Search Results for: The Watch

1. The Australian (Australia) – Is putting real-life law into an avatar’s hands viable? “The difficult business of enforcing law and order in virtual worlds — and resolving the messy consequences when problems spill into real life — needs to be debated before knee-jerk political responses. Over the past fortnight Facebook memorial sites for murdered Queensland children Trinity Bates and Elliott Fletcher have been swamped by pornographic and obscene messages.”

2. CNET (USA) – Real-world woes shuttering virtual world There. “The pioneering virtual world There.com will shut down on March 9, a victim of the recession and the pinch on brand spending that had kept it going long past earlier troubles. The news was announced by CEO Mike Wilson on Tuesday.
The service, which launched in the fall of 2003, was a fully 3D social environment with a sophisticated economy, wonderful vehicles like hoverboard and hoverboats and, eventually, a wide variety of community-created content.”

3. Everything PR (Germany) – Real Baby Dies as Parents Raise Virtual Daughter. “When does virtual game play go to far? The parents of a starved baby may have found out, when their three-month old infant died of malnutrition. The South Korean couple left their baby to starve to death at home, while playing an internet game. The disturbing irony of it all? The web-based game they were playing involved the rearing of a virtual child.”

4. Radio National Future Tense (Australia) – Money – Part Two. “In part two of this series we look at the changing nature of currency. Is traditional state-issued tender now losing its monopoly? And how widespread is the use of alternative currencies – be they digital or virtual, or both?”

5. ZDNet (USA) – Earn 100 points – read: The reverse virutal reality world of the future. “Kevin Kelly, writing on his Technium blog points out a fascinating talk by Jesse Schell, a games designer. In “Design outside the box” Mr Schell starts by explaining out how much money is made by very simple games, such as Farmville and Club Penguin. But its the latter part of his talk that is even more interesting, when he predicts how games will be embedded into our reality through the use of cheap wireless sensors.”

6. Montreal Gazette (Canada) – ‘Avatars’ inspire us to be better people: study. “F ascination with the blockbuster 3-D film Avatar has fans tuning into real-world research indicating that virtual selves can inspire people to lead better lives. Since the release of the film, interest has surged in a Stanford University Virtual Human Interaction Lab study showing that avatars, animated versions of people, act as powerful role models. “It is getting so hot right now,” study author Jesse Fox told AFP on Thursday. “James Camerons’s Avatar movie is out so our website hits have just spiked.”

7. IT PRO (UK) – The chief executive of Second Life thinks virtual worlds will be the future of work. “Second Life is often assumed to be a place to go and kill a lot of time, where your alien-looking avatar wanders the landscape looking for virtual sex. The virtual world is much, much more than that, argues chief executive Mark Kingdon, who believes that people thought the internet was “weird” when it first started, too. At the CeBIT conference in Hanover this week, Kingdon told IT PRO that more business functions would move to worlds like Second Life, for meetings, simulations and more – especially after the launch of more user-friendly systems, like the beta of its new viewer, which allows document sharing.”

8. People Management Magazine (UK) – BP executives graduate on Second Life. “Thirty BP executives are to undergo a graduation ceremony on computer game and virtual network Second Life, after completing a programme at Manchester Business School (MBS). The Managing Projects programme will culminate in the executives using avatars to receive their awards on the business school’s “island” inside the virtual world on Thursday this week. Since those who completed the course are based as far afield as Canada, Angola, Indonesia and Russia, the online event is the best way of allowing them to celebrate their achievement together.”

9. Michigan Radio (USA) – “Inch-vesting” In Detroit: A Virtual Realty. “Jerry Paffendorf is not your typical real estate developer. But then, the people lining up to buy into his project are not your typical investors. He calls them “inchvestors.” Paffendorf’s project is called Loveland. And it’s a hybrid: part virtual and part physical. “What we want to do is we want to build this wild social network of people that’s literally built out of the dirt and the ground,” Paffendorf says.”

10. mad.co.uk (UK) – Social Gaming. “Social gaming is growing fast and brands are eyeing it with increasing interest. But how can they integrate themselves into gameplaying in a way that looks natural to users? With Zynga’s FarmVille now exceeding 76m monthly active users on Facebook and Playfish’s Pet Society exceeding 1m, growth in social gaming has well and truly taken off, a boom further illustrated by gaming giant Electronic Arts’ (EA) recent acquisition of Playfish in a deal potentially worth $400m (£268m). Zynga CEO Mark Pincus predicts that by 2012 there’ll be 500m people involved in social games, which means the opportunities for brands to get involved and reach this rapidly growing audience are also increasing.”

1. CNET (USA) – Where virtual worlds once ruled, FarmVille dominates. “Almost every week for the last few years, it seems, I’ve gotten a press release or a pitch touting some company’s great new Facebook games network or kids’ virtual world.
And why not? Companies like Zynga and Playfish are making money hand over fist with their collections of massively popular social games, and 2D Flash games aimed at children like Club Penguin, Webkinz, Habbo Hotel, and others have garnered vast amounts of virtual world investment dollars in recent years.
But to someone who cut his virtual world teeth on more immersive, 3D environments like There and Second Life, these never-ending announcements of new companies trying to jump on the social gaming bandwagon have left me with one nagging question: Where is the innovation?”

2. Computerworld (USA) – Second Life seeks mainstream adoption. “Linden Lab, which develops and operates Second Life introduced a new beta version of its desktop viewer software on Tuesday, the first big upgrade in many years. Will the new software help bring about a renaissance of the once-trendy service? You remember Second Life. It’s a virtual world, a three-dimensional environment like World of Warcraft or Grand Theft Auto. But it’s not a game, it’s a simulation of a world. You can build virtual buildings and vehicles, create virtual clothes, play live music, role-play as a vampire or cowboy, and buy and sell virtual goods for real-world money. It’s the closest thing we have now to Star Trek’s holodeck.”

3. CLickZ (USA) – WildTangent Targets Social Media Games and Virtual Worlds. “Game-based advertising company WildTangent announced the launch of BrandBoost, a platform that enables brand marketers to tap into the audience for virtual worlds, social media games, and massively multiplayer online games. The Redmond, WA-based company said BrandBoost is already being deployed on several properties, including OutSpark.com, OMGPOP.com and Sony Online Entertainment’s FreeRealms, which already has attracted 8 million registered users since its formal launch last year.”

4. Hypergrid Business (Hong Kong) – Virtual worlds pose compliance risks. “The very aspects of virtual world that make them appealing to some enterprise users, such as the collaboration tools, also make them risky from a compliance perspective. These risks include the communication risks of the wrong information getting to the wrong people, inappropriate workplace behavior, and lack of archiving tools.”

5. Los Angeles Times (USA) – Disney hopes kids will take online World of Cars out for a spin. “Walt Disney Co. believes that World of Cars, its new subscription-based online community aimed at boys and based on the Pixar movie “Cars,” won’t get lost in the traffic of virtual worlds. Things are already a bit congested. Some 200 virtual worlds target children under 12. Each competes for a slice of the 10 hours and 45 minutes a day the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that kids spend viewing media, simultaneously vying for screen time against a growing number of portable media players and smart phones that offer their own diversions.”

6. Escapist Magazine (USA) – Are Advertisers Running Away From Home? “The failure of PlayStation Home to capture gamers’ attention may be having repercussions as advertisers jump ship to the more media-friendly Xbox Live. When PlayStation Home made its open beta debut at the tail end of 2008, gamers responded with a collective shrug of disinterest. The world had barely any of the content originally promised, felt empty and lifeless, and offered little incentive to log in more than once. Home’s failure to connect with users may be the reason for Sony’s absence from this year’s Engage Expo, believe brand analysts at Brand Week, when the hardware giant had been promoting the service as the next big thing at the Expo just a year before.”

7. Stanford Report (USA) – Can avatars change the way we think and act? “If you saw a digital image of yourself running on a virtual treadmill, would you feel like going to the gym? Probably so, according to a Stanford study showing that personalized avatars can motivate people to exercise and eat right. Moreover, you are more likely to imitate the behavior of an avatar in real life if it looks like you, said Jesse Fox, a doctoral candidate in the Communication Department and a researcher at the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab. In her study, she used digital photographs of participants to create personalized avatar bodies, a service some game companies offer today.”

8. FierceContentManagement (USA) – What if content management were 3D? “I recently saw the Michael Douglas/Demi Moore 1994 movie called “Disclosure.” In the movie (which explores sexual harassment in the workplace), Michael Douglas was working for a computer company that created a 3D virtual reality database. The user would put on special glasses and he was literally inside the database with the data. He could walk inside a library of content, interact with it and touch it.”

9. Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) – No R-rating for games does not compute. “It’s confession time. I have picked up a prostitute in a stolen vehicle and sped the wrong way down a busy highway to escape police. I have accompanied a terrorist group in an airport shooting spree. I have garrotted guards, slaughtered soldiers, decapitated dudes and shotgunned sheilas. But never have I felt the remotest desire to do any of this for real. They were computer games. Yes, I’m a ”gamer”. At 37, I’m a little older than average for a gamer, but not by much. Gen X was the first gaming generation. I can’t remember there not being computer games. I first discovered there wasn’t a Father Christmas when I found a (very primitive) computer game under my parents’ bed, and got it as a present a few days later.”

10. USA Today (USA) – Author: Librarian, cybrarian appreciation is ‘Overdue’. “Bryan Hissong is 31, happily married, and the father of a 2-year-old named Olivia. He seems quite content with his life.
But Marilyn Johnson, who is not his wife, loves him and has said so very publicly. It doesn’t matter that she has never met him. Hissong is a librarian. He doesn’t look like the clichéd librarian of old. He favors plaid shirts and is sporting a beard on his babyface — but that doesn’t matter to Johnson, either. She’s well aware that librarians wear many disguises these days. Often they’re pierced, tattooed, punk with bright blue hair. She loves them all.”

1. PC World (USA) – Lego Creating Multiplayer Online Game. “Toy construction set company Lego Group plans to launch an MMOG (massively multiplayer online game) in the second half of this year, to be called Lego Universe, said Mark Hansen, director of business development and LEGO lead for the project. Lego users have long been known for their creative use of the company’s products, so the company is hoping its users will take their creativity online, using virtual Lego bricks to create entire virtual worlds. “There are such endless possibilities for what you can do in this game,” Hansen said. Hansen revealed some of the details of the game, which was four years in the making, at the 2010 Engage youth entertainment technology conference, being held this week in New York.”

2. Venture Beat (USA) – Online firms and toy companies clash over kids virtual worlds. “For many years toy and video game companies have been battling each other for the mindshare of kids. Toy companies have strong products targeted at children from pre-school up to about second grade, when they turn 7 or 8. Then, at about age 8, video games start to replace traditional toys. The typical business model enables video game companies to license their products to toy companies to generate additional revenue. At the same time toy companies have been offering more interactive toys to reach the slightly older child. Media companies like Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and Disney have effectively found a way to provide programming for both the younger and older kids and license their properties to toy and video game companies who in turn use their networks to market back to kids. After Disney bought Club Penguin for $350 million plus earn-outs in 2007, a wave of kids virtual worlds copycats materialized.”

3. CTV (Canada) – The world’s most expensive island – online. ” What is the most you’re willing to pay for a virtual item in a videogame or virtual world? Five, ten dollars? How about $26,500? That’s the amount David Storey, a 27-year-old graduate student living in Sydney, Australia, paid for a virtual island, the “Most valuable object that is virtual,” according to Guinness World Records. It’s easy to write off Storey, who goes by the name “Deathifier,” as a geek gone wild, but he now owns a million-dollar empire. Storey runs Amethera Treasure Island, which he purchased in the virtual world Entropia, as a rare game preserve and taxes hunters on his land. Storey says the taxes bring in more than $100,000 in real money per year.”

4. San Jose Business Journal (USA) – Xulu Entertainment provides real opportunity in virtual worlds. “Xulu Entertainment Inc. is developing a high-definition software platform for virtual worlds and gaming. It includes tools and libraries that professional developers as well as users can apply to create extreme realism and physical interactivity. Xulu’s simulation-driven software is built on an open framework and is designed to exploit the processing power of recent PCs. It is extendible to mobile devices and multiple operating systems. Xulu plans to launch an online entertainment destination to show early adventurers and developers what types of activities it will support. This will include sports, gaming and social activities. The first commercial release is planned for the end of this year.”

5. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Richard Garriott’s Portalarium Aiming At A More Mainstream Second Life? “Today Richard Garriott, former part-time astronaut and founder of Origin, announced his latest company: Portalarium. Portalarium, according to the site, was founded in September 2009 to develop and publish ” online social games, virtual worlds and related services and products.” There’s not much to the company publicly yet, but its initial release is a Torque2D-based plugin for Windows PCs (Mac support is coming in Q2 2010) allowing developers to work within social networks, but outside of traditional Flash-based environments. The Portal Player is currently in beta testing with Portalarium’s first title, Sweet @$! Poker, on Facebook. Virtual worlds are on the way.”

6. VizWorld (USA) – Scientific Research in Virtual Worlds. “When I began this series of investigative reports on Second Life, one thing I was really looking forward to was to see just how much “science” was going on in Second Life. I wanted to know is the majority of what happens inworld Social or Academic? The reality wound up being more complex than I originally thought, being heavily influenced by the perspective of who I was speaking to. Some people said science was everywhere, while some people said it was a nonexistant community. After several weeks of digging around I’ve come to some conclusions, and I share them here.”

7. The Independent (UK) – Control freak: Will David Cage’s ‘Heavy Rain’ videogame push our buttons? “Nothing so complicates a child’s relationship with his parent as the death of a sibling, and when we first see Shaun Mars and his father Ethan alone together, it’s plain that they are struggling to navigate the hostile unfamiliar territory in which they find themselves. Deprived of his co-conspirator and protector, the previously effervescent Shaun is monosyllabic and sullen; Ethan, meanwhile, is barely able to function. As the camera follows the pair into the cheerless house that Ethan has moved to since his marriage ended, there seems little reason for hope. But once they are home, it is soon clear that the bond between them has survived this terrible assault – that, in fact, it is the only thing keeping Ethan from falling apart entirely. He makes his son a snack. He asks him how his day was. He helps him with his homework. He feeds him a healthy dinner. And, eventually, the faintest echo of their former happiness becomes audible. When Ethan tucks Shaun in at the end of the evening, the future doesn’t seem so grim.”

8. Federal Computer Week (USA) – Feds look for their avatars in 3-D. “Many agencies have staked out so-called islands on the virtual world Second Life, but now the government wants software to build and host a virtual world of its own for collaboration, training, simulation and analysis. The Agriculture Department plans to award multiple contracts under a program to develop a fully immersive, persistent 3-D experience in a virtual world populated by avatars that can be customized to resemble real-life users, according to documents published on the Federal Business Opportunities Web Site.”

9. Mediaweek (USA) – Study: Women Social ‘Gamers’ on the Rise. “The increasing number of women who play games on social networks do so with a regularity normally associated with hardcore gaming. But according to a recent study conducted by the lead generation firm Q Interactive, most women don’t associate themselves with a gaming lifestyle like the PlayStation and Xbox lovers do—and don’t care for the label “gamer.” According to executives at Q Interactive (which owns CoolSavings.com), the study was conducted in January among 770 women who were likely to be familiar with online gaming and virtual worlds. It found that while 36 percent of respondents said that they play games on sites like Facebook and MySpace, 54 percent of those who do so admit to playing social games every day. Not surprising to any Facebook user: The most popular social games were identified as Mafia Wars and Farmville.”

10. TechCrunch (USA) – Moonshoot Raises $6.6 Million To Teach English Through Online Gaming. “Moonshoot, a startup with that aims to teach English to children globally through an online gaming experience, has raised a total of $6.6 million in funding led by Alsop Louie Partners and TL Ventures.The startup is also announcing that Tom Kalinske; former CEO & Chairman of Leapfrog, President of Knowledge Universe, CEO of Sega of America, and CEO of Mattel; is joining Moonshoot as Executive Chairman.”

1. ReadWriteWeb (USA) – Kids on The Web: Are They Satisfied With Virtual Worlds and Games? “For kids under 12 years of age, entertainment websites and virtual worlds are all the rage. My 8-year old daughter plays ToonTown a lot. Club Penguin and Moshi Monsters are also popular in this demographic. But are these types of sites fulfilling the potential and talent our kids have with technology? In order to help us answer that question, we’re asking those of you who are parents of a child aged 12 or under to do a short survey accompanied by your child. With this survey, co-hosted by Boston research firm Latitude, we’re hoping to discover what kind of web apps kids want but don’t necessarily have right now.”

2. VentureBeat (USA) – New Zealand’s MiniMonos raises $550,000 for kids virtual world. “Virtual worlds aren’t exactly fashionable these days. They went through a hype cycle when everyone predicted that we’d all be living virtual lives in online worlds like Second Life. Now our expectations of them are more down to earth — but new virtual worlds continue to pop up. MiniMonos is the latest. The Christchurch, New Zealand-based company has raised $800,000 in New Zealand dollars ($550,000 U.S.) for a virtual world for children.”

3. Inside Higher Ed (USA) – ‘The Warcraft Civilization’. “Virtual worlds have been making headlines in higher ed for a number of years now. From The Sims to Second Life, all-encompassing video games have caught the attention (favorable or otherwise) of faculty and administrators as well as students. But it’s safe to say that few have explored virtual realities with the fervor of sociologist William Sims Bainbridge. Bainbridge — who is currently co-director of Human-Centered Computing at the National Science Foundation and adjunct professor of sociology at George Mason University — spent over 2,300 hours (that’s more than a year of 40-hour work weeks, if you’re counting) playing World of Warcraft as part of the research for his latest book, The Warcraft Civilization: Social Science in a Virtual World (MIT Press). Bainbridge spoke to Inside Higher Ed via e-mail, discussing what he’s learned from and about virtual worlds — and the vast potential they offer for future research.”

4. Wall Street Journal (USA) – Zynga To Buy Social Gaming Developer Serious Business. “In just two-plus years, social gaming is proving to be a lucrative business for Internet start-ups, particularly for the largest maker of these games, Zynga Inc. The San Francisco company, founded in 2007, has put some of the $180 million it raised in December to work, acquiring smaller and younger rival Serious Business Inc., also backed by venture capital. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Zynga, whose popular games include “FarmVille” and “Mafia Wars,” is the oldest in the nascent social-gaming industry and also the largest with more than 235 million monthly users. The company is reportedly generating upwards of $250 million in revenue per year. It also develops games for Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) iPhone. Its two biggest rivals are Playfish Inc., which was acquired by Electronic Arts Inc. (ERTS) for $300 million in November, and Playdom Inc., which a day later raised an unusually large $43 million first-round of venture funding. Playfish was founded in 2007 like Zynga and has more than 49 million monthly active users, while Playdom, which has said it’s profitable, was formed in 2008 and boasts 25 million monthly active users, according to Appdata.”

5. Psychology Today (USA) – Cool Intervention #2: Virtual Reality. “Get ready for Avatar-meets-Xbox-meets-Freud’s-couch as techies like USC’s Skip Rizzo usher psychotherapy out of the 1980s and into the information age. Just in time to become one of the Ten Coolest Therapy Interventions. When it comes to technology, psychotherapy has woefully trailed the other sciences. Biology, physics, chemistry, engineering and other “hard sciences” pounced on each technological advance to squeeze every last kilobyte of data from the research. For years their supercomputers thundered away while psychology gingerly tapped at a Commodore 64. Geophysicists studied paleomagnetism using an arsenal of techno-gagetry and we hand-scored Rorschachs with our trusty slide rule and abacus. In a field that takes pride in its progressive thinking, psychology was largely comprised of Luddites. Until now.”

6. Mashable (USA) – Glitch: Flickr’s Stewart Butterfield Explains His Ambitious Online Game. “Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield and five other former Flickr employees are joined by one Digg alum, one games expert and several freelancers in Tiny Speck, a company that’s working on an online game that has a shot at rebooting the stagnating massively multiplayer online game genre. The 2D game — called Glitch — incorporates beautiful illustrations and cutting edge game mechanics, but its most interesting features are its social aspirations and the lessons it learns from the web that its founders mastered at their previous gigs.”

7. Gizmodo (Australia) – Apple Patent Shows A 3D Virtual World For Buying Their Goods In. “There was a time, before Avatar, when 3D meant crummy virtual gaming. A recent patent granted to Apple shows they are (or were) considering a 3D virtual Apple Store – a more welcoming way to shop for Apple products.”

8. The Sunday Leader (Sri Lanka) – Avatar As America’s Political Unconscious. “When one watches James Cameron’s Avatar one is tempted to dismiss it as a special effects film with a very traditional plot. After all, what is new about a story that tells you about a hero, Jake, a paraplegic war veteran, who leads a resistance against bad Americans? The film uses some hyper-romantic version of primitivism to talk of a better world. The simple, nature-connected natives are good; the technologically-advanced, materialistic Americans are bad. The bad Americans want to conquer the resources of the planet Pandora, and when the natives get in the way of this they must be pushed out or exterminated.”

9. TechCrunch (USA) – In English-Crazy China, 8D World Teaches Kids To Speak In Virtual Worlds; Lands A Deal With CCTV. “In China, learning spoken English is giving rise to a huge and growing market. For instance, in addition to English classes in public schools, parents send their children to about 50,000 for-profit training schools around the country, where English is the most popular subject. Instead of American Idol, on CCTV, the national government-owned TV network, they have the Star of Outlook English Talent Competition. This is possibly the largest nationwide competition in China. Last year, 400,000 students between the ages of 6 and 14 took part in it.”

10. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Weopia Launches Dating Virtual World. “Virtucom announced the launch of its entrance to the virtual worlds space today: Weopia, a virtual world aimed at bridging the gap between meeting someone through an online dating service and then meeting in the real world. Unlike Utherverse, which looked to partner with sites like Flirt.com, Weopia stands alone–something that may be an extra hurdle in the way of users downloading the software. It sounds, though, like Weopia envisions itself as related to other sites: users pick the person they want to chat with in the virtual world and share a link to their private space rather than mingling with strange avatars. Matches occur elsewhere, and meetings occur in Weopia.”

1. The Register (UK) – Oracle: destroyer of virtual worlds. “Another of Sun Microsystem’s almost-practical projects for Java has been shuttered now that Oracle holds the purse strings. Project Darkstar, an open-source application server catered specifically for massively multiplayer online games, will no longer receive Snoracle funding. The news was announced yesterday with a post to the Project Darkstar community forum. Loosely, Project Darkstar is open-source middleware written in Java aimed at helping developers create massively scalable persistent virtual worlds. The project later expanded its aim to include social networking applications as online ventures are wont to do these days.”

2. CBC News (Canada) – New online payment system takes cash for virtual goods. “New startup company Kwedit Inc. is making it easier for users of free online games like Farmville who don’t have credit or debit cards to pay for the virtual goods sold in such games using cash or third-party payments. The California-based company on Thursday launched a payment system called Kwedit Direct that allows users in the U.S. to pay for their digital purchases after the fact by mailing in cash, paying the bill at a 7-Eleven store or getting a friend or family member to pay on their behalf through a social payment network called Pass the Duck.”

3. Gamasutra (USA) – Sci-Tech Firm Buys Forterra’s OLIVE Platform For Virtual Training. “Several weeks after Forterra Systems reportedly laid off almost half its staff and rumors of a possible acquisition began to spread, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) has revealed that it has purchased Forterra’s On-Line Interactive Virtual Environment (OLIVE) product line, including all names, trademarks, and licenses. Neither Forterra — formerly a spinoff of still-in-operation virtual world There.com — or SAIC disclosed financial terms for the purchase. OLIVE enables clients to deploy persistent and secure 3D virtual environments where users can collaborate, train, learn, and interact in real-time with avatars. The software platform supports virtual world implementations in healthcare, financial services, energy, transportation, retail, government, and higher education markets.”

4. VentureBeat (USA) – Vivox raises $6.8M for voice chat for online games. “Video game voice-chat provider Vivox is announcing today that it has raised $6.8 million for its business of providing voice services for online games, virtual worlds and social networks. Vivox ustomers include CCP Games, Electronic Arts, Gaia Online, Hi-Rez Studios, Linden Lab, NCsoft, Nexon, Realtime Worlds, Sony Online Entertainment and Wizards of the Coast. While others provide voice-over-Internet-protocol voice services in games, Vivox focuses on providing a managed service.”

5. NPR (USA) – The Technology Paradox: It Separates But Unites. “In filming at the IBM offices in Westchester N.Y., we were astonished to find the huge, slick office park almost deserted. We learned it was a byproduct of the fact that so many IBM employees telecommute from home or hotels. In fact, now, IBM is shifting a significant portion of their internal meetings into virtual worlds like Second Life, giving their employees another excuse not to come into the office. A couple of those employees told us they find virtual worlds like Second Life to be much more human and intimate than video conferencing or phone calls. A group of avatars sitting around a virtual conference table can share a joke, grab a virtual cup of coffee or divulge a virtual secret.”

6. Security Director News (USA) – Virtual worlds on the horizon for security. “Virtual worlds and augmented reality are not just the stuff of the gaming world anymore. “A lot of this technology isn’t as futuristic as we think, it’s upon us now,” said Frank Yeh, senior security and privacy architect at IBM, who delivered the keynote address at TechSec Solutions Feb. 1. Further, there’s tremendous potential for this technology to harness data in new ways and really change and improve the way physical security systems work, he said. Want to do facial recognition using your iPhone?, Yeh asked. You can download an app, called TAT, which does just that. It not only recognizes faces, information about the person appears in dialog boxes floating around that person’s image. How about attending a “virtual meeting” with colleagues who are located in cities around the world? Yeh showed a demonstration of Cisco’s Telepresence, which he called “a phenomenal technology” that will save businesses money be allowing them to “tranport bits not bodies, in the future.” One of the coolest things about telepresence technology, he said is that “it offers you things that you can’t do in a face-to-face meeting.”

7. The Escapist (USA) – Virtual Egg Sells for $70,000. “The hidden virtual worlds out there never cease to amaze, with virtual items and property in MMOG Planet Calypso selling for enormous amounts of money. First Planet Company, a subsidiary of MindArk that runs MMOG Planet Calypso, has announced that an in-game item called the Atrox Queen Egg recently sold for $69,696. That’s in real dollars, not virtual currency. I say again, and this is not a joke, somebody bought a virtual egg for $70,000.”

8. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Arbopals, Infinite Spaces Developing Tree Virtual World. “Arbopals and Infinite Spaces, the Virtual World Design Centre at Loyalist College, have partnered to create a tree-themed virtual world for kids aged 5-10. The site is now in beta, and the company has promised to plant a tree for every avatar created in the virtual world’s beta, up to 1,000 avatars. “Every kid these days is an environmentalist,” explained Peter O’Brien, President and CEO of Arbopals. “I have a daughter who is 13, and she, like all her friends and everyone from the age of about 5 to 20 is a real environmentalist. They understand global warming, they get that the world needs help, they understand the importance of trees and how trees clean our air and water. If anything, the kids are even more enthusiastic about the environmental hook of Arbopals than their parents.”

9. Information World Review (UK) – The wonders of a virtual world. “Want to look round the Egyptian pyramids or view Stonehenge from any angle? Well, there’s an app to do just that. No, it is not an iPhone application but a freely accessible interactive website called Heritage Key. Historians, archaeologists, academics, researchers and anyone interested in exploring ancient civilisations and monuments from the comfort of their homes now have a web-based resource to let them do so. Heritage Key, from Rezzable, offers visitors a 3D reconstruction of historical sites, excavations and monuments. Users can join live online lectures, ask questions, post on discussion boards and conduct their research.”

10. The Daily Star (UK) – Doctor Who Enters Computer Game World. “THE BBC is turning Doctor Who into a computer game. Bosses want to cash in on the show’s huge popularity by taking the Time Lord into the new market. Until now they had held off from making a game based on the show, only allowing the release of the Eidos game Top Trumps: Doctor Who in 2008. But Dave Anderson, head of multi-media development at BBC Worldwide, said: “We are having discussions about a variety of ideas around Doctor Who that are complementary to each other rather than in competition, including boxed product console games, virtual worlds and other experiences.”

1. CNET (USA) – How ‘Avatar’ may predict the future of virtual worlds. “Since the release of his massive hit “Avatar,” director James Cameron has gotten plenty of deserved attention for his filmmaking innovations, having invented a camera system that captured live footage of his actors and integrated it immediately into fleshed-out scenes from his fictional world of Pandora. But movies may not be the only medium Cameron’s innovation is pushing toward the future. In fact, the technology he and his visual effects partners built for the record breaking film may also provide our first real glimpse of the future of 3D virtual worlds.”

2. Hypergrid Business (Hong Kong) – Business virtual needs. “When most people compare virtual worlds, they do so from a technical perspective — how many concurrent users, what kind of interface is being used, what data standards are supported. Too often, however, general business requirements are overlooked. This is a pity, because from a technical perspective there are few differences between the various virtual world platforms, and the differences that do exist are likely to vanish over time as users demand these features and vendors add them to their offerings.”

3. Inc. (USA) – Should You Stake Your Claim in a Virtual World? “A basic but sturdy tenet of social media is to go where the people are. So if virtual worlds like Second Life have lost some cultural cache to the likes of Twitter, Foursquare, and Facebook what’s the point of getting involved? In short, setting up your own avatar, or even an in-world space for your company can save you money and maybe even get that eyeball play your marketing team has been gunning for. For starters, just because virtual worlds are no longer a media darling doesn’t mean they emptied out overnight. “I think it’s trending slowly but inexorably upward,” says Michael Wilson CEO of Makena Technologies, which runs the virtual world There, when asked about the number of people using virtual worlds.”

4. Computerworld (USA) – Augmented reality: Pure hype or Next Big Thing in mobile? “Augmented reality technology is getting a lot of attention these days — particularly the use of AR with smartphones. The idea is that by using certain software, you can turn your iPhone, Droid or other smartphone into a virtual heads-up display. Aim your phone’s camera at a shop, restaurant or landmark, and information about the place, such as hours of operation, reviews or directions, appears on the device’s screen as graphics floating over the image of the place. Dozens of developers of mobile augmented reality apps are banking on AR becoming the Next Big Thing in the mobile market. Indeed, a recent Juniper Research report predicted that annual revenues from mobile AR apps will reach $732 million by 2014, up from less than $1 million in 2009.”

5. Macworld (USA) – Onverse offers free-to-download social MMO. “If you thought there could be no social network more time-consuming than Facebook, you were wrong. Onverse, launched in beta last June, brings social networking into 3D, then spices it up with avatars, interior decorating, and mini games you can play against your friends. Best of all, it’s completely free for Mac users to download. Designer Steve Pierce, a Sony Online Entertainment design manager behind EverQuest II, brought Onverse to life with four other artists and engineers on a “shoe-string budget”, creating a virtual world that he describes as “much more of a game environment than many of our chat-only competitors.”

6. The Christian Science Monitor (USA) – ‘Avatar’ reality: It’s just a show, people. “In my continuing quest to remain slightly behind the times, I saw “Avatar” in 3-D several weeks after its release. Don’t worry: You won’t hear me breathlessly reporting that it is really cool. Half the planet already knows that. Nor am I going to get into its meaning or metaphysics. Yeah, I was bothered by the villainous former marines. I have marines in my family and respect them. The noble savage, white savior, and eco-worship were also a bit much, but most plays and movies are controversial if you choose to see them that way. I mean, “Mary Poppins” was about a nanny with magical powers who was blown in on the West Wind. Did anyone check her immigration status? Fairies and love potions figured prominently in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Just saying.”

7. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Facebook Credits Coming Soon To FarmVille. “Players of Zynga’s smash hit social game FarmVille will soon have the option to pay for virtual goods with Facebook Credits, according to sources close to TBI. The new payment option may debut in FarmVille as early as this week. With many other virtual worlds, including Habbo, spreading to Facebook, the roll out of Facebook Credits could present a lucrative new monetization option.”

8. News Observer (USA) – Virtual looks and feels almost real. “As Mushtaqur Rahman floated to the rafters of Duke Chapel, it was easy to forget that he was neither in a church nor off the ground. “Feeling rather angelic right now?” asked Rahman’s colleague, William Rice II, as both men peered through oversize 3-D goggles at the virtual chapel being projected above, below and all around them. Rahman and Rice are engineers with Parsons Brinkerhoff, one of the world’s largest civil engineering firms. They had come to Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering on a recent morning to experience a cube-shaped virtual reality theater called the Dive, or Duke immersive virtual environment.”

9. The Wall Street Journal (USA) – Zachary Quinto Has No Time for Tomfoolery. But For Those Who Do, There’s Star Trek Online. “With the success of World of Warcraft, videogame publishers have been looking for new virtual worlds to offer to videogame players. Next week, there’s a new option with the release of Star Trek Online. Developed by Cryptic Studios, the game will allow fans be the head of their own starship as they travel the universe and battle rival ships and seek out new civilizations. Zachary Quinto, whose role as Spock in J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” movie received a shout-out during this week’s iPad presentation, serves as one of the voices in the game.”

10. Computerworld (USA) – Apple iPad: Will it run Second Life? “As a Second Life enthusiast, I really want the iPad to run Second Life. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t. As my friend Wagner James Au points out on the blog New World Notes, the iPhone already has a couple of rich, text-only Second Life clients, and the iPad now has the horsepower and screen size to support Second Life graphics. Moreover, as a Second Life enthusiast I want to see more people use the service. The existing software client is a major barrier to widespread Second Life adoption: It’s hard to learn. And it only runs well on desktops or powerful notebooks, while the world is adopting smartphones instead. The iPad has the potential to solve both those problems: Touching and tilting the iPad would provide an easier interface for Second Life than mousing and keyboarding. And iPads and other tablet-netbooks are going to become very popular pretty soon, as Apple sells iPads by the millions and competitors jump in to grab some of that action.”

1. Mashable (USA) – What’s Up With Virtual Worlds? “From 2005 up through 2008, virtual worlds seemed like the hottest ticket in tech, but we’ve heard less about them in recent months. We imagined the people of Earth leading double lives in alternate realities. It was the stuff of science fiction, like flying cars and robot butlers, and unlike those things, it actually looked like it could become reality. Except it hasn’t. What happened? Are people still using virtual worlds? Let’s look at the latest developments in two of the most hyped virtual world platforms for insights into where (if anywhere) the alternate reality trend is headed.”

2. Business Daily (Kenya) – The benefits of a virtual world. “Slowly, companies are leaving the physical world behind to cut costs, improve communication, and find new ways to collaborate. Scores of virtual platforms exist on the Internet and are used for everything from entertainment to business to socialising. An estimated 300 million people worldwide have registered for participation in some form of this activity, according to Kzero, a virtual world marketing and development company. In 2008, according to trade group Virtual Worlds Management, venture capitalists and other investors bet nearly US$600 million on more than 60 software producers involved in this fledgling technology.”

3. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Four Youth Virtual Worlds Raise Money For Haiti Relief. “In addition to previously covered the efforts by Sony Online Entertainment and MyYearbook to raise money for survivors of the Haitian earthquake through sales of virtual goods, Sanrio Digital, Gaia Online, Wiglington and Wenks, and Xeko (formerly Elf Island) have launched their own campaigns.”

4. VentureBeat (USA) – Rixty lets young users without credit cards make buys online. “Rixty, maker of a payment app that lets people buy entertainment online even if they don’t have credit cards, has brought in $1.24 million in a seed round of funding. The San Francisco company, which lets people turn cash into online currency, is part of a slew of companies expanding the customer base for virtual goods, virtual worlds, and social networking purchases — particularly adding many younger users who don’t have bank accounts yet.”

5. Escapist Magazine (USA) – A Look Back at Metaplace. “Raph Koster’s Metaplace was an original idea to tie user-created content together – but as it closed down at the turn of the New Year, was it ahead of its time? It’s hard to say that Raph Koster didn’t have a vision when he created Metaplace back in the distant wilds of 2007. One of the original architects of games like Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies, Koster championed the cause of user-created content in his games, and he envisioned Metaplace as a glorious utopia of user content that could be linked together – a network of virtual worlds. In a way, it was Koster’s Meta-MMOG. But sadly, it did not connect with people in the way that Koster and his employees had hoped, and the service shut down at the beginning of the year. But what had the aim been in the first place?”

6. Metro News (Canada) – ‘Real life’ avatars moving into the workplace. “In real life Byron Reeves is a bald academic. But Reeves also conducts research using his avatar, a strapping man with hair. “Lots of companies already use avatars,” explains Reeves, a psychology professor at Stanford University. “Using avatars, you can conduct meetings, meet clients and have brainstorming sessions without having to travel. In fact, you don’t even have to leave the building. And you don’t risk getting swine flu from shaking hands with an avatar.” Reeves, who specializes in human interaction with avatars, is the author of Total Engagement: Using Games and Virtual Worlds to Change the Way People Work and Businesses Compete.”

7. The Guardian (UK) – What I can’t find on zubworld, FourSquare or Gowalla: any point in taking part. “Every so often a story pops up in the national press about a company or person selling plots of land on the moon (here’s one from 2006). Or, sometimes, on Mars. I’ve written about it enough times that it’s wearily familiar: the people involved say that they’ve got a perfect right to sell the land, which is true enough if you can find someone stup… eager enough to buy it. Sometimes it’s “buying” stars and naming them, which is the sort of thing that’s not going to sit well in astronomers’ tables – which is why astronomers ignore them. (And who knows what astrologers feel about them?) I realised today, when the PR on behalf of a company called zubworld got in touch, that it’s this “let’s make money from something that’s not got any implicit or explicit value to the people handing over the cash” approach which turns me off location-based “games” such as Foursquare and Gowalla. And particularly zubworld, who won’t of course be happy to hear that.”

8. East Bay Business Times (USA) – ‘Second Life’ creator Linden Lab hires new CFO. “Linden Lab, the business that runs virtual world Second Life, hired Bob Komin as chief financial officer. John Zdanowski, the company’s previous CFO, left in March 2009. In December, he was reported to be working for Avatar Reality Inc. in Honolulu, another business developing a virtual world.”

9. Massively (USA) – That’s not the Second Life economy! “This week Linden Lab published a set of economic data for Q4 2009, and for 2009 as a whole. After going through the data in detail, and discovering at least one important typo and one important calculation error, it looked like we were going to have to recheck every figure before presenting them. That’s a lot of work, especially as the data published in the quarterly/annual reports doesn’t follow the same definitions as the ongoing statistical feeds or is not represented in them.”

10. CrunchGear (USA) – The World of Warcraft movie is *so* early in development. “More white-hot World of Warcraft movie news to share with y’all. Did you know that it’s in production? Of course you did; you have a pulse. But did you know what stage of production it’s in? Hmm, did ya, smart guy? Eh, you probably knew that, too. For you see, the World of Warcraft movie is in the earliest stage of development, the part where the writers are still coming up with a basic story.”

1. Macworld (UK) – CES: Money for nothing? Virtual goods market takes off. “Social networking and multiplayer online games are fueling dramatic growth in hard cash earned from goods that exist only in the world of online make-believe, according to companies in that market gathered at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. For mainstream consumer electronics vendors, last year may have been “a year none of us would wish to repeat,” as Consumer Electronics Association President and CEO Gary Shapiro put it in a speech opening CES Thursday. Industry revenue dropped 7 percent in 2009, he said.”

2. TechCrunch (USA) – PlaySpan: $30 Million Spent On Virtual Gifts Over Holiday Season. “Should we be considering virtual goods when evaluating online holiday spending? We’ve seen that e-commerce spending over the holidays was strong, with consumers shelling out nearly $30 billion over a period of a few months. Now, virtual goods platform PlaySpan reports that digital goods have seen a similar, if smaller trend, with Americans spending $30 million on virtual gifts in November and December of 2009. It’s no surprise that the digital goods world saw strong sales over the past year; the business was projected to make $1 billion in 2009. And as virtual goods are booming, various startups have emerged to capitalize on this growth by facilitating the exchange around these goods.”

3. Hypergrid Business (Hong Kong) – Intel: OpenSim supports hundreds of thousands of objects. “While most virtual worlds are limited to “thousands” of objects in a single location, OpenSim can support hundreds of thousands, according to a white paper published by Intel this month. As a result, OpenSim-based virtual worlds — like the Intel-backed ScienceSim grid — can be used to simulate complex environments for training, education, physics and chemistry, natural resources and urban planning. “The potential for other types of applications is far-reaching,” the company said. “In the health care arena, for instance, physicians might use ScienceSim to simulate the outcome of reconstructive surgery or visualize medical concepts, such as the impact of asthma or smoking on lung function, or how diet affects the circulatory system.”

4. VentureBeat (USA) – Venture capitalists are bullish on the future of game funding. “Game investing is still going strong, even though it did take a hit during the recession. We calculated that game companies raised $600.5 million in 2009, down 36 percent from the year before. But game-savvy venture capitalists are still bullish on games. We did a roundtable Q&A with some of the best-known investors, in conjunction with the launch of Interactive Age, a new magazine focused on the business of games. The magazine is edited by N. Evan Van Zelfden, who has written for us, and will debut around the time of the Game Developers Conference in March.”

5. News.com.au (Australia) – Avatar perfection causing depression. “AN IDYLLIC planet populated by blue aliens is an ideal setting for cinematic escapism. But the world of the sci-fi epic Avatar is so perfect people have admitted being plagued by depression and suicidal thoughts at not being able to visit the planet. Set in the future when Earth’s resources have been depleted, director James Cameron’s film tells the story of a corporation trying to mine a rare mineral. The humans clash with the natives – a peace-loving race of 7ft tall, blue-skinned creatures called the Na’vi, who exist in perfect harmony with nature.”

6. Wall Street Journal (USA) – Caught in the Web. “Ever since the Internet began to make its way into everyday life—beginning roughly in the early 1990s—commentators have worried over its cultural effects, fearing isolation, regimentation, a loss of privacy or a loss of sustained thought. Back then, Jaron Lanier was one of the pioneers of immersive virtual worlds and helped to popularize the term “virtual reality.” Those were the days when the Web’s promise seemed bright and limitless. Mr. Lanier was one of its champions. Now, as experience has set in, his outlook is decidedly gloomier. In “You Are Not a Gadget,” he sounds an alarm about the social-media technologies of the so-called Web 2.0, arguing that they reduce individuals to mere cogs in a mob-based, crowd-sourced apparatus. “Technology criticism,” he says in defense of his own role in this debate, “shouldn’t be left to the Luddites.”

7. Mashable (USA) – Star Trek Moves into WoW Territory With New Online Game. “he Star Trek fan’s equivalent of World of Warcraft is now playable thanks to an open beta test — and you don’t even have to spend $60 to buy the game as long as you can put up with a few bugs. While Star Trek had become a struggling franchise in recent years, the blockbuster movie reboot from J.J. Abrams that hit last May renewed interest online and elsewhere. Right now the easiest way to get a key to play Star Trek Online is to sign up for an account at gamer download mecca FilePlanet, but more choices will come.”

8. Science Daily (USA) – New Computer Vision System for the Analysis of Human Behavior. “A consortium of European researchers, coordinated by the Computer Vision Centre (CVC) of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), has developed HERMES, a cognitive computational system consisting of video cameras and software able to recognise and predict human behaviour, as well as describe it in natural language. The applications of the Hermes project are numerous and can be used in the fields of intelligent surveillance, protection of accidents, marketing, psychology, etc.”

9. VizWorld (USA) – State Of The Second Union: VizWorld on Second Life. “Ever since I first read Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, I’ve been fascinated by the idea of the Metaverse. A virtual world that completely destroys physical boundaries, allowing us to interact and mingle in a virtual space across vast distances with similar realism as being physically there. I’ve seen several virtual worlds rise and crumble, but none as persistent as Second Life. I first tried Second Life back in February of 2006, and after a single day I never returned. It was interesting, but almost overwhelming in its potential so I left it for a “later date”, which never arose.”

10. VentureBeat (USA) – Saints Capital takes stake in Second Life owner Linden Lab. “Secondary investment firm Saints Capital has acquired a stake in virtual world startup Linden Lab, the owner of Second Life. Venturewire reported that Saints Capital acquired the stake from an existing investor, and that Linden Lab was not involved in the transaction. That means that one of Linden Labs’ current investors or employee stakeholders sold the shares to Saints. Linden Lab declined comment.”

1. The Guardian (UK) – Why playing in the virtual world has an awful lot to teach children. “What does playing computer games do to us? A YouGov poll has stirred up familiar worries about the effects of new media on children’s communication skills, saying that one in six children under the age of seven in England has difficulty talking – a problem that will have many worried parents looking at games consoles and wondering how far their children’s onscreen delights are implicated in this decline. Anyone who has played video games, or watched their children playing, will know that they are an exceptionally compelling medium. As Jean Gross, the government’s new communication champion for children, noted, overbusy parents can spend dangerously little time talking to their children. Far easier to plonk them down in front of a mesmerising screen.”

2. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Data Provides Insight into Virtual Worlds, Goods Business Models. “Three data points released this week — which on their face didn’t appear to offer a boatload of value for individuals or companies with a stake in the virtual worlds and virtual goods industries — can be parsed for insight into how the markets are responding to some existing virtual world/virtual goods products, as well as how markets might be anticipated to respond to future business initiatives.”

3. Gadget (South Africa) – CES 2010: How kids play today… in the real and virtual world. “The line between the way children play in the real world and connect in the virtual world is becoming more and more blurred; this is according to the Build-A-Bear Workshop which extends its social interaction from the physical store through to the virtual world. Build-A-Bear Workshop, the interactive entertainment retailer of customised stuffed animals, announced new data that supports an evolution in how kids play and connect in their real and virtual worlds.”

4. Metro (UK) – The augmented reality helicopter drone you pilot with your iPhone. “The Parrot AR.Drone – a four-bladed ‘quadricopter’ with a range of 50m (165ft) – features two tiny video cameras which send real-time pictures to the phone’s screen, so you see what it sees. Interactive ‘enemy’ fighter planes are then layered over your view of your neighbourhood, using technology known as Augmented Reality. It takes current applications, such as superimposing photos on to Google maps’ satellite images, to another level.”

5. The National Law Journal (USA) – Social media permeate the employment life cycle. “Social media are any type of Internet-based media created through social interaction in which individuals primarily produce, rather than consume, the content. In the workplace, the prevalent social media are video-sharing Web sites (YouTube), social networking Web sites (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter), online multiuser virtual worlds (Second Life, World of War craft) and personal or corporate blogs. The increased use of social media in the workplace, by employees and employers alike, presents both opportunities and risks for employers because social media now permeate the entire life cycle of employment: during pre-employment inquiries, throughout the period of employment and after separation from employment. Employers must consider and address the use and misuse of social media at each stage.”

6. Kelowna (Canada) – Virtual meetings come cheap; Thought delivery. “Virtual reality is a growing technology in Canada that small businesses can use to cut travel costs and expand markets because its immersive nature allows training and networking to be done in ways teleconferencing can not match. Mingleverse, a Vancouverbased virtual reality provider, is seeing a burst of consulting businesses looking to offer their services to a larger market, said Daniel Ruscigno, marketing co-ordinator. “We really expect online teaching, training and coaching to take off.” Launched in September, the company offers an experience similar to Second Life but with less downloading, Mr. Ruscigno said. Rather than one big virtual world there are several small virtual worlds you can embed in a website, he said.”

7. New York Times (USA) – The Children of Cyberspace: Old Fogies by Their 20s. “My 2-year-old daughter surprised me recently with two words: “Daddy’s book.” She was holding my Kindle electronic reader. Here is a child only beginning to talk, revealing that the seeds of the next generation gap have already been planted. She has identified the Kindle as a substitute for words printed on physical pages. I own the device and am still not completely sold on the idea. My daughter’s worldview and life will be shaped in very deliberate ways by technologies like the Kindle and the new magical high-tech gadgets coming out this year — Google’s Nexus One phone and Apple’s impending tablet among them. She’ll know nothing other than a world with digital books, Skype video chats with faraway relatives, and toddler-friendly video games on the iPhone. She’ll see the world a lot differently from her parents.”

8. Internet Evolution (USA) – The Internet in 2020: A Look Ahead. “Now that we’ve closed the book on the first decade of the 21st century, the real question is, What radically new Internet technologies will we be celebrating at the beginning of the century’s second decade? Ironically, imagining 2020 is really the business of the historian rather than the futurist. As David Edgerton argues in his brilliant 2006 book, The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900, the most radical new technologies are recycled from the past. To look forward, therefore, Edgerton suggests that we look backwards.”

9. AFP (USA) – Lego expands its universe with online game. “Danish toy maker Lego is seeking to build a presence in the world of multiplayer online games with the release of a new videogame called Lego Universe. “Think World of Warcraft, Second Life and Club Penguin all wrapped into one,” said lead producer Chris Sherland of NetDevil, the Colorado-based game development company behind Lego Universe. The PC-based game will incorporate many of the features of the iconic interlocking, studded plastic bricks that have delighted children — and parents — the world over for years. Lego Universe, which is to be released in the second half of the year, was unveiled at the annual International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas which closes on Sunday.”

10. PC Pro (UK) – Whatever happened to Second Life? “It’s desolate, dirty, and sex is outcast to a separate island. Barry Collins returns to Second Life to find out what went wrong, and why it’s raking in more cash than ever before. Three years ago, I underwent one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life – and I barely even left the office. I spent a week virtually living and breathing inside Second Life: the massively multiplayer online world that contains everything from lottery games to libraries, penthouses to pubs, skyscrapers to surrogacy clinics.”

1. Mashable (USA) – Man Pays Record $330,000 for a Virtual Space Station. “We’re not even sure what category to file this story under. We’re utterly baffled by this one. Earlier this year, the Crystal Palace Space Station went onto virtual auction in the Entropia Universe massive multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG). Entropia Universe is well known for its “real cash economy,” where $1 can buy you 10 PEDs (Project Entropia dollars) in the virtual world. The Crystal Palace is a huge virtual space station that orbits the Planet Calypso.”

2. The Escapist (USA) – Why We Need to Ditch the Word “Virtual”. “From “virtual reality” to “virtual worlds,” the “v-word” is something we gamers and techheads know well. But real things happen in virtual worlds, and virtual reality is a reality all its own – which is why we should consider ditching it.”

3. BBC (UK) – Mobiles offer new view of reality. “Virtual Reality has been a mainstay of sci-fi for decades but 2010 could see a pared-down version become mainstream. Augmented reality (AR) has had a quiet launch on mobile handsets but it is set to explode next year, experts say. AR is a technology that allows data from the web to be overlaid on a view of the physical world. Although a relatively small sector at the moment, analyst firm Juniper Research predicts that AR will generate incomes of $732m (£653m) by 2014.”

4. Mashable (USA) – WOW: Fugitive Caught via World of Warcraft. “Police have been known to use social media like Facebook and Twitter to track down thieves (the IRS, too), and careless Facebooking can quickly get you arrested. But if you’re on the run from the law, there’s another online territory you might want to consider avoiding: World of Warcraft. Howard County, Indiana Sheriff Department Deputy Matt Roberson tracked down fugitive Alfred Hightower via the hugely popular massively multiplayer online game. Hightower was wanted on several counts of drug dealing but had fled the country to Canada.”

5. Mumbrella (Australia) – Twitter and LinkedIn neck and neck, while Bebo and Second Life lag behind. “Twitter and LinkedIn are neck and neck behind Facebook in their respective number of users, according to a new survey. The Mumbrella Industry Snapshot found that around 94 per cent of respondents have a personal Facebook account, compared to 72 per cent on Twitter and 71 per cent on LinkedIn, the social networking site for business professionals. The once dominant MySpace came in much lower with over 21 per cent, while only 7.3 per cent use Second Life.”

6. The Guardian (UK) – Virtual reality is coming of age. “I’m standing outside a branch of Diesel and a colourfully dressed man is dancing the robot in front of me like Peter Crouch on steroids. Browsing through the items on offer in the window, I spot a pair of jeans that I like the look of. The price tag says £1.59. A licensed, authorised, branded pair of Diesel jeans for £1.59. The only catch is that they’re made of pixels, not denim, and they belong in a fictional universe that could be the future of advertising, social networking and gaming combined. Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of PlayStation Home.”

7. Gamasutra (USA) – Curse.com Gets $6 Million For MMO Add-On Manager, Portal. “San Francisco-based MMORPG community add-on manager and portal Curse.com revealed that it raised $6 million in a second round of funding in early 2009 from new backers Ventech Capital and SoftTech VC. AGF Private Equity, which previously led a Series A round in 2007 that invested $5 million into the company, also participated. Originally founded in 2005 as a repository for World of Warcraft add-ons, Curse.com has since transformed itself into a network of blogs, databases, forums, wikis, and more for a variety of titles such as Age of Conan, Aion, Final Fantasy XIV, Diablo 3, and several others. The site also offers a PC and Mac Curse client for managing plug-ins for World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, and Runes of Magic.”

8. The Globe and Mail (Canada) – Teen found after meeting his 42-year-old online ‘soulmate’. “n Tuesday evening, 16-year-old Andrew Kane nonchalantly asked his mother and father if they would drive him from their Barrie, Ont., home to a hotel in nearby Midland, where he planned to meet a 42-year-old woman with whom he had been having a secret relationship over the Internet. His stunned parents refused and the teen calmly returned to the computer, telling them he would let the woman know he wasn’t coming. At 2 a.m., Marlene Kane heard her front door open, and found her son gone, leaving behind a troubling trail of web chats that led to Houston, Tex., and the World of Warcraft.”

9. The State Journal-Register (USA) – Virtual reality simulators to help Guard train for war. “Virtual reality simulators are helping the Illinois Army National Guard prepare soldiers for service in Iraq or Afghanistan. The Guard is in line for $8.8 million in federal funding to buy three simulators, which are designed to train soldiers how to work in convoys and respond to attacks or roadside bombs. About $2.4 million will be used to buy two systems that simulate a caravan of four Humvees. Another $6.4 million is going to another simulator that trains soldiers on a larger, armored vehicle called a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle.”

10. Chicago Tribune (USA) – What will life be like 10 years from today? Here’s a glimpse. “OK, seriously this time. Several weeks ago I offered an end-of-decade list of expert predictions of all the changes in store for us (“Ten years from now …”). The surprise ending was that the predictions were all actually from late 1999 and early 2000, and the point was that the future tends to make fools of those who presume to predict it. Nevertheless. My 2020 vision may not be 20/20, but I’m guessing that 10 years from now …”