1. Los Angeles Times (USA) – A real-world battle over virtual-property rights. “Architect David Denton spends much of his time on a lush tropical island, where he experiments with cutting-edge building designs and creates spaces for artists to showcase their work. Never mind that the island only exists in the virtual-reality world of Second Life, a popular online venue where people interact via digital avatars. Denton, 62, said he purchased the island for about $700 — real money, not virtual cash — from its former owner, and considers it his property.”

2. VentureBeat (USA) – TinierMe launches Japanese-style anime virtual world. “Japanese comics known as “anime” have become popular among young Americans. And TinierMe is planning on capitalizing on that with the launch of its anime-focused virtual world. After six months of beta testing, TinierMe is formally launching its virtual world today. The U.S.-based virtual world is a separate version of a two-million strong virtual world in Japan. Already, thanks to the beta test, the English-language version of TinierMe has 700,000 registered users, said Masaru “Nogi” Ohnogi, chief executive of the company, which is owned by Japan’s GCREST.”

3. CNN Go (India) – GoJiyo: What India’s first 3D virtual reality world is like on the inside. “I have a love-hate relationship with virtual reality. When I first heard about Microsoft’s Second Life — a virtual interactive 3D environment, launched seven years ago — I chucked my default life for three whole days and nights, pausing only for the occasional nap and a few bare-minimum human necessities. Realising that I might lose myself to the real world forever, I got out of Second Life for good, cleaning the software off my hard drive completely. I have a love-hate relationship with online social networking sites, too, spending days on end immersed in Facebook’s voyeur/exhibitionist way of life before setting it aside to be used only when absolutely necessary. So when I heard about the launch of GoJiyo, Godrej’s new browser-based 3D virtual reality social networking environment tailored for the Indian market, I cringed and whooped simultaneously. Marketed as “India’s first online virtual world” that blends online gaming, virtual reality and social networking, GoJiyo is admittedly a brand repositioning exercise for the Godrej group, which makes appliances and furniture, aimed at capturing a younger, hipper audience.”

4. Hypergrid Business (Hong Kong) – Resilience during virtual disasters. “Virtual worlds have been offered up in recent weeks as alternatives to physical events because they are disaster-proof. No volcano or tsunami can take down the whole Internet. And virtual events are particularly budget-friendly during that other kind of recent disaster — a financial crisis. But virtual worlds are prone to their own kind of disasters, as yesterday’s shutdown of Second Life demonstrated. OpenSim isn’t immune either, with both local outages and widespread failures possible. For example, this past weekend, the owner of Aesthetica found that his entire region was gone, and several months of scheduled backups had never taken place at all — a combination of hardware, software and management failures. Last summer, a hacker took out servers running over a hundred thousand websites — and around a hundred OpenSim regions were destroyed in the attack as well.”

5. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Worlds.com Settles NCSoft Suit; Short On Funds? “After a little over a year since Worlds.com filed suit against NCSoft for patent infringement on Christmas Eve in 2008, the parties have settled the matter. According to Patent Arcade, the court ordered dismissal with prejudice due to a binding settlement agreement between the two companies on April 23. NCSoft began the litigation process by telling us that it would defend itself “vigorously,” but the terms of the settlement seem to be confidential, so there’s no way of knowing how it shook out for certain. Based on a recent SEC filing, though, it may be that Worlds.com needed some money or, at least, didn’t want the cost and trials of litigation.”

6. nebusiness (UK) – New school is virtually there. “South Shields Community School was mulling over the idea of creating a virtual replica of its school when it came upon a Journal article about Second Life and Gateshead firm Vector 76. It decided to contact the firm, which designs content for 3D virtual worlds on the internet, to talk about building a three-dimensional plan of the school. The new £20m South Shields Community School in Nevinson Avenue won’t be open in the real world until September 2011, but the virtual version is opening its doors from today for curious parties to have a look around. Deputy head Chris Roberts was approached with the idea by Key Stage 4 culture and heritage co-ordinator Graham Trick, who wanted to create an interactive version of the architect’s fly-through he had seen in the school hall.”

7. Times Live (South Africa) – Japan’s women love gaming. “They have been hooked on everything from hula dancing and oxygen bars to electronic darts and foreign exchange trading, but Japan’s housewives have finally settled on the ultimate addiction: on-line role-playing games. Once relied on as the “good wives and wise mothers” behind the country’s economic miracle, women have begun burying themselves for days in elaborate virtual worlds, emerging only sporadically to carry out their chores. Sometimes they play flint-hearted assassins, sometimes fluffy animals. Often – bizarrely – they play housewives. Classic online combat titles such as World of Warcraft are popular, but much more so are games that broadly emulate real life.”

8. The Standard (Hong Kong) – Living Doll. “Paige Gabriele loved her dolls – once. At eight, however, the girl has abandoned them. Barbie gets slim face time, and the single American Girl doll, a gift from her grandmother, sits on her bureau – untouched. Playing with dolls “gets boring after a while,” said Paige. She was more interested in a basketball, and gushed about social websites such as moshimonsters.com, where she nurtures pet monsters. It used to be that dolls held girls’ interest at least through elementary school. But these days, they are dropping such playthings at ever younger ages, replacing the childhood mainstay with technology-driven activities, even as the toy industry battles to attract the coveted market with new products.”

9. The Yorker (UK) – Generation CoD. “I had my first addiction when I was about 12. Luckily, by the time I came to take my GSCEs, I’d gotten over it. Otherwise, I’m not sure I would have got the grades I did. Now this addiction wasn’t alcohol, or drugs. It was a computer game – Age of Empires to be precise – but I maintain it could have been equally as dangerous had I let it continue. Little did I realise that the problem, although fairly rare, was widespread and spreading. An article in The Sunday Times Magazine the other week highlighted that increasing numbers of gamers are becoming addicted. But when does a game cease being fun and turn into a life-ruining obsession? And what will this new addiction do to a generation of young people in this recession having to cope with increasing uncertainty over the security of their futures?”

10. Forbes (USA) – IMVU Adds Former Second Life Exe. “IMVU, a social networking and instant messaging client which uses 3D avatars to represent its users, announced Thursday that they have hired David Fleck to serve as vice president of marketing for the company. Fleck served in a similar role for the company behind Second Life, Linden Lab. Forbes spoke with Fleck and IMVU’s CEO Cary Rosenzweig about the move and what the future holds for the company. After Fleck left Linden Lab in 2004, he focused on helping start ups in the social entertainment/social networking field get on their feet. It was through these start-ups that he became acquainted with Rosenzweig. Fleck says that discussions with Rosenzweig about the company quickly got his attention. “…It just became really clear and obvious to me how incredible this place is, and from a success standpoint, to the level that I couldn’t actually ignore it. I had to pay attention to what he was telling me,” he said.”

1. The Drum (UK) – Yomego set to enter virtual world with Horrible Histories. “Children’s book publisher Scholastic has commissioned social media company Yomego with the developed of a virtual world for its Horrible Histories series. The Horrible Histories virtual world is planned to go live in June 2011 and will allow fans of the book series the chance to interact with the historical world it has built over the years. A series of ‘rooms’ based on key historical periods, including Rotten Rome, Awesome Egypt and Terrible Tudor London are planned, with children being allowed to create their own avatar when they enter. They will then be able to explore each world and discover the ‘nasty bits’ of history within them and interact with other avatars.”

2. Courthouse News Service (USA) – Players Want Real Money from Virtual World. “Linden Research, creator of the massive multiplayer “Second Life” Internet game, induced thousands of players to invest as much as $100 million in real money in “virtual” properties, then took the properties back without just compensation, four former players say in a federal class action. Plaintiffs Carl Evans, Donald Spencer, Valerie Spencer and Cindy Carter say that throughout the early 2000s the company and its founder, Phillip Rosedale, promoted the concept of property ownership and commerce in Second Life through press releases and media interviews. Linden Research and Rosedale claimed they would protect rights to virtual property and that the virtual real estate could be used to earn money for its owners.”

3. nebusiness (UK) – Firms explore world of virtual conferencing. “Thanks to the lingering volcanic ash cloud from Iceland, many European business leaders have found themselves struggling to attend meetings as planned. This unusual source of disruption has led Gateshead-based business Vector76 to encourage firms to explore the possibility of meeting in the virtual world. The company was set up two years ago to explore the development of the 3D internet, especially virtual worlds such as Second Life. Vector76 set up a virtual NewcastleGateshead last year, and CEO Shaun Allan says the recently-launched conferencing facilities are ideal for deal-makers who have found their operations grounded by the lack of movement in the real world.”

4. The Guardian (UK) – Creating the next dotcom boom could be child’s play. “Anyone expecting one of the figures behind the world’s most popular online game, the sword and sorcery epic World of Warcraft, to serve up another instalment of blood, guts and glory with his latest online venture is going to be in for a shock when his new project goes live next week. There’s no fighting in the world of Boaki, there are no items to trade and players must collaborate as they try and solve the mystery of what happened to the previous inhabitants of their strange new world. But the most striking difference is that the new “game” is aimed specifically at children.”

5. The Age (Australia) – Split Screen: Lost in the sandbox. “Open world” is one of those phrases popular with games marketing people today. Games promise freedom, non-linear stories, with a unique experience for every player, a “sandbox” for everyone to play in and create their own fun. While the creation of convincing virtual worlds that encourage exploration and experimentation is a great goal, and one toward which games have made huge strides in the past decade, it has inherent risks. The big one, I think, is a phenomenon I call “too much world, too little game”. This describes a game which features a big world, but puts too little in it for the player to do, or puts in too many of the same activities with too little variety.”

6. Honolulu Weekly (USA) – Life on Mars. “Jim Sink is the CEO of Avatar Reality, a locally–based gaming company. Its first game is Blue Mars, a 3D virtual world that will remind you of Second Life at first glance but aims to be the next generation of virtual worlds. Before working with Avatar Reality, Sink worked at Microsoft’s Xbox Live division and managed business development at Foundation9, the world’s largest producer of independent video games. Honolulu Weekly sat down with Sink to talk about some of his projects and the state of the high-tech industry in Hawaii. In short: things are not heading in the right direction.”

7. Kotaku (Australia) – Identity And Online Avatars: A Discussion. “Gamers are beautiful, so think of this as a love letter to you. I love how we can circle the wagons when the medium we care for so much is assailed. So, let me tell you directly: my goal is to support your creativity in gaming and other digital media forms. In recent days, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Elisabeth Soep for boingboing.net on the topic of research into identity representation that I have been conducting. This article, “Chimerical Avatars and Other Identity Experiments from Prof. Fox Harrell,” also had the distinction of having been reblogged on Kotaku under the sensationalistic headline “Making Avatars That Aren’t White Dudes Is Hard.” I am thrilled to see the dialogue started by my fellow denizens of gamerdom, however the title and article misstated my aims. ”

8. PopMatters (USA) – T.L. Taylor’s Guide to MMO Culture. “One of the most interesting shifts in MMO design compared to single player gaming is moving from an emotion centered design to something oriented around social spaces. Rather than focusing on making a game fair and fun for one person, you have to orient it around thousands. T.L. Taylor’s book Play Between Worlds is a careful study on the effects of design in Everquest over an extended period of time. Detailing her observations as a Gnome Necromancer, the book relies on academic research and interviews to paint a broad picture of how the design of the game interacts with the culture.”

9. iTWire (USA) – Would you pay US$3.5 million for a virtual horse? “Well (as a collective) plenty have, the World of Warcraft Celestial Steed hit the virtual fantasy universe created by Blizzard, and lots of Warcraftians were willing to jump in the saddle. The Celestial Steed mount and Lil’XT Pet (!) went on sale over at Blizzard from the 16th of April (or 15th depending on where you live), and it seems that folks that fossick around in World of Warcraft are pretty sick and tired of their current modes of transport, and want to try the new. At a price of US$25 the queue to download the Celestial Steed alone was 140,000 and seven hours long at launch. This is a nice windfall of US$3.5 million for the Blizzard massive multiplayer juggernaut.”

10. Computerworld (USA) – Linden Lab holds to grand plans for Second Life. “Linden Lab’s plans for Second Life are as visionary as ever — “to enhance and improve the human condition.” But the company is working to marry those dreams to more practical goals for the immediate future. “I’ll settle for a million active users by the end of the year,” said Tom Hale, chief product officer for Linden Lab, which develops and operates Second Life. The service now has about 700,000 active users, who spend more than an hour per month logged in, up from 680,000 active users in February. One million active users is a big goal, but it’s more modest than the dreams of the Second Life boom a few years ago, when Linden Lab founder Philip Rosedale talked about Second Life becoming bigger than the Web in 10-15 years. For example, see this 2008 video of Rosedale at TED Talks.”

1. ABC News (USA) – DreamWorks Rolls out “Kung Fu Panda” Virtual World. “After 2-1/2 years of work and an investment of about $10 million, DreamWorks Animation has started rolling out its first online virtual world — a browser-based Web theme park tied to its “Kung Fu Panda” movie franchise. The marketing push for “Kung Fu Panda World,” which comes at a subscription cost of $5.95 per month, but can also be sampled after watching an online ad, kicks off Monday after a soft launch at the end of March.”

2. Wired (USA) – Virtual Worlds, Real Money: Can Social Games Solve Music’s Woes? “Music fans of tomorrow are kids of today, and the way they pay for digital content is through virtual worlds like Farmville and Penguin Town, which turn the acquisition of virtual goods — and digital music is nothing if not a virtual good — into a game. Conduit Labs’ Music Pets app for Facebook may look cute, but it could have tangible ramifications for how music is discovered and sold in the future. The goal of Music Pets is to entertain a virtual pet by training it to like the music you like, then using points to send the pet out to find more music to add to your collection. It sounds silly, but this cartoon-ish virtual world includes every element of the real-world music experience: getting recommendations, deciding whether you like songs, collecting music, and going over to your friends’ “houses” to play songs from your collection, which, as with just about everything else, requires that you expend points.”

3. BBC News (UK) – South Korean children face gaming curfew. “The South Korean government is introducing policies aimed at curbing the amount of time children spend playing online games. The first involves barring online gaming access to young people of school age between 12am (midnight) and 8am. The other policy suggests slowing down people’s internet connections after they have been logged on to certain games for a long period of time. The Culture Ministry is calling on games providers to implement the plans.”

4. National Defense Magazine (USA) – Airmen to Live Out Their Careers In Cyberspace. “Air Force officials anticipate a world in which every recruit receives an avatar upon joining the service. These avatars would follow airmen through their entire careers, earning promotions and educational credits and even moving with them to new offices and bases. This would take place in simulated worlds that mirror the service’s actual facilities. “Everyone who comes into the Air Force will be given an avatar, and that avatar travels with them, grows with them, changes appearance with them,” said Larry Clemons, of the Air Education and Training Command. “It will provide them a history of where they’ve been and a notion of where they’re going.”

5. CNET (USA) – Haptic hug vest makes emoticons so last century. “Sure, it’s great when that hot avatar gives you a hug in Second Life, but wouldn’t it be even better if you could actually feel the embrace? Researchers from Japan are demonstrating a motorized haptic device that lets you experience real-time virtual hugs by physically reproducing the pressure felt on the chest and back when someone gives you a squeeze. Getting a hug that moves beyond the basic emoticon requires donning a kind of harness adorned with soft fabric hands that envelop the wearer in a warm faux embrace. But the HaptiHug is only one of the affective garments included in the I_FeelIM (“I feel therefore I am”) system, which uses software to extract emotional meaning from written text and pass it on to one of a number of haptic devices that react accordingly.”

6. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Avatar Reality Taking Blue Mars To The Clouds. “In 2007 when Avatar Reality first began showing off its virtual world, Blue Mars, much of the talk was high fidelity environments built on CryEngine 2. The early screen shots were certainly something to see compared to most virtual worlds. But that beauty came with high system requirements. Now, however, Avatar Reality has announced that it will be using the AMD Fusion Cloud Server developed by AMD, Super Micro, and OTOY to stream Blue Mars from the cloud to virtually any computer’s Web browser. Specifically, Avatar Reality mentions handhelds, Macs, and legacy hardware–not the gaming PCs that usually run CryEngine 2.”

7. Wall Street Journal (USA) – Avatar II: The Hospital. “The nurses have been told there’s a crisis. But they’re hardly prepared for the chaos that awaits. Hospitals, medical schools and health foundations are staking out space in the online community Second Life, in order to train medical and nursing students in clinical skills and to improve hospital efficency and response to emergencies. Dozens of patients, stricken with a debilitating flu, crowd the emergency room. Some slump mutely in chairs. Others wander, moaning or calling out for blankets. Just as the nurses begin triage, part of the hospital goes dark: a blackout. This chaotic scene isn’t real—it’s part of an online simulation designed to help nurses make quick, sure decisions in emergencies. Dozens of hospitals, medical schools and health foundations have staked out space in the online community Second Life, where participants can build their own virtual clinics and stage just about any training drill they can imagine. Interest is so high, both Stanford University and the University of Michigan last month held workshops on medical training and education in the virtual world.”

8. Reason Magazine (USA) – I Am, I Am, I Am Superman/And I Know What’s Happening. “Peter Ludlow has a pair of guest posts at Henry Jenkins’ site about some battles that broke out in Second Life, a well-known virtual world. The short version: Pranksters and vandals, known in gaming circles as griefers, make trouble for other players; a vigilante group forms to battle the griefers; paranoia sets in, and the vigilantes start to see griefers everywhere. Eventually the conflict spills out into the outside world.”

9. Kotaku (USA) – Blizzard Is Selling World Of Warcraft Mounts Because Players Demanded Them. “While naysayers may think corporate greed is the answer, Blizzard tells Kotaku the real reason World of Warcraft mounts have shown up for sale in the company’s online store is because that’s exactly what the players wanted. The overwhelming response to yesterday’s addition of the Celestial Steed in-game mount for World of Warcraft to the Blizzard store backs up comments we received today from Blizzard PR man Ryan Arbogast. Purchase queues began forming soon after the virtual item went on sale, with players in the forums reporting upwards of 12,000 folks waiting at the virtual cash register at one time for a chance to purchase the translucent flying mount. Wow.com reported yesterday that at one point the number topped 140,000.”

10. GamesRadar (USA) – Hands on with The Old Republic. “Strange to say it, but when you first start playing The Old Republic you forget it’s going to be built like an MMO. Missions, such as the one we played recently, are doled out in such dramatic and wordy ways that you’re temporarily blinded to the fact that the bomb-pursuit you’re on is essentially a World of Warcraft quest in space boots. Secure a ZR-57 bomb that’s deep within a Separatist fortress on the planet of Ord Mantell, having taken down a force field at another point somewhere within said fortress? Well, that’s a little bit of a “fight your way into a zombie castle and bring back some fairy dust” retrieval quest isn’t it?”