Caleb Booker

Headlines about virtual worlds just from the past week.

While there may seem to be a lot here, you’d be amazed how much I cut out. Most of the news about virtual worlds this week seemed to be repeats of news from the last two weeks. Oh, and Aimee Weber got trademark rights, which everyone is excited about because “the virtual world is really real!” or something…

For other weeks, see the archive page.

Disclaimer: As with everything on my blog, the opinions expressed here are mine and do not reflect on Clever Zebra, the vBusiness Expo, my friends, my family, my blip channel, any of the other “Jack of All Strange” stuff that I do, etc etc etc… k here we go:

Top Stories

PlayStation Home Beta Direct-Feed Footage
Despite there being no real news about Sony Home (apart from their 1.0 beta and first promo), the fact is that it’s almost… ALMOST… time for us to start paying real attention to them. After all, it is a world run by Sony, and one of the few available on the PS3 (millions of consoles sold). Here’s a 15 minute peek:

Knowledge Adventure® Announces Partnership with Unity Technologies to Create First 3D Virtual World for Kids
Press Release. I thought we just called those “MMOs”?

Mobile virtual world Mini Friday nearing 1m users
Uh, wow… I guess we should all be taking a slightly more serious look at the small screen!

Virtual Worlds: It’s a Legal Jungle in There
Fantastic article covering specific instances of intellectual property litigation, pump-and-dump, insider trading, and tax issues. Well done all around.

The Chartered Institute of Taxation Returns to Second Life® with the Editor of Taxation Magazine
Press Release. The Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) enters Second Life for an event about the tax implications of trading in cyberspace. I know, I know, I’m insanely excited too. Just let me sit down for a second, take a few deep breaths…

PlaySpan Raises $16.8M in Series B
“PlaySpan, which provides publisher-sponsored virtual goods marketplaces, announced today that it had raised $16.8 million in a Series B round from Easton Capital Group, Menlo Ventures, Novel TMT Ventures, STIC and other undisclosed investors.”

Worlds.com Raises $481k in Private Placement
Wow, good for them! They were one of the very early forerunners, made some great deals with big stars, but they ended up making a lot of worlds nobody ever saw for some reason. Glad they’re making a comeback!

Italian Animation Studio Rainbow Puts $25M into Virtual World Studio
This is becoming an important part of any media-creation studio’s repertoire these days.

Despite reports, Telstra and Second Life remain inseparable
Telstra is trying to figure out why last week there were so many silly “Second Life sux” articles.

Intel Creating ScienceSim on OpenSim
Intel moves forward on creating an advanced research space.

Training and Education

Second Life climate change conference attracts universities worldwide
Really I just like the picture. It gives a good impression of what a mixed reality event is like.

University uses Second Life for nurses training
Welcome University of Kansas!

Kansas University Department of Art Enters the Virtual World on Second Life
Welcome U of K … again! (Correction: apparently Kansas University uses the shortform “KU”. “U of K” refers to University of Kentucky. I mean, obviously.)

NSF grant funds study of ways seventh graders learn in a virtual world setting
Students in Qwaq feels like a very good fit!

Government and Military

Oddly, nothing this week.

Marketing

Speak2Me Signs First Conversational Advertising TM Contract with Mercedes-Benz Smart Car in China
Press Release. A bit hard to read, but the basic translation is that Mercedes-Benz is promoting the Smart Car in China by teaching English using a virtual world. This is one of those moments where you look back to fifty years ago and think “wow, things are different”.

Music Mogul’s Model Becomes Comprehensible
Watch the video. Looks like something completely outside of my personal interest, but I have to admit: it will make money.

Gaming

Twinity does it again, serving up some hot arcade action to its users. You know, the marketing department over at Twinity deserves some serious respect. They are making a seriously interesting place to visit! A quick glance at their news page will immediately give you a dozen reasons to log on. Other companies could learn a thing or two here.

Nerds Only

Scan Real-World 3D Objects Into Unreal
(scroll down to “Stop the presses”) MellaniuM’s hive of innovation continues to boggle the mind. Above is a highly detailed scan of a Chinese mask, created using the VIUSCAN (a hand-held device is capable of scanning objects as big as a car) from CREAFORM3D and imported into UNREAL. The potential applications are innumerable here.

Linden Lab: standalone servers soon
Run your own grid, make it harder better faster stronger…

Newbs Only

Second Life has everything … including colleges
Kind of a sweet story about people just discovering all of the educational institutions in SL.

Sligh-second life
Oh my god, Second Life? What’s that? And a respectable furniture designer is actually doing something there? Outrageous outrageous!

Why’s it called Second Life when there’s nothing alive there?
The Guardian attempts to jam a finger as far up its nose as possible, hoping to find a golden nugget. This story is what they found instead.

A second life for virtual worlds?
ComputerWeekly notices that the hype died. They quote Steve Prentice’s comments from a few months ago about trend analysis, and contrast it with Jonathan Yarmis counterpoints. The whole thing is… inconclusive. Still, it’s the kind of things people like to read in their first year or two in virtual worlds, so I’ll include it. Interestingly enough, they use a screenshot of mine in this story… that’s me in the foreground making sure an early Metanomics session is running smoothly (at Colonia Nova I think). Kind of a neat surprise seeing it there.

Sociological Oddities

Lawsuit filed over virtual world
How dare you say “SLART”? I say “SLART”! That’s that thing that I do!

Posted on November 30th, 2008 under art, business, conflict, hype, new media, news, press, virtual worlds. RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback.