University may be the time to reinvent yourself, but go to one with a campus in Second Life and you can have a total body refit. The internet-based 3D virtual world, where you choose your gender, age, colour and appearance and live out a parallel animated existence, is becoming the playground - and study space - of British universities.

Latest figures estimate that three-quarters of British higher education institutions are involved in Second Life in some way. Professor Austin Tate, in charge of Edinburgh University’s Second Life campus, says the virtual world is becoming crowded. “Heriot Watt University is just next to us, a few squares south is Princeton and just across is MIT.”

Institutions have spent thousands of pounds setting up their campuses in Second Life. Oxford University has digital dreaming spires and Edinburgh’s landmark, Arthur’s Seat, looms over the Scottish university’s virtual city campus. Read the rest of this entry »

I am only a month late on the planned “six months after the banking ban wrap up story”.  Regular readers might recall that the day Linden Lab banned banks, I had made my first deposit in order to try the SL stock market.  It’s time to reveal what I only just today learned about the fate of my L$5,000.
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Virtual meetings gained credence and urgency when 9/11 devastated the meetings industry. Today’s reduced corporate budgets, high gas prices, and the joy of flying—with reduced schedules, steerage-like conditions, and a big carbon footprint—have returned virtual meetings to the spotlight. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve been pretty critical of Second Life in the past. That’s mostly because if your business isn’t selling virtual genitalia, you’re probably not making any money in the virtual world.

But we got to give credit to Second Life owner Linden Lab for recognizing that their world is an ad-filled mess. In a blog post this week, the company announced that it was going to introduce “zoning” to the virtual world, which means exactly what it does in the real world – some land will be zoned as residential, other as commercial. Why? Mostly because of the prevalence of ad farms — plots of land that are chock full of ads for other businesses in the Second Life. Users don’t like these eyesores, with good reason, so quarantining them is probably the right move.

To save money in these tough times, universities, conference planners and global companies have started holding gatherings for far-flung employees and students in the online world known as Second Life. Read the rest of this entry »

NO fewer than 36 budding entrepreneurs in North East England have been awarded up to £2,000 to run their own online businesses from home.

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Apple chose SingTel as a partner for the launch of the iPhone in Singapore on strength of the networks leading market share in the region, the company’s chief executive said this week.

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We know the iPhone 2.0, 3G iPhone, iPhone–The Next Generation is coming. But apparently, you won’t be able to find a deep discount deal on the first-gen iPhone in advance of the second-gen iPhone’s release.

According to Apple, Apple’s online stores are already sold out of the iPhone. The company says that you may still be able to buy an iPhone in Apple or AT&T stores. You can also still order the 8GB and 16GB iPhones from AT&T Wireless’ online store. But paying $499 for yesterday’s whiz kid (that’s what the 16GB iPhone is selling for on AT&T’s site, with a two year contract) doesn’t really get me excited. At that price, I’ll keep waiting for a 3G iPhone…

Jennifer Grinnell’s avatar Janie Marlowe, hangs out at Mischief, her store in the virtual world Second Life.

Jennifer Grinnell, Michigan furniture delivery dispatcher turned fashion designer in cyber space, never imagined that she could make a living in a video game. Read the rest of this entry »

The online virtual world, Second Life, currently crowned it’s first real life millionaire.

This milestone brings home the fact that virtual worlds with real economies are going to be a huge part of the internet’s future. Maybe bigger than YouTube in the same way that video games overtook the revenues of the film industry simply because players can interact with the story. In Second Life you are the story. Read the rest of this entry »