Author: Stuart Dredge
Virtual Worlds Week: Second Life gets Facebook application
It was only a matter of time before Second Life was sucked into the parallel world of Facebook applications. Second Life Link is a new app that lets you show off your SL avatar on your Facebook profile, and show which of your Facebook friends are online in Second Life.
There’s also an option to specify your home or favourite SL location, allowing friends to teleport straight there from within Facebook. Makers Fire Centaur say privacy hasn’t been forgotten, so users can choose from several settings to decide whether or not their friends can see their online/offline status.
Virtual Worlds Week: Second Life gets new Google-powered search engine
Linden Lab has announced a new in-world search engine for Second Life, which aims to make it easier to find cool places and products within the world.
It’s using Google Search Appliances for indexing and search results, although before you get excited, that just means Linden has bought a licence to use Google’s technology – it’s not an actual partnership between the two firms.
Welcome to Virtual Worlds Week on Tech Digest
Meatspace? Schmeatspace! This week, it’s all about virtual reality here on Tech Digest. To be specific, we’re going to be focusing on all things virtual world related, from Second Life and PlayStation Home to the many startups angling for a slice of your avatar.
Watch out for a bunch of stories looking at the latest virtual world developments, while on Wednesday and Thursday we’ll be liveblogging from the Virtual Worlds Forum Europe conference, where the biggest companies in the area will be showing off their new developments and talking about the latest trends.
Nokia N81 8GB music phone ships… for £300
Nokia has announced that its Nokia N81 8GB mobile is now shipping, alongside the slightly runtier N81 (and really, if you’re going to buy a top-spec music phone, you want the 8GB version…).
The N81 8GB has an unsubsidised price of 430 Euros (about £300). Normally, I’d ignore that, given that operators generally slash a huge chunk of that price for contract users. However, the N81 has been controversially missed out of some operators’ Christmas handset lineups, meaning that for some networks, you’ll have to pay the unsubsidised price to get one.
Korea/Japan Week: NTT DoCoMo's vision of the 4G future is… fishy
There’s nothing like a spot of futuregazing to bring out the awestruck geek in me, and NTT DoCoMo didn’t disappoint during a visit to their showroom this morning. The Japanese operator has a promotional video showing what 4G handsets might look like when they come out around 2010.
Korea/Japan Week: NTT DoCoMo shows off mobile payments with Grab-a-Mushroom game and Coke vending machine
I bloody love fairground grabber machines, I do. Even when they’re rigged so you’ve got zero hope of ever actually hoisting a soft toy out. And I like this one, which can be found at Japanese mobile operator NTT DoCoMo’s showroom in Tokyo, even more.
Why? Partly because I won, and partly because it’s an example of NTT DoCoMo’s use of near-field communication to let you pay for stuff by pressing your mobile phone against a sensor, with not a coin in sight. Check the video over the jump to see how it works, and to see the same technology being used in, surprise surprise, a vending machine.
Korea/Japan Week: More cool stuff from the KDDI Design Studio store
I’ve already posted a few things from KDDI’s showcase Design Studio in Tokyo today, but there was plenty more mobile stuff to gawp at. Here’s a few of the highlights, starting with…
Casio Exilim W53CA mobile (above). It has a five-megapixel camera and is clearly rocking the same convergence thang as Sony Ericsson’s Cyber-shot handsets. I wonder if Casio will ever bring this range West.
Korea/Japan Week: KDDI takes fashion phones to another level
One of the most interesting zones in KDDI’s Design Studio store in Tokyo is the area where they show off a range of fashion phones, created by a bunch of top Japanese designers.
The ones above are the Infobar 2, which is due to go on sale next month in Japan. They’re quite long and thin, which you might think would put users off, but apparently they’ve already created a huge buzz in Japan since being announced earlier this year.
Korea/Japan Week: Removable phone fascias are big in Japan too…
I wrote with a slightly surprised air that removable fascias are still popular in Korea the other day, but judging by a visit to KDDI’s Design Studio store in Tokyo this morning, the same is true in Japan.
Korea/Japan Week: KDDI's waterproof digital TV phone that works underwater
“Who would like to watch TV while they’re in the bath?” asked a chap from Japanese operator KDDI, during his presentation this morning at the company’s Design Studio in Tokyo. Er…
Anyway, it was a cue to show off the W53SA phone, which lets you watch 1seg digital TV (that’s the Japanese standard), but is also fully waterproof, so works even when you dunk it in a big bowl of water. Which I proceeded to do:
