1. InformationWeek (USA) – 1 In 10 Internet Users Buys Virtual Goods. “Virtual weapons, Facebook favors and other forms of digital currency are a growing market, according to a survey released Thursday, with 12 percent of Americans saying they spent real money on these items in the last year.
The heaviest buyers of these objects — which are bought over the Internet and exchanged through online games, social networks, and virtual worlds such as Second Life — appear to be young and middle-aged women ages 12 to 44, although they were also purchased by young men.”

2. The Guardian (UK) – Virtual worlds are getting a second life. “We haven’t heard much recently about so-called virtual worlds such as Second Life, in which you move around with your own avatar. Critics must be hoping they have disappeared up their own ether. Actually, they are booming. The consultancy kzero.co.uk reports that membership of virtual worlds grew by 39% in the second quarter of 2009 to an estimated 579 million. Not all these members are active but I can’t think of anything, anywhere, that has grown so fast in the recession this side of Goldman Sachs bonuses.”

3. Hypergrid Business (Hong Kong) – Copyright in virtual worlds. “As the virtual worlds grow and develop — and evolve into the next 3D Web — the issue of copyright is being debated again. In some ways, virtual worlds copyrights may require changes in the way we think of and use copyrights. But, in most respects, virtual worlds copyrights are no different than the copyrights we currently have today. For example, today, if a content producer makes an original work and sells to a buyer, then, by default, what is sold is single-time use only.”

4. PBS (USA) – Virtual Worlds Show Promise for Newspaper Communities. “In my previous post, I talked about the browser-based virtual environment Metaplace, which I think may provide a way to boost interaction with our community on newspaper website Mediafin. To test how well virtual worlds could be used to build a community, I undertook some experiments in organizing “conferences” in worlds like Metaplace and Second Life. And the results turned out to be quite promising. How can we at newspaper websites experiment with new media without upsetting the community or — possibly even more — our colleagues? Virtual environments are not yet universally accepted as useful for newspaper communities, so the question of how to introduce community and colleagues to these spaces is especially pertinent.”

5. The Globe and Mail (Canada) – Avatars come alive in workplace. “Avatars will become the big buzz this year, thanks to director James Cameron’s pending flick of the same name. They’ve been all the rage among video gamers for years. Now they’re also sprouting up in the workplace, and experts predict they will emerge as a key trend in the coming years. For puzzled employers and perplexed employees, what’s the sense of using a digital person rather than a real one?”

6. Singularity Hub (USA) – Haptics Unleashes Virtual Reality and Telepresence Revolution – Awesome Vids. “Whoah! Prepare to be blown away with this post! Here at the Hub one of the things that we are all about is the coming merger of the physical world with the virtual world. Programmable matter, moving beyond the outdated mouse and keyboard interface model, immersive environments, and so on. Now we are here to tell you about a seriously game changing technology that is absolutely busting apart the traditional barrier between the physical and virtual worlds. Its called haptics, and if you haven’t heard about it yet then read on and prepare to be thrilled.”

7. San Jose Mercury News (USA) – Stanford’s virtual reality experiments transport knowledge to new vistas. “Even as it gained acceptance on college campuses during the 1990s, “virtual reality” could never quite escape having just a whiff of junk science. The graphics created for early virtual worlds were so clunky and slow they conjured up bad LSD trips. Giant helmets immersed subjects in fantastical environments far more virtual than real. It was like conducting a seance in a hat. “Until five or six years ago,” says Jeremy Bailenson, director of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford, “when I told people what I did for a living, they laughed.”

8. ReadWriteWeb (USA) – How To: Use Virtual Worlds for Business. “Despite the hype, only 11% of enterprises have adopted virtual worlds to augment their work, says a new report by Forrester. Virtual worlds have been around since about 1995, but it took businesses half a decade to realize the potential value within the enterprise. But the research released this week isn’t just an outline of the market: it’s a how-to guide for doing business in a computer-generated universe. Vendors may not have done a very good job of marketing themselves to the enterprise to date, but there’s still a huge opportunity for your company to get virtual, if you know how.”

9. Xinhua (China) – Virtual reality – a new world awaits… “Virtual reality is no longer a concept of the future, innovative 3-D technology can now transform a desktop computer into an interactive world of adventure, fashion, fun and entertainment. Using the Internet as an entry platform, the new technology is blurring the lines of the real and virtual worlds. In contrast to a traditional two-dimensional interface, the 3-D environment provides a completely immersive and highly social world, enabling access to people and places that would be virtually impossible in the real world. Through the use to avatars, a virtual replica of yourself, or whoever you want to be, life can literally take on new dimensions in cyberspace.”

10. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Augmented Reality To Get iPhone Push. “ugmented reality is quickly gaining a foothold among entertainment brands. In the last few days, Mattel’s foray into augmented reality, with its upcoming Avatar line of action figures, has resulted in a wave of coverage. Now, iPhone developers are coming out of the woodwork with uses that coincide with the September release of version 3.1 of the iPhone software. The new iPhone software, and the subsequent listing in AR-enhanced applications in the App Store, will mark a turning point. Some dozen or so companies, according to reports, are gearing up for the day. And just yesterday, according to AppleInsider, Apple provided iPhone developers with a third beta of iPhone 3.1 software.”

1. Associated Content (USA) – Tron Legacy Coming Soon in 2010. “Some test footage from Tron Legacy, the sequel to the 1982 cult classic Tron, was shown at Comic Con 2009. The Tron Legacy footage depicted a battle between a blue and yellow “light cycle”, familiar to those who recall the first film.
Tron was the first film to make heavy use of computer generated images (CGI). Tron depicted the adventures of Flynn, played by Jeff Bridges, a computer programmer who had been literally sucked into a virtual, computer world and forced to fight in deadly arcade like games, such as the light cycle battle, by the Master Control Program, played by David Warner. Flynn was aided by two computer generated characters, Tron, played by Bruce Boxleitner and Yori, played by Cindy Morgan. Tron and Yori had real world counterparts, Alan and Lora, who were Flynn’s friends and also computer programmers.”

2. The Economic Times (India) – Could virtual gaming contribute to medical research? “If twitter is the tech-story turned mainstream media darling of 2009, then San Francisco-based Linden Lab’s virtual reality world “Second Life” (SL) was clearly the fancied one in 2008. There was a bizarre SL related story – virtual rape/murder/suicide – every other day in the papers , CNN and Reuters had news bureaus within SL and journalists were getting invites to attend virtual press conferences in SL from gimmicksavvy tech companies. In 2009, while the limelight has gone and its user base has remained stagnant at about 800,000, Second Life has made that allimportant leap: converting hype into REAL money. Some analysts estimate that it will make a 100 million dollars this year and turn a net profit of about 35 million dollars within two years. The main source of revenue of course is the “real money” users pay to acquire real … err virtual estate in the SL universe. ”

3. The Telegraph (UK) – Addiction therapists signing up to World of Warcraft. “Experts have said that some massively multiplayer online games, in which players battle enemies for weapons and rewards, are as addictive as crack cocaine.
Dr Richard Graham, a consultant psychiatrist at the Tavistock Centre in London, is so concerned that he plans to provide online therapy for youngsters who are spending so much time playing these games that they have lost touch with the real world. A recent report by Sweden’s Youth Care Foundation described World of Warcraft as “more addictive than crack cocaine”. The game, which attracts almost 12 million players every month, is set in a fantasy environment, with users taking on the characters of dwarves, elves and wizards, interacting with other players throughout the virtual world.”

4. Computerworld (USA) – Faux pas at virtual world discussion highlight continuing ‘transitional phase’. “Virtual worlds are growing in colleges and universities despite significant problems in using them to teach courses and communicate, a panel of experts said during a virtual discussion sponsored by Cisco Systems Inc. The problems range from giving students and educators access to networks to reach the online virtual worlds to ease-of-use with the applications and tools inside of the virtual worlds, panelists and audience members said. “There’s a long way to go with this technology to make it easy for everybody to do,” said Sarah Smith-Robbins, director of emerging technology for Kelley Executive Partners at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. She has taught and written about virtual worlds for six years, and specializes in creating learning experiences that build on virtual worlds and alternative and augmented realities.”

5. The Age (Australia) – ‘Risk illiteracy’ among the young and reckless. “”THE only thing that shakes us is when one of our friends dies,” admits 19-year-old Hamad Al Mazmi in Prahran on a Friday night he has spent riding around in a high-powered Holden ute. The international student’s words are the last thing that police, the Transport Accident Commission and parents of young drivers want to hear. They know they are true. It’s a terrible irony that the deaths of nine young drivers and their passengers in the past month may have done more to teach inexperienced drivers about the fragility of life than could any government-funded campaign or parental tirade.”

6. ZNet – Elites and power. “The following text develops an argument that leads up to the vision of its last paragraph – which, to some, might seem enigmatic or disappointing in its implications. It is all about the concept of planning – of participatory or democratic or, as I would prefer to call it, scientific (interdisciplinary) planning. It is about the multitude of experts, scientists and professionals that are involved in the incredibly complicated planning processes of today. How to move from ‘here’ (private ownership of the means of production, corporate divisions of labor, plutocracy, the specter of markets, autocratic planning) to ‘there’ (a socialism based on science, knowledge, reason) is the central question. And you can’t move without movers. Writing about a strategy for the future cannot compel a European of my generation to dismiss the lessons of 20th century’s Left Project, which started out under the banner of ‘scientific socialism’ – and dismally failed. But do we refrain from returning to classical art and thought just because the project of classical antiquity ‘failed’? To Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and to thousand other thinkers the concept of scientific socialism was essential. And many think, that advances in the soft and hard sciences are such that this concept finally has a chance. ”

7. Top Tech News (USA) – Collaboration Tools Can Cut Costs, Boost Productivity. “At a time when enterprise software investments are trending town, companies may not be looking to invest in unified communications and collaboration tools. But with the boost to business productivity, the contained costs, and the chance to be a good corporate citizen by reducing your company’s carbon footprint, it may be time to look at how collaboration tools — both enterprise-level and low-cost open-source solutions — can benefit your company. “Providing employees with collaboration tools that enable them to work together effectively, no matter where they may be located, is no longer a wish-list or nice-to-have item — it’s a requirement,” said Kent Erickson, senior vice president and general manager of Workgroup Solutions for Novell.”

8. North Shore Times (NZ) – Study out of this world. “Virtual worlds and computer games aren’t only for teen cyberjunkies, says Massey University associate professor Erik Champion. He says computer games have enormous potential and tools to explore and interact with ancient cultures, distant places and inaccessible environments. The new media lecturer at the design school on the Albany campus is seeking designers to create more New Zealand-themed virtual worlds. “The challenge is to find new interactive ways to experience things through digital media,” he says. Dr Champion says those worlds will soon become more popular than travelling and book learning and the like.”

9. The Economist (USA) – Online playgrounds. “REMEMBER Second Life, the virtual world that was supposed to become almost as important as the first one? Now populated by no more than 84,000 avatars at a time, it has turned out to be a prime example of how short-lived internet fads can be. Yet if many adults seem to have given up on virtual worlds, those that cater to children and teenagers are thriving. Several have even found a way to make money. In America, nearly 10m children and teenagers visit virtual worlds regularly, estimates eMarketer, a market researcher—a number the firm expects to increase to 15m by 2013. As of January, there were 112 virtual worlds designed for under-18s with another 81 in development, according to Engage Digital Media, a market research firm. All cater to different age groups and tastes. In Club Penguin, the market leader, which was bought by Disney in 2007 for a whopping $700m, primary-school children can take on a penguin persona, fit out their own igloo and play games. Habbo Hotel, a service run from Finland, is a global hangout for teenagers who want to customise their own rooms and meet in public places to attend events. Gaia Online, based in Silicon Valley, offers similar activities, but is visited mostly by older teens who are into Manga comics.”

10. VentureBeat (USA) – Do you have the right to socialize on multiplayer games? ““Erik Estavillo is suing Sony over being banned from PlayStation Network, claiming that the company violated his right to free speech and has caused him pain by removing his only form of socialization, as he suffers from agoraphobia.” When I first read about this lawsuit, I wondered if the plaintiff in the case filed his suit pro se — representing himself. My thought was that any attorney who represented him might be subject to professional discipline for bringing a meritless claim. A suit that blatantly lacks jurisdiction would probably fall under that category. On second review though, I thought that there might be a colorable basis for this suit, enough jurisdiction for the lawyer to avoid censure at least. The plaintiff’s complaint doesn’t specify exactly how Sony’s Resistance: The Fall of Man (RFoM) game platform qualifies as a “public forum”, but this point will determine whether the court can even entertain the case.”