1. Escapist Magazine (USA) – Women Beat Men in Virtual Shopping Habits. “The shopping habits of women compared to men in virtual worlds may reflect those stereotypically seen in the real world. I’m not being sexist here: Ask 100 women if they like to shop or not and I bet you’d get a lot of positive responses. At the least, I don’t think it’s crazy to say that women like to generally shop more than men. According to a new survey, the same might be true in the worlds of virtual online games.”
2. Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) – Want eternal life? It could be possible in the Internet of Things. “Would you feel hurt if your refrigerator stopped returning your emails? Would you be annoyed to have your dinner interrupted by a pot plant demanding a drink? Are you friends with your toilet on Facebook? Do you like the idea of a virtual avatar that contains your personality and memories — the essence of you — that could communicate with your descendants?”
3. Fort Leavenworth Lamp (USA) – ‘America’s Army’ game leads to NASA’s ‘Moonbase Alpha’. “Eight years after the Army Game Studio launched its initial first-person shooter video game, “America’s Army Recon,†NASA joined in with the release of its prototype game, “Moonbase Alpha,†July 6. The new NASA game was developed with the assistance of the Army Game Studio, so “Moonbase Alpha†and “America’s Army†share some DNA. But the two games have different goals. While the “America’s Army†game has morphed into more than 38 versions, each offering true-to-life Soldier experiences from training through combat missions, “Moonbase Alpha†allows gamers to step into the role of an astronaut at a futuristic 3-D lunar settlement. The mission scenario of “Moonbase Alpha†requires virtual astronauts to restore critical systems and oxygen flow after a meteor strike cripples a solar array and oxygen-generating equipment on the moon. Resources available to players during the game include an interactive command center, a lunar rover, mobile robotic repair units and fully-stocked equipment. “Moonbase Alpha†is free, rated “E†for play by everyone, and can be played by a single player or with multiple players online.”
4. Cult of Mac (USA) – Pocket Metaverse iPad App Improves Life In Second Life [Review]. “Unfortunately, Second Life definitely ain’t what she used to be. There have been more than a few headline-grabbing scandals in recent years, user numbers have fallen off a bit and the newest official Linden Labs viewer software hasn’t exactly gotten rave reviews. However, there is still a very large and very loyal SL contingent that is eager to access their digitized world wherever and whenever they can. Those people have been begging and pleading for a reliable Second Life viewer for the iPhone since day one. Those same people really began clamoring for something more mobile when the iPad came on the scene.”
5. Dr Dobbs (USA) – 3D Gesture-Based Interaction System Unveiled. “Touch screens such as those found on the iPhone or iPad have become a standard form of technology allowing interaction with smart phones, computers, and other devices. Now scientists at Fraunhofer FIT in Germany have developed a next-generation noncontact gesture and finger recognition system. The novel system detects hand and finger positions in real-time and translates these into appropriate interaction commands. Furthermore, the system does not require special gloves or markers and is capable of supporting multiple users.”
6. The Telegraph (UK) – Council scraps £36,000 virtual town hall in Second Life. “Tameside Council, in Greater Manchester, ‘rented’ an island in the virtual world of Second Life and built a computerised town hall, hoping it would encourage users to access local authority services. But the project has been abandoned after council chiefs admitted they could not justify the cost. Now the authority has been attacked by critics for wasting taxpayers’ money at a time when the squeeze was on public finances. John Bell, leader of the council’s Conservative oppostion, said: “They want to get in the real world, not a virtual one. “It’s absolutely barmy. They must be out of their heads. How may pavements would you be able to mend for £36,000? How many roads could you maintain?”
7. BBC News (UK) – Guide creates virtual world on Second Life after stroke. “A tour guide recovering from a stroke has created a computer-generated version of the Highlands in virtual world Second Life. Tony Hamsworth began work on the project during his year-long recuperation. Second Life users design an avatar, a computer-generated representation of themselves, to live in the online world. There are believed to be as many as 16 million users from all over the world. The virtual Highlands stretches from Inverness down Loch Ness to Fort Augustus and Loch Oich.”
8. Escapist Magazine (USA) – Gold Farmers Mimic Behavior of Drug Dealers. “The networks that sell virtual items illegally in MMORPGs behave similarly to the networks that sell actual illegal goods in the real world. Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad and Brian Keegan of Northwestern University hypothesized that the illicit activities of virtual worlds would mimic those of the real world. By studying both gold farmers and drug dealers, they found that the techniques used to keep both in business were very similar. The pair says they compared data from an EverQuest 2 gold farming network with “a drug trafficking ring obtained from a Canadian law enforcement taskforce called Project Caviar.” The data released is a bit complicated, but they found that the gold farming network “exhibits a clear pattern of dissortative mixing that resembles the dissortative pattern observed in the offline Caviar drug trafficking network,” which they say is “key evidence that behaviors in online, virtual worlds also map onto behaviors found in the offline, real world.”
9. Wall Street Journal (USA) – Digits Live Show: Virtual Goods Show High Risk of Fraud. “As sales of virtual goods on sites like Facebook, Second Life, and World of Warcraft become increasingly popular, cyber thievery is also on the rise. Online consumers spent than $2 billion on virtual goods such as songs downloaded from iTunes and gifts and currency on Facebook and gaming sites in 2009, and more than 1% of these transactions involved stolen credit cards, fake goods, and other fraudulent actions. The Wall Street Journal’s Ben Worthen and Jessica Vascellaro discuss the growing market for digital wares and the steps that social-networking and gaming sites are taking to prevent fraud in their virtual marketplaces.”
10. Boston Globe (USA) – Stuck in your online routines? Give this a shot. “Attention Second Lifers: Are you afraid, even in your fantasy worlds, of new experiences. Your avatar might be a candidate, then, for a psychotropic drug designed to treat Wanderlust Deficit Disorder — in other words, Internet addiction. The drug, Virta-Flaneurazine (virtaflaneurazine.wordpress.com) is actually a bit of downloadable code that causes Second Life avatars to rapidly and uncontrollably teleport from one Second Life location to the next and to walk and fly in circles. The idea is to get people thinking about how much time they spend stuck in the same old places, in-world and out.”
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