsig’s 1974 book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, academics hold polarised views of learning online. “Some people take to it with great enthusiasm; others recoil in dismay, horror or anger,” writes the study’s author, John Kirriemuir.”

6. Wall Street Journal (USA) – Reality Gets a Makeover. “French electronics company Parrot SA plans next month to release a toy helicopter with a twist. The AR Drone has a pair of cameras to relay video to iPhones or iPads, which function as the remote control. The device also recognizes certain objects, such as other AR Drones, and can add graphics to the video feed, creating a videogame played out in the real world. The $299 toy is the latest example of an effort to commercialize augmented reality, a technique in which extra information or graphics are added to ordinary surroundings. From virtual mirrors that superimpose a shade of lipstick on a potential buyer’s face, to restaurant reviews that pop up when a person points a camera phone at a restaurant, proponents say the technology has a range of possible uses beyond videogames that mix the real and virtual worlds.”

7. Bendigo Advertiser (Australia) – Professor nurses a real passion for regional health. “Professor Isabelle Ellis is looking forward to the challenges of her new role as professor of rural and regional nursing at the La Trobe Rural Health School. Professor Ellis was appointed by the La Trobe University board and will also head the school of nursing and midwifery. Professor Ellis was the mastermind behind a virtual online hospital course called v-Hospital, which enables nursing students studying externally to access real-life nursing in rural and remote areas. Her program was heralded a world first after it was launched at the Charles Darwin University in the Northern Territory in 2007. After leaving the NT, she took up a role at the University of Western Australia, where she continued to develop her passion for helping disadvantaged communities in rural and remote areas.”

8.Marketing Vox (USA) – Cascadian Farm Becomes First Branded Crop in FarmVille. “Organic brand Cascadian Farm is becoming the first branded organic crop to be offered in Zynga’s popular online game FarmVille. Beginning July 19 through July 26, Cascadian Farm will give FarmVille players such benefits as coupon offers, organic farming and green living tips and – per the game’s philosophy – the opportunity to enhance their farm. The campaign was developed with the support of Sterling-Rice Group. The brand has recreated the real Cascadian Farm – located in the Upper Skagit Valley of Washington’s North Cascade Mountains – virtually, with the online fruits and vegetables planted in similar fashion. There’s also an avatar farmer called “Farmer Joe Cascadian,” who’ll serve as the “virtual” tender to the brand’s own FarmVille farm.”

9. Gamasutra (USA) – Virtual Fairground Launches Engine for 3D Flash-based MMO Games and Virtual Worlds. “Virtual world and MMO games specialist Virtual Fairground announced today the launch of its browser-based virtual world and MMO game development platform, The Ride. The Ride enables reliable and rapid development of advanced and scalable 3D Flash-based virtual worlds and MMO games at a fraction of the cost usually associated with these types of products and services. Virtual Fairground has spend over 2 years developing this proprietary technology and design platform after raising US 4 million in venture capital in 2008.”

10. Government Technology (USA) – Edmonton, Alberta, Replicating City in Second Life. “Second Life may be a scary, uncharted world for most local governments, but not for Edmonton, Alberta.
In the capital of Canadian province Alberta, CIO Chris Moore is on a mission to recreate his city in the virtual world, where avatars roam and interact like they would in real life. Launched in 2003 by San Francisco-based Linden Lab, Second Life is an immersive online environment and a 3-D modeling tool based around simple geometric shapes that allows users to build virtual objects. At the beginning of the year, Second Life had 18 million accounts registered. Moore is one of them. When it comes to business, he likes to plug in.”

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