Parlays $10 investment into million dollar corporation in 30 months.
Plush City @ Second Life and Wuhan, China @ Real Life 26-Nov-2006
Anshe Chung has become the first online personality to achieve a net worth exceeding one million US dollars from profits entirely earned inside a virtual world.
Recently featured on the cover of Business Week Magazine, Anshe Chung is a resident in the virtual world Second Life. Inside Second Life, Anshe buys and develops virtual real-estate in an official currency, known as Linden Dollars, which is convertible to US Dollars. There …

The Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center has an interesting new rehabilitation project in Second Life’s virtual world called “AVESS” (Amputee Virtual Environment Support Space). Soldiers abroad who find themselves an amputee typically spend weeks or months in rehab afterwards, away from their friends and family back home. Then when they do return home, they find themselves isolated from their support system of therapists, psychologists, and friends. The in-world AVESS attempts to allow these soldiers to interact with their family Virtually, and then attend presentations and group …

A Graphic Novel of Secret Identities: Superheroes Need Not Apply
Peter Bagge’s latest graphic novel, Other Lives, proves to be a brilliantly original and thoroughly surprising read. Although I’m still unsure of what I found to be more surprising—the story’s clever deconstruction of modern identity issues or the fact that it was published by DC’s Vertigo line of comics. In the past I’ve enjoyed pretty much everything I’ve read that bore the Vertigo logo (Sandman, Books of Magic, Fables, Hell-blazer, and many many others) yet I still find myself refreshingly surprised …

Lately, the word “cheating” seems to be a popular subject amongst my friends – or has it always been?
I will not judge anyone and for whatever reasons people chose to join Second Life is up to them.  I am there for the fun and business. I also have friends all over the world so Second Life is a great place to catch up and I am in a long distance relationship even though we manage to live under the same roof for half part of the year.
Meanwhile, I find it …

CANNES (Hollywood Reporter) – The films in the Un Certain Regard sidebar at Cannes seem to be holding a special sub-competition of their own, to see which will have audiences checking their watches most often.
The topical story and strong leads in David Verbeek’s “R U There” feel like a great short stretched into a feature that cannot sustain the tension for which it so earnestly strives.

Watching Life 2.0, a documentary about the virtual reality sensation Second Life, was an entertaining thrill, emotionally insightful and satisfyingly voyeuristic.
The juxtaposition of the real and “imaginary” lives of four heavy Second Life users was fascinating. Watching the film was like taking an imaginary vacation to some other planet, with a complete society including beaches and dance clubs, fashion and real estate, friends and strangers. The graphics were very utopian, with clean lines and computer generated images. It was basically a binge of collective imaginations.
Life is much easier in Second …

CANNES, France — The dark side of the virtual world descended on Cannes Sunday in teen suicide dramas playing on the potentially dangerous blur between reality and the Internet.
“Chatroom”, the first of a trio of cyberspace thrillers chilling the film festival, sees a dysfunctional youngster (upcoming British star Aaron Johnson) obsessively watching Japanese suicide videos in a dark locked bedroom.
He sets up a chatroom with four other troubled teenagers, but seems only to want to mess with their heads.
Directed by Japanese master of horror Hideo Nakata, but panned by many …