1. VentureBeat (USA) – Zula launches science-focused kids virtual world. “Hoping to add an Internet dimension to its growing kids business, Zula USA has launched a successful kids science education TV show in the past three years and is now diving into the vitual world market. The Burbank, Calif.-based company quietly launched its ZulaWorld virtual world for kids on June 1 and just filled me in on the details of its new offering. It has about 1,000 members so far, and it’s all in the name of making science fun.”

2. Bangkok Post (Thailand) – The world is yours … however you want it. “Have you ever created your own avatar and sent it wandering into a virtual world? With advanced tools and open source technology, Internet users can indeed create whole new characters and places online. Taking inspiration from sci-fi movies such as Star Trek, Star Wars and Sunshine, two Chulalongkorn University students have teamed up to build their own 3D virtual world called Hyperion. Kriangkrai Traichaiyaporn and Noppawat Muktaphan spent one month building Hyperion, which went on to win an award from “Wonderland Challenge 2009”.

3. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Microsoft: Avatars, Si; Virtual Worlds, Nyet. “Last year, the New Xbox Experience introduced fully customizable avatars to Xbox Live players. With those avatars, came the attendant thought that Microsoft might be prepping an entry point into virtual worlds, with one exec going so far as to tell VirtualWorldsNews, “We’re thinking about the [virtual worlds] space heavily and have been involved in a gaming aspect for quite some time.” But that was 2008. Which is why all eyes were on Microsoft at this year’s annual E3 Expo trade show. And while recent comments from Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten don’t exactly point to a virtual worlds launch from the company, they do fuel continued speculation.”

4. ZDNet Asia (Singapore) – Virtual worlds an inroad to new generation. “Virtual worlds aren’t dead–they’re enjoying a re-awakening, as marketers learn to connect both the real and virtual, say observers. Mary Ellen Gordon of Market Truths, a U.S.-based research firm specializing in virtual worlds, said in an interview with ZDNet Asia, companies expressing interest in virtual worlds such as Second Life are compelled to learn the media-consumption habits of the new generation. This marks a contrast against the initial wave of companies which flocked to Second Life for mostly publicity, and also “during which at least some companies did not seem to take the time to really understand virtual worlds or to think about how to use them to contribute to their overall business objectives”, said Gordon.”

5. Gamasutra (USA) – Worlds of Abundance: Currency and Virtual Worlds. “Money holds the power to shape the flow of games – from single player games to MMOs. With every game we make, we are designing currency. Sometimes the currency is simply points (or points in a more colorful guise). Other times it is a means of drawing the player towards challenges – collect x widgets and you can continue. In a third case the player collects money to gain power directly or indirectly: Direct mechanisms being things like Mario’s 100 coins for extra lives or experience points to earn level-ups, and indirect ones being shopping and bartering. One thing unifies those examples: The game has absolute control over the money supply. And in many games, it tends towards an initial scarcity that later collapses into an abundance of wealth; the player starts off weak, and has to pick opportunities carefuly, but inevitably progresses in skill or power, or finds loopholes in the system, and legitimately or not, they collect hundreds of extra lives, store thousands of pieces of equipment, boost their character’s abilities to god-like ratings.”

6. io9 (USA) – 7 Virtual Reality Technologies That Actually Work. “So far, virtual reality has mostly been a colossal disappointment. But VR has had its share of breakthroughs and innovative applications. Here are seven VR technologies that work, and that may yet point the way to truly successful virtual reality.”

7. E-Health Insider (UK) – Second Life to show Confed sessions. “embers of Second Life will be able to view sessions from the annual NHS Confederation conference live online tomorrow. For the first time, three key sessions from the conference will be accessible to members of the public through the virtual world’s website. The free screening is being provided by the NHS Confederation and Imperial College London. Second Life members will be able to view ‘Can Obama fix the US health system?’, a panel discussion on the financial challenge facing the NHS called ‘Just how tough is it going to get?’ and a final session on The paradox of choice: Why more is less.”

8. Kotaku (USA) – Seventeen Magazine Gets An MMO. “Teen bastion of style and sex tips, Seventeen Magazine, is signed up with Habbo.com to create an online interactive world for its readers. Break out the virtual lip gloss. According to Media Week, Seventeen will supply Habbo with articles, quizzes and polls for the MMO while Habbo will host a Seventeen Beauty Salon section where readers can get beauty tips from editors. This is a step up from Seventeen’s first foray into virtual worlds over its digital issue released via MTV’s virtual world, Virtual MTV.”

9. New York Times (USA) – Microsoft’s Project Natal Seeks Poetry in Motion. “Microsoft’s headline announcement at this year’s E3 gaming conference was a motion-detection system housed in a sensor bar that plugs into your Xbox 360’s ports. The pull-out-all-the stops unveiling included an on-stage appearance by Steven Spielberg who raved “I think what Microsoft is doing is not about reinventing the wheel. It’s about no wheel at all.” I had my doubts.”

10. VentureBeat (USA) – Free pricing triumphs as Free Realms online game hits 3 million in seven weeks. “Sony’s Free Realms has scored 3 million registered users in just seven weeks, making it a true hit for the free online games business model in the U.S. The “free to play” games, where players start playing for free but can purchase virtual goods with real money as they add new capabilities, has taken off in Asia, where companies such as Shanda and Nexon have pioneered this new way of doing business. But until now U.S. consumers have been reluctant to embrace it. Sony Online Entertainment’s Free Realms is the first big stake in the ground for a free-to-play massively multiplayer online game in the U.S. market. It could force a lot of rivals to follow and, god forbid, might even make a dent in the demand for the industry-leading World of Warcraft, which has 13 million paying subscribers. Just two weeks ago, Sony announced it had two million registered users for Free Realms.”

1. io9 (USA) – 7 Failed Virtual Reality Technologies. “There was a time when people were calling home virtual reality the wave of the future. Now most people just call it goofy and expensive. Here are 7 virtual reality technologies that didn’t work, and never will. In what may be considered the first case of virtual reality reaching beyond its own limitations, Morton Heilig unveiled the Sensorama in 1962. It was a large box that enclosed the viewer’s head and displayed a stereoscopic 3D movie. The seat tilted and the box unleashed wind and smells. And all of this was accomplished mechanically.”

2. Federal News Radio (USA) – Beyond ‘heads-up’: augmented reality for virtual worlds. “Fans of the science fiction television show Star Trek: The Next Generation are certainly familiar with the ‘holodeck’, a room where powerful computers create realistic virtual environments. That’s the fictional model for what virtual worlds researchers are developing in labs all around the world today. Recently, several of the top names in the realm of ‘augmented reality’ presented an update on their work at the recent Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds Conference at the National Defense University at Fort McNair. Dr. Maribeth Grandy from Georgia Tech is one of the world’s foremost experts on the topic of augmented reality for virtual worlds.
“Augmented reality can mean many different things. Traditionally, you’re registering 3D graphics with the world, and the user is experiencing that virtual content through a head-mounted display, or a tablet computer that is acting as a ‘magic window’, or a projector. More recently, I’ve been working in the mobile domain, where you can use something like your IPhone as a little magic window.”

3. Fox News (USA) – College Plans Virtual Graduation for Online Students. “Many colleges and universities offer online courses. But only one’s having an online graduation. Bryant & Stratton College, a for-profit institution with campuses in four states, plus an online division, plans to host a graduation ceremony June 10 in Second Life, the online virtual world. Fittingly, the commencement address will be delivered by Second Life founder Philip Rosedale.”

4. VentureBeat (USA) – Small Worlds and Hi5 combine virtual world and social networking. “In a marriage of games and social networks, SmallWorlds has teamed up with social network Hi5 to open up SmallWorlds’ cartoon-like virtual world to Hi5’s 60 million monthly visitors.
Hi5’s users can use Hi5’s games channel to access the browser-based virtual environment of SmallWorlds, which has hundreds of casual games available to play. Hi5’s games channel has become a major focus for revenue generation for the San Francisco-based social network. With the alliance in place, users can pay for items in the virtual world using Hi5’s virtual currency, Hi5 coins, said Ted Tagami, vice president of business development for Small Worlds. The deal is good for SmallWorlds because it broadens its potential audience – Hi5 is a top 20 web destination with huge followings in Latin America and Europe.”

5. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – In-world Sound Gets Upgrade from Cornell Researchers. “One look at the environment in Second Life, for example, and the conscious mind knows it is dealing with a virtual world; the same occurs while attending a virtual event. Still, developers do their best to enhance the in-world experience, using every trick in the book to nudge one toward a suspension of disbelief. Take sound. It helps that the Second Life servers manage VOIP as they do — making it proximity based, tuning the vocals based on relative position to, and distance between, avatars.”

6. Toronto Star (Canada) – Keeping it under control. “Steven Spielberg came down from his mountain (of money?) this week, eyes blazing with prophetic fire, to deliver a pronouncement to the rabble of international gaming media gathered at the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles. “The only way to bring interactive entertainment to everybody,” he declared from his green-glowing pulpit at Microsoft’s press event, “is to make the technology invisible. Only then can we shine the spotlight where it belongs, which is on you.” Like millions of other game-news junkies around the world, I received this sermon remotely, through my laptop screen in the comfort of my couch, and it’s a sermon those millions and I have heard many times before.”

7. The Advocate (USA) – Virtual Gays Say “I Do”. “Gays and lesbians can now get married all over the world — the virtual world, at least. After playing The Sims 3 for a week, Lyle Masaki at AfterElton.com discovered that gay couples can now marry. Earlier versions of the game only allowed same-sex couples to move in together and declare unions. The Sims 3, which debuted at this week’s E3 electronics entertainment expo, builds on its hugely popular predecessors The Sims and The Sims 2 from video game developer Electronic Arts. The game allows players to create and control virtual characters and communities.”

8. Kotaku (USA) – The Sims 3 Review: Delayed Gratification. “After a more than three month delay—and more than four years on from the release of The Sims 2—The Sims 3 is finally here. So let’s get down to reviewing it. There are two types of Sims player: the Second-Life types who enjoy crafting and sharing stuff online and the God-types who look for new and interesting ways to terrorize their virtual dollies. The Sims 3 has room enough for both types in its expansive gameplay and online-feature set that lets you create and share everything from couch patterns to machinima. The once-narrow world of the Sims has been expanded to a persistent environment where Sims can freely walk from one lot to the next, the town around them progressing instead of freezing ‘til your Sim arrives on the scene. This makes the life cycle of the Sims more fluid; as your Sims grows old, so too do all the Sims around him or her. ”

9. O’Reilly Radar (USA) – 3D Glasses: Virtual Reality, Meet the iPhone. “A light flickers from two distinct points in time. As a child in the early-1970s, one of my toys was a View-Master, a binoculars-like device for viewing 3D images (called stereograms), essentially a mini-program excerpted from popular destinations, TV shows, cartoons, events and the like. The View-Master completely predated the advent of electronic toys (it was light powered and human click driven), but it was dumb simple to operate, and the 3D viewing experience was quirky cool. Plus, the content was customizable (just pop in a different program card) and for its time, it was engaging (sound could play on top of each image, making it even more so). Flash forward, and it’s 1992. I am reading Mondo 2000, a long since deceased magazine that was at the bleeding edge of the technology wave that was to come. Total reboot in terms of re-thinking and re-imaging the schema of the possible.”

10. Daily Kos (USA) – Kossacks in Second Life. “I first started working in Second Life as a library assistant, helping the campus library I work for develop its virtual presence to complement the programs already being developed in distance education through the university. As I continued working in Second Life, however, I realized I also needed friends there, as well, in addition to just working. No woman is an island, even in a virtual world. That’s when I started seeking out folks who were like me. I wanted the same environment I found at Daily Kos — a fun mix of diverse views and strong progressive values.”

1. PNN Online (USA) – MacArthur Island Opens in Virtual World of Second Life. “The MacArthur Foundation Island opened today in the virtual world of Second Life. The island is a new laboratory for MacArthur’s two-year exploration of virtual worlds, led by the University of Southern California and the nonprofit Global Kids. MacArthur Island is designed as an alternative space to educate grantees and others about the potential for philanthropy in virtual worlds and allow grantees and Foundation partners to showcase their work and connect with new audiences. The new island is located adjacent to an archipelago in Second Life dedicated to the public good, called the Nonprofit Commons. Visitors to MacArthur Island can interact with installations created about the work of MacArthur and its grantees. They include a giant pair of 3D headphones that visitors can use to listen to stories by independent radio producers as part of Public Radio Exchange, and a map about Chicago neighborhoods through which visitors can learn about a comprehensive community development effort being carried out in Chicago. ”

2. WebProNews (USA) – Kids/Teens Drawn to Virtual Worlds, Not Marketers. “What do you get when you cross a video-game with social networking? Virtual worlds – and they’re no joke, particularly with younger generations who are immersing themselves in increasing numbers.
In fact, half of online kids (age 3-11) will be regular frequenters to virtual worlds by 2013, predicts eMarketer. In its new report, “Kids and Teens: Growing Up Virtual”, the research firm estimates that currently 37% of online kids log on to virtual worlds each month. By 2013, that proportion is expected to rise to 50%, or 8.7 million.”

3. Multiplayer Online Games Directory (USA) – Footballvillage.net Worldwide Opening with FC Barcelona Virtual World. “E-Calcio is Proud and Happy to Announce the Opening of Footballvillage.net. It’s the result of over 2 years of development with 150 people involved in the creation of an innovative virtual world environment dedicate to the football passion. The target it’s to give to the largest number of users a very immediate and easy to use access to the virtual worlds experience and a chance to live and share with other friends all over the world their true football passion.”

4. ZDNet Asia (Singapore) – Virtual worlds an inroad to new generation. “Virtual worlds aren’t dead–they’re enjoying a re-awakening, as marketers learn to connect both the real and virtual, say observers. Mary Ellen Gordon of Market Truths, a U.S.-based research firm specializing in virtual worlds, said in an interview with ZDNet Asia, companies expressing interest in virtual worlds such as Second Life are compelled to learn the media-consumption habits of the new generation. This marks a contrast against the initial wave of companies which flocked to Second Life for mostly publicity, and also “during which at least some companies did not seem to take the time to really understand virtual worlds or to think about how to use them to contribute to their overall business objectives”, said Gordon. She named some of these business needs as saving time and costs related to traveling, by using virtual platforms to carry out Web conferences.”

5. Kotaku (USA) – Are Our Games Alive? “Anyone who’s played through a game like Microsoft’s Fable II (who can forget your virtual dog?), BioWare’s Mass Effect (with its robust roster of non-playable characters) or seen Sony’s upcoming Heavy Rain (whose developer, Quantic Dream, promises a new type of relationship between player and character) may have wondered to themselves whether gaming, which is still in its infancy as an art form, is heading towards its inevitable Citizen Kane threshold. More than the graphics or surround sound, the latest game consoles’ processing power are bringing to life AI-controlled characters unlike anything experienced before. But what are these sentient beings that help or hinder gamers as they explore vast virtual worlds? Are the Locust Horde who hide behind blockades and orchestrate flanking attacks in Gears of War 2 the first step in some type of real-world AI nightmare like the apocalyptic future displayed in Warner Bros. Pictures’ Terminator: Salvation? Will Steven Spielberg’s next original game for Electronic Arts, which remains untitled, deliver on its promise of making a gamer connect with a female avatar emotionally?”

6. Hi-Tech Scotland (UK) – Scotswoman scores ‘Second Life’ Gold. “Dunfermline businesswoman Pauline Randall’s office looks out over sparkling blue oceans, lapping around lush, landscaped gardens and she can fly to meetings in an instant – all in her Virtual World business park. This week, (Wednesday 27th May, San Francisco) it was announced she is the first, and only, Scottish company accepted into Linden Lab’s Gold Solution Provider Program in recognition of her experience and expertise in helping companies enter and operate in Second Life. Pauline runs her company, virtual-e, to recreate 3D replica offices and buildings online for organisations like Imperial College, London, Ashridge Business School, CyMAL – Wales Museums and Libraries and the University of Hawaii. In these online spaces, organisations can host virtual meetings, collaborative working, product training and demonstrations – even international conferences, without the cost and hassle of travel. Medical colleges are using virtual worlds for training young doctors in diagnosing patients and businesses find them an innovative way to manage 360 degree presentations on new products.”

7. VentureBeat (USA) – Virtual events draw a live in-person crowd. “Yes, these people in the picture are real. What’s weird is they’re attending a conference about virtual events. You know, the kind they have only in cyberspace where you pretend you’re at a live event. As surreal as it sounds, the fledgling virtual events industry gathered today at a first-of-its-kind Virtual Edge event at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, Calif. While other conferences have been pummeled by the recession, there were 500 people registered and an overflow crowd this morning. The reason for the interest is that demand for virtual events has skyrocketed during the recession, said Malcolm Lotzof, chief executive of Chicago-based virtual events firm InXpo, one of several companies that stage the virtual events for all sorts of customers. As companies seek to cut costs and curtail travel, they’ve come to see the wisdom of putting on virtual events on the Internet.”

8. Mail & Guardian Online (South Africa) – A new world of study. “There’s not a red pen in sight when Russell Stannard marks his master’s students’ essays — but it’s not because they never make mistakes. Stannard doesn’t use a pen to give his students feedback. Instead — and in keeping with his role as principal lecturer in multimedia and Information & Communication Technology (ICT) — he turns on his computer, records himself marking the work on-screen, then emails his students the video.”

9. ITWorld Canada (Canada) – Immersive Internet technology is no video game. “A Kirksville, Mo.-based non-profit organization providing drug abuse counseling services is taking a Second Life-esque approach to continuing to treat clients once they leave residential treatment centres. For the past two months, Preferred Family Healthcare Inc. has been running its own virtual islands on a private server where young adults who have spent some time in residential care can continue to receive counseling remotely using only a provided laptop and Internet connection.”

10. The Escapist (USA) – PlayStation Home Users On The Rise. “After an initial peak of interest followed by a dip in activity, PlayStation Home’s active user base is now on the upswing, according to Home director Peter Edward. PlayStation Home has had a reputation for being the biggest budgeted ghost town of all of gaming’s virtual worlds, but that might not actually be the case, according to Home director Peter Edward. While the feature saw very little use after an initial surge of interest following its debut, people are apparently going back Home, and they’re staying there.”