1. Reuters – Cell phones and virtual worlds morphing shopper ways. “Virtual worlds, mobile coupons and bar-code readers on cell phones are the next technology wave that U.S. chain stores must ride if they hope to stay competitive in the fast-changing world of global retail”.

2. The Bulletin Online – Public health lessons from virtual game worlds. “It’s challenging to model disease spread during epidemics. Simple mathematical models such as the “general epidemic” model make assumptions about constant population size, homogeneous mixing, and constant recovery rates, but can only go so far in predicting an outbreak’s severity”.

3. Tech News World – Virtual World Workforce, Part 1: Promising the World. “It’s a dream scenario: A candidate aspiring to a pivotal job in the culinary arts field enters the virtual world Second Life, having never been an online gamer before. He attends an online job fair held by recruiting company TMP Worldwide and is interviewed by major food and operations services company Sodexho. As a result, he lands a job as an executive chef with the firm”.

4. BBC News – NASA investigates virtual space. “The US space agency is exploring the possibility of developing a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game. The virtual world would be aimed at students and would ‘simulate real NASA engineering and science missions’ “.

5. San Jose Mercury News – New passage to Gaia. “In a sign that social networks and virtual worlds are beginning to meld, Gaia Online, the popular virtual playground for teens, will announce Tuesday a connection to its site from inside social network Facebook”.

6. ABC News (USA) – Asperger’s Therapy Hits Second Life. “Texas researchers believe that people suffering from Asperger’s syndrome — a cognitive disorder often referred to as high-functioning autism — may have found a new therapy in an unlikely place: the online virtual world Second Life”.

7. New World Notes – Second Life Grows Beyond Its Map. “Click the image on the left: this is the world of Second Life’s grid as it exists now– 26.5 million acres*, with three major land masses to the Southeast, surrounded by a veritable galaxy of disparate islands.”

1. Sydney Morning Herald – Watch and learn. “Buoyed by the popularity of Second Life and the site’s incentives for the not-for-profit sector, conventional educational institutions are building in-world campuses to enhance their on-campus teaching”.

2. Turkish Daily News – Turkish companies will rise on Second Life in 2008. “Turkish companies begin to show interest in the Internet portal Second Life, where international giants like IBM, Microsoft, Adidas, Sony and Intel are prevalent. Vestel took the first step into the world of Second Life and was followed by Remax, Rixos, Garanti Emeklilik and Tefken”.

3. Wired.com – NASA Dreams of an Interplanetary ‘Second Life’ for Mars Crew. “When NASA begins launching astronaut teams on 800-day missions to Mars, one of the greatest survival tests these explorers will face is the inevitable alienation they’ll experience with their remoteness from Earth and the harshness of the frozen Red Planet”.

4. The Daily Mail – A world strip of humanity – inside the virtual reality websites where you can live out your wildest (and darkest) fantasies. “The great joy of childhood is unfettered imagination – it is the best toy in the world. And then we grow up. The real world intrudes with all its limitations and barriers. We get on with life, accept our mostly humdrum, routine existence and make the best of it. But what’s this? Tens of millions of people in this country and around the world appear to have reverted to childhood. They spend extraordinary amounts of their time inhabiting an imaginary world.”

5. The Guardian – How Tim Schafer aims to rock the virtual world. “It’s been almost a year and a half since Technology Guardian spoke to Tim Schafer about his then-untitled upcoming game at DoubleFine Productions. Only recently has he revealed it to gamers, after a lengthy (and silent) development cycle. The result is typically Schaferesque – eccentric, hilarious, and deeply rooted in nostalgia”.

6. Slashdot – Scientist Suggests We Explore ‘Universe is a VR Simulation’ Theory. “A New Zealand physicist has written a paper saying that physicists should seriously explore the possibility the universe is a giant virtual reality simulation”.

We’re starting a new weekly feature on TMJ – The Watch. It’s a roundup of 5-10 stories on virtual worlds appearing in the news over the past week. This will occur each Monday and any feedback welcome. Here’s the first week’s roundup:

1. New York Times – Web Playgrounds of the Very Young. “Forget Second Life. The real virtual world gold rush centers on the grammar-school set.”

2. FindLaw – Are Virtual-World Bank Robbery, Pickpocketing, and Runs on Banks Covered by Real-World Laws? “In answering the question whether virtual bank robbery is a real-world crime, the first important point is that it should be.”

3. The Times of India – Sex in a virtual world. “Let’s talk about sex. Oh, that’s taboo? Then, let’s talk about cybersex”.

4. Seeking Alpha – Giant Interactive: A Primer in Virtual Currency. “While Economics can be a very complex discipline, the fundamentals often boil down to one very basic truth: “Price is the natural equilibrium between supply and demand.” Price is usually denominated in a particular currency – such as the US Dollar, Japanese Yen, or even precious metals such as gold. But what happens when the currency is virtual, such as in a role playing game with “virtual” goods and services and no physical “real world” transactions taking place. Do the laws of supply and demand still apply?”

5. The Age – Networking in the virtual world. “Online social networking websites saw their ranks swell and values soar this year as everyone from moody teenagers and mellow music lovers to mate-seeking seniors joined online communities.”

6. ClickZ – Virtual World Marketing Gets Reality Check in 2007. “It was a year of ups and downs for virtual worlds, as well as the companies that jumped on the bandwagon of creating virtual advertising and branded worlds. As 2007 began, the virtual world environment Second Life was riding high on a wave of interest from users and advertisers, but as time went on, many marketers and agencies began to question the return on investment of their virtual projects.”

7. ZD Net – IBM cooks up internal virtual world for confidentiality, security. “IBM has created its own internal virtual world called Metaverse for corporate meetings and collaboration. Why not use Second Life? “If you really want to make most of these (virtual world) meetings it has to be confidential,” said IBM CIO Mark Hennessey.”