3pointD.com

Just a quick post to flag a replica of the Eiffel Tower in the virtual world of Second Life, which I came across while browsing SL resident Kryptonia Paperdoll’s Flickr stream. Makes for some nice screenshots, and possibly a good place for a romantic moment, of an evening, as the upper deck comes complete with champagne bottles and loving poses you can strike with your paramour while you gaze out at a sunset and a few streets with Paris-like builds scattered around. What I like about the build itself is its scale. You can see me hanging in space there just to the left of the tower. Like the real thing, the SL tower is proportioned to impress — though relative to SL, of course. It’s not the breathtaking icon that the is the real thing, nor is it even a scale model, but it seemed a nice quiet spot in the viritual world. The tower’s upper deck can be found at New Paris (127, 118, 71) [<– SL link], or click in the SLurlPane at the top of the right column here, while the link lasts.

It’s true: the aliens have invaded. They’re only in North Carolina, so no need to worry. Plus, they’ve come for a good cause: to teach us all about microeconomics, and to give us a little college credit in the process. The iCampus at the University of North Carolina at Greenberg has developed a video game (launching this fall, according to a press release) called Econ 201 that’s designed to teach students about microeconomics by “following an alien species that must learn how to survive after crash-landing on a futuristic, post- apocalyptic earth.” Now that’s my kind of learning. (more…)

Sounding for all the world like it’s a mature industry going through a shake-out, 3pointD hears there may be a merger in the works between two of the many virtual world services companies that have sprung up to create a virtual world presence for real world clients in 3D online environments like Second Life, There.com and others. We can’t say who it is, of course, but in this case it’s not as if Nokia were merging with Verizon, say. We still hear that everyone in the space has more work than they can handle, so it doesn’t look like an attempt to wrest economies of scale out of the deal, just a combination that should make both parties stronger, as they’d seem to complement each other well. Look for an announcement at the Second Life Community Convention in San Francisco this coming weekend — if 3pointD’s sources are to be believed, that is.