Intergalactic News update
KZero reports:
- VirtualWorldsNews Interview: HiPiHi Founder and CEO
VirtualWorldsNews Interview: HiPiHi Founder and CEO. VirtualWorldNews, the blog supporting the Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo has just released the transcript of their interview with Hui Xu, Founder and CEO of HiPiHi. Read the full interview here. - Kaneva and There.com on the offensive
Kaneva and There.com on the offensive. Two virtual worlds focussing on the social aspects of virtual worlds, Kaneva and There.com are stepping up their efforts to grow their population bases.
Secondlife Blogo gives a nice addition to the metaversemap with an overview on VW's 4 Kids:
- Animal Crossing
- Barbiegirls
- Be-Bratz
- Club Penguin
- GoPets
- JumpStart World
- Nicktropolis
- The big rip
- WebbliWorld (by the makers of Wallace&Gromit)
- Webkinz
- Whyville
- Zwinky
They also report on the article from the New York Times saying that Club Pinguin has been sold for 350 Million USD, with another 350 Million to follow after certain requirements are met.
Nick Wilson over at Metaversed reports:
- Multiverse v1.0 Released!
The long wait is finally over. After years of planning, volumes of hype, and the input of thousands of beta developers, Multiverse has finally released v1.0 of its platform. The Multiverse Platform is "a comprehensive software solution that gives development teams the technology, tools and assets to create virtual worlds for almost any purpose, including games and business tools." Basically, you can make worlds with it... - The XTR 3D Human Machine Interface
A company called Extreme Reality (XTR) announced last week the creation of XTR 3D Human Machine Interface, an advanced motion tracking software designed to work with a regular commercially available webcam. Head and arm movements would be tracked automatically, and no more complicated equipment is needed other than a relatively blank wall behind the user. It even detects when the user reaches forward, toward the camera...
3PointD reports:
- Ambitious New Second Life Maps Mashup
I hadn’t heard of Mappa Novus until someone dropped it in the comments here. The Mappa crew is doing interesting work creating maps of the virtual world of Second Life that seem to be mashed up with the Google Maps interface, and overlaid with data layers about population, land sales, etc. On top of that, they’ve layered some advanced edition maps that you can subscribe to ... - Two New Virtual “Worlds” For Kids
With the success of Nicktropolis and even more so WebKinz, Club Penguin, and things like GoPets and more (Animal Crossing, anyone?), virtual worlds for kids have become the hot ticket this summer. Two new ones are on their way: one an educational 3D theme park, the other a cool 2D “world” designed in part by Aardman Animations, the outfit behind the excellent Wallace & Gromit cartoons.
Last but not least the Belgian Second Life Crew reports that where Linden Lab bought Windward Mark to boost graphics, they're outdone by MindArk, producers of the Entropia Universe who incorporated the CryEngine2.
Here's the Mindark press release:
"Entropia Universe, the safest virtual world utilizing a real cash economy, has signed a license agreement to use the stunning high-tech game engine CryENGINE 2®, from German developer Crytek, creators of “Far Cry®” and upcoming “Crysis®.” This will make Entropia Universe the closest-to-reality looking massively multiplayer online game ever seen. The transition to an Entropia Universe platform built around this new technology is expected to be finished by mid-2008, and will be available to all Entropia Universe partners. Creator MindArk PE AB’s CEO Jan Welter Timkrans explains, “The upgrade of Entropia Universe will be built around the spectacular features supplied by CryENGINE 2®, offering a complete and immersive experience to Entropia participants. It will create synergies between the proven and safe Real Cash Economy backbone, the Entropia storyline with colonists fighting to establish a new world, and the very life-like visuals supplied from CryENGINE 2®.” He continues, “When we saw what the engine was capable of, we immediately understood that it would be perfect for Entropia, as both MindArk and Crytek are pioneers in their respective fields.”
Avni Yerli, Crytek’s Managing Director says, “We are thrilled to have been chosen by such a well regarded and successful industry leader as MindArk to be their future engine provider for Entropia Universe. We think the combination of our CryENGINE 2® technology and their extremely popular virtual playground will result in a new kind of rich and immersive experience that has not been possible until now. It will also expose a wide new audience to the stunningly realistic graphics, environmental physics and believable animations which are made possible by the award winning CryENGINE 2® together with some of the most recent advances in PC hardware and operating systems.”"
Labels: entropia, google, graphics, interface, kaneva, linden lab, mashup, metaverse, multiverse, there.com
2 Comments:
I have checked out Multiverse but was not really impressed. But it was just a introduction area.
Also Kaneva doesnt really thrill me, theres a mall and you can dress up your appartment. I found it quite boring, to be honest.
I have seen able to see some things of Twinity now and that looked quite promising to be honest. Seems to be more between SL and Kaneva: you can create objects and script them and there will be more area's to go to, not just a mall.
...And this CryEngine looks amazing doesnt it!!
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