Hello Kitty Online is likely to be one of the larger virtual world launches in 2008. If you know any child under twelve you'll likely have been exposed to this franchise and it also has a teen / young adult following in some countries. It's development is currently in the closed beta phase with a launch expected second half of this year. The description of the … [Read more...] about Hello Kitty virtual world on the way
Alternatives
Text-to-speech: Cepstral’s CEO speaks
Last week, text-to-speech company Cepstral announced they'd formed a partnership with virtual world IMVU to supply text-to-speech capability. Text-to-speech has huge potential in the virtual world context and is a feature Second Life users have been wishing for. We caught up with Cepstral's CEO, Craig Campbell, to get a little more detail: Lowell: What was the impetus for … [Read more...] about Text-to-speech: Cepstral’s CEO speaks
Interview – Sakai Openlife (Openlife founder)
As we reported earlier this week, Openlife is a promising new alternative grid to Second Life. Its founder, Sakai Openlife (RL: Steve Sima) is based in Brisbane and we caught up with him via Openlife's Live Chat for a discussion on everything Openlife. Lowell: Sakai - Openlife came out of the blue for me but it's obviously been a labour of love for you - can you give a … [Read more...] about Interview – Sakai Openlife (Openlife founder)
Openlife – Second Life’s open source competitor
Openlife is the first fourth alternative Second Life grid to open up for widespread access. It's still a work in progress but one that's well worth exploring, something I'll be doing in coming days and weeks. Openlife's creator, Sakai Openlife, is based in Australia and we've made contact with him for an interview - stay tuned for further details. Thanks to Tateru Nino … [Read more...] about Openlife – Second Life’s open source competitor
Singapore’s Mirror World shows business promise
I received a press release today from Singapore-based company 'Virtual Worlds', touting their Mirror World which is under development and due for launch at the end of this year. The full text of the press release is below by essentially it's a platform that will allow creation of replicas of real-world locations for the purpose of 3D walk-throughs. It's aimed squarely at … [Read more...] about Singapore’s Mirror World shows business promise