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.”