Gartner are suggesting that virtual worlds are about to plunge into a “trough of disillusionment”, lecture podcasts are fast becoming obsolete, but cloud computing will soon be on the “slope of enlightenment” writes Zoe Corbyn in the Times Higher Education.

Difficult to find out how they’ve come to this conclusion without reading the actual report which I don’t have access to.

Times Higher Education Article

Hype Cycle for Education 2009 (you need access to Gartner)

Source : Kip Jones

A way of helping the mentally impaired to give informed medical consent in Second Life (a part of Imperial College’s virtual postgraduate medical school in SciLands)….

View Economist Story

Source : SLHealth List

Sony’s new online virtual world, PlayStation Home, is behind the times, says a leading Microsoft executive……….

Daily Telegraph Article

I finally got my chance to have a roam around Home on the Sony PS3 last Friday after receiving my Beta invite and graphically it looks a million times better and sharper than Second Life which for simulation and health might be important in the longer term/bigger picture. Characters are easy to customise and quick to process (comparing the pc to the ps3) and movement is very fluid even when there are lots of people moving around – it’s also funny to be in a virtual world where there are lots of people around rather than moving through the eerie deserted plains of Second Life.

If Sony ever decides to enter the education arena in some way with a privately cordoned off section it might be onto a winner. If it leaves it as an entertainment development for ps3 fanboys then at least for researchers looking at how virtual worlds might be implemented and function on a large scale it will provide a huge range of data. The beta forum already has some very interesting posts for possible papers………

Home Forum

The Serious Virtual Worlds report focuses on virtual worlds for educational uses, and explores the ‘serious’ – as opposed to leisure-based – uses of virtual worlds…….

View Report

The Blue Book: A Consumer Guide to Virtual Worlds is available for free from the Association of Virtual Worlds. It lists over 250 virtual worlds….

More Info

Source : Terra Nova

Aleks Krotoski ponders the lack of research about virtual worlds – maybe it’s all still being written but does link to her Social Simulation Research Lab Library which is worth bookmarking if you haven’t seen it.

Source : Social Sim

Interesting op-ed piece from Victor Keegan on virtual worlds…..

Source : Technology Guardian

Other Suggestions For Growth:

Google Earth

Entropia Universe

A code of conduct for IBM staff in virtual worlds…

An introduction to them

View The Guidelines

Source : Eightbar