1. The Independent (UK) – Millions and millions of little monsters. “Virtual worlds are booming. This summer, market research firm Strategy Analytics projected that the population of virtual worlds would increase from 186 million inhabitants to 640 million by 2015. And a big part of this giant leap is going to be from young people. Apparently, children between five and nine will boost the market by 27percent while teens will bump it up by 21 per cent. And it’s already happening. ‘Club Penguin’ and ‘Habbo Hotel’ have record numbersofmembers, while the number of children playing online game ‘Moshi Monsters’ (above and left) has hit the10million mark, with one million new users signing up every month.”
2. TechRadar (UK) – Heritage Key VX review. “Before the web came along, virtual environments seemed like the next big thing in interface technology. We now have the processing power to do everything those old-school futurists dreamed about: telepresence, immersive filesystems, cyberspace applications… yet it’s still gamers that make most use of virtual worlds. Heritage Key VX may end up changing all this, though. It’s a mainstream application of a once niche feature that reminds us why we all thought it was such a good idea. While Heritage Key is predominantly an educational website aimed at amateur historians and fans of archaeology, its heart is the 3D virtual exhibit.”
3. Times Online (UK) – Real-world arrest for man who stole RuneScape virtual characters. “A man who hacked into accounts to steal virtual characters and their possessions on one of the world’s biggest multi-player online games has been arrested. In what experts believe is the first case of its kind in Britain, the man obtained log-in details for RuneScape, a web-based role playing game with more than ten million members, to steal their “virtual” characters. Players in the game have often spent years creating their online characters by completing set tasks and activities. Police believe that password details were obtained through a so-called phishing scam where a fake internet page tricks people into handing over their personal information.”
4. Government Computer News (USA) – Second Life demonstrates mingling of real and virtual worlds. “While the public version of the Second Life virtual world remains primarily a playground for self expression and social networking, military and government agencies are taking a more serious look at its practical applications now that its maker, Linden Lab, has created a version of the environment that can be run behind a firewall on private servers. But Second Life is only one of several environments for creating what are sometimes called 3-D Internet experiences. Like Virtual Battle Space 2, Second Life made cameo appearances at several booths around the show floor at the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference in Orlando, Fla., this week.”
5. The University of Texas at Austin News (USA) – Innovator for Teaching with Virtual Worlds Passes Away. “University faculty member and instructional innovator Leslie Jarmon died on Nov. 24 after a 15-year battle with cancer. She was 57. Jarmon was an early adopter of instructional uses of virtual worlds, becoming a role model and advocate for colleagues looking to create new models in pedagogy through innovative uses of emerging technology. Jarmon designed and taught graduate-level courses at the university beginning in 1998 with the Office of Graduate Studies. In fall 2008 she joined the Division of Instructional Innovation and Assessment as a specialist in faculty development.”
6. The Industry Standard (USA) – UC Irvine offering four year video games program. “Well-known for its excellent courses in engineering, business, and medicine, UC Irvine is now pushing into a new area of expertise; video games. The university announced that it had established its Center for Computer Games and Virtual Worlds earlier this year by joining forces with the Institute for Software Research and the Game Culture and Technology Laboratory. Construction is currently underway on a 4,000 square-foot, 20-room “cyber interaction observatory” for faculty research, and the plans call for floor-to-ceiling projection screens, and advanced 3D displays.”
7. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Unity Lays Claim to “Fastest Growing” App Platform. “Unity Technologies, a company that produces a game platform many virtual worlds run on, last year created a mobile platform specifically for iPhone app development. Today the company said its iPhone platform was “proving to be the fastest growing game development platform for the iPhone.” Twelve percent of games featured on AppShopper.com’s Top 25 paid-for apps were built with Unity iPhone, says Unity Technologies.”
8. The Globe and Mail (Canada) – When gamers become recruiters. “As 2009 winds down, the world of Facebook has fragmented into two camps: the people who are pretending to be farmers, and the rest, who are busy wishing a plague of locusts upon them. The last few months have witnessed the meteoric rise of a new kind of online time-waster: Facebook games with names such as FarmVille, FishVille, Island Paradise and Cafe World that are calibrated not toward fun, but toward the recruiting of friends and the disgorging of credit card numbers. They propagate with an almost organic zeal – and they have tens of millions of customers to show for it. The question is: How can something so dreary have become so popular?”
9. Calgary Herald (Canada) – An eco-friendly message for young minds. “If we really want to reduce our carbon footprints and make the world a healthier place, we’ll need new generations committed to the ecological cause. A Vancouver startup company says it has found a way to reach young minds, delivering an eco-friendly message that is not preachy and allows kids to have fun. And the future for the company may be green in more ways than one.”
10. TechCrunch (USA) – Second Life Gets A Life 2.0 At Sundance. “Does anybody go to Second Life anymore? It seems like a ghost town these days, although every now and then you hear rumblings of a quiet comeback for the proto-virtual world. Well, at the very least Second Life will be getting a second life at the movies. A documentary called Life 2.0 will be screened at the Sundance Film Festival. Life 2.0 was produced by PalmStar Entertainment (which is theglobe.com co-founder Stephan Paternot’s indie movie company) and Andrew Lauren Productions (The Squid And The Whale).”
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