CGAT 08 The Annual International Conference & Symposium on Computer Games & Allied Technology

Conference Update:

The evidently expanding Global & Asian Gaming industry defines the need for the Computer Games & Allied Technology 08 conference at Singapore. The conference provides a platform for the international gaming community experts to discuss and deliberate with their Eastern counterparts on the state-of-the-art, new research results, perspectives of future developments, and innovative applications relevant to games development and related areas. The conference shall strive to shed light on the inherent sociological and design differences between the East and the West while exploring the challenges faced by the Asian Gaming industry. The conference also provides an opportunity to the international and regional Gaming studios, Game production companies and Allied technology and service providers to showcase their technology, products and services at the concurrent industry symposium.

More Details click below:

Call for Papers – CGAMES.com.sg

clipped from cgames.com.sg Computer Games; Animation, Multimedia, IPTV, Edutainment and Security International Conference and Symposium on 28th-30th April 2008 KNOW THE LATEST RESEARCH, TECHNOLOGY & BUSINESS TRENDS AT TECHNICAL SESSIONS Authors should submit a complete paper in English of up to 8 A4 pages, using the submission procedure indicated below. The program committee will review all papers and the contact author of each paper will be notified of the result, by email. Each paper should clearly indicate the nature of its technical/scientific contribution, and the problems, domains or environments to which it is applicable. Authors must also indicate the conference track to which the paper is submitted. The paper must be carefully checked for correct grammar and spelling. SUBMISSION OF PAPERS

Your Guide to Virtual Worlds – itsReal

Awesome report by:

Mark Glaser, of MEDIASHIFT

Second Life avatars

From time to time, I’ll give an overview of one broad MediaShift topic, annotated with online resources and plenty of tips. The idea is to help you understand the topic, learn the jargon, and take action. I’ve already covered blogs, social networking, widgets and various other topics. This week I’ll look at the growing phenomenon of virtual worlds.

Background and History

Virtual worlds are online three-dimensional spaces where you can interact with other people, collect items and build structures, and communicate via a virtual representative of yourself called an avatar. These worlds have been influenced by various science fiction writers such as William Gibson and Neal Stephenson, along with the movie, “The Matrix.”

Virtual worlds differ from massive multiplayer online games (MMOGs) because they don’t offer battles against monsters or have an overriding mission for players. For example, a resident of the virtual world Second Life might spend time in that space accumulating virtual land, rather than striving to complete quests or conquer levels as one would in many popular MMOGs such as World of Warcraft.

The origin of virtual worlds goes back to early games such as Maze War, which was developed in the early ’70s at NASA. The game included eyeballs as avatars, there were maps showing the levels, and it was one of the first games played on networked computers, and eventually over a precursor to the Internet.

Habitat scene

In 1986, LucasFilm Games developed Habitat, a more two-dimensional environment that included humanoid avatars, and people could access the game through online service Quantum Link on their Commodore 64 computers. Developers Chip Morningstar and Randy Farmer, who maintain a blog about their experience with Habitat, say they let Habitat residents generally set their own rules governing the world — as long as they couldn’t hack into the system. In a research paper about their lessons from Habitat, the developers wrote:

READ MORE AT MEDIASHIFT 

recruit.net Launches Largest Job Search Engine for Malaysia

  Recruit.net Launches Largest Job Search Engine For Malaysia… 

Find Tens of Thousands of Malaysian Jobs from Hundreds of Websites in a Single Search: http://malaysia.recruit.net..

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia August 27, 2007 – Recruit.net announced today the launch of a new search engine for Malaysia jobs. In one simple search, the service gives job seekers free access to thousands of opportunities from hundreds of websites in Malaysia.

Launched in Hong Kong in 2006, Recruit.net is the leading search engine for jobs in Asia Pacific, with over 3 million job listings from across the region, including Singapore, Japan, India, Australia, and China.

Recruit.net uses proprietary technology to provide the most comprehensive, relevant and fresh job search site in Malaysia that includes job listings from hundreds of websites, newspapers, recruitment agencies, associations, and companies directly.

In contrast to traditional job sites that only display jobs from their paying clients, Recruit.net puts job seekers first by allowing them to search jobs from hundreds of websites simultaneously. With thousands of new jobs every week, Malaysia.recruit.net gives people a brand new way to search for jobs in Malaysia. Job postings include full time, part-time and all levels of pay from waiters up to CEO�s

” It�s great to finally have a job search engine for all Malaysia jobs, this type of service has been hugely successful in the USA and was sorely missing in Malaysia� said Malaysia full time blogger Liew Cheon Fong, author LiewCF.com, one of the most popular blogs in South East Asia.

�We believe that people just want one place from where they can quickly and easily search and track all the jobs that match their interest, and this is basically the core of our service. Malaysia is the perfect country for our further international expansion and we are very excited to rolling out our service here.� Said Maneck Mohan Founder of Recruit.net

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About Recruit.net

Recruit.net (www.recruit.net) is a Hong Kong based company that operates an international network of trilingual job search engines. Utilizing proprietary search technology Recruit.net enables job seekers to instantly search millions of jobs from thousands of companies across the world. Recruit.net provides a range of features to its users including, online salary checks, job trends, the ability to upload resumes and receive job alerts via email or RSS feeds.
Recruit.net also operates a Pay-Per-Click advertising network called adnet that provides advertisers with the ability to deliver measurable, cost-effective online advertising across a growing international network of partner sites and affiliates.

For more information, please visit http://www.recruit.net

 

state of play – truly an international event for virtual worlds -itsReal

APLINK has sat in singapore reaching out constantly to overseas for those interested in Virtual Worlds and in the last 2 days, i have met people from, Japan, London, Germany, USA, Australia, Korea,  Norway and Singapore at the “state of play” conference where the whole agenda is Virtual Worlds…APLINK is happy

Seed Money: USD 2mil Funding Virtual-World Innovations – itsReal

By Charles Storch
Chicago Tribune
08/18/07 4:00 AM PT

The MacArthur foundation is accepting applications until Oct. 15 in two categories: one for “entrepreneurs and builders of new digital environments for informal learning,” with prizes of $250,000 and $100,000; the other for “communicators in connecting, mobilizing, circulating or translating new ideas around digital media and learning,” with prizes from $30,000 to $75,000. Winners are to be announced in January. 

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation continues to pour money into explorations of digital media and virtual worlds — and we’re not talking Linden dollars here.

The giant Chicago philanthropy is creating prizes totaling US$2 million to recognize innovation in digital media and learning. It also is funding a series of programs at the Second Life Community convention, to be held Aug. 24-26 in Chicago. (For the uninitiated, Linden dollars are the currency of that online virtual world known as Second Life.)

MacArthur said the new awards are part of the five-year, $50 million program it announced last fall to explore the influence of digital technologies on young people’s learning, play and civic participation.

Read More: TechNewsWorld 

wikipedia in second life & how to create objects – itsReal

Awesum helper in second life if you don’t know everything, call up wikipedia…

Philip Rosedale tells how to create objects in second life

where R virtual worlds heading…private corporate virtual worlds

Source: techtarget

…

APLINK’s Crystal Ball is vibrating with enthusiasm. Many of you have read how I believe in Virtual Worlds and the continued positive impact on commercial endeavors the 3D animated environment offers. The following post whilst technical does have a few gems of ideas of things to come…if you want my opinions do ask…itsReal

By: William Brogden
05.15.2007



The concept of online virtual worlds where a user can interact with other people and fantastic landscapes has fascinated hackers and science fiction writers for years. When I first thought about doing an article on this topic I was going to call it speculative, but Internet reality has caught up already.

SL Events: Education – Second Life International Best Practices Education Conference

As I have 2 clients currently offering Education & Training (Genovate Solutions & Intense Animation Studio) I spotted this post on SLOZ

So I visited the wiki for the first Second Life International Best Practices in Education Conference!

“The conference will be held on May 25, 2007 in venues all over the Second Life world, with exciting presentations, vendors and exhibitors, and everything an educator needs to know to get started exploring the possibilities for teaching, learning, and research in Second Life!”

The wiki site is full of good content so do drop by. I believe we are ALL learning every single day of our lives, second life and other virtual worlds offer a new and immersive environment to collaborate & educate globally, i will definitely be attending this SL conference, anyone else want to drink some nice coffee in the wee hours with me?

VC Funds mainly in the US on a spending frenzy in the Games Industry – itsReal

Will the F1 Race annouced  yesterday in Singapore bring these investors to Singapore shores where technology and animation is soon to be a thriving industry….for this region Thailand gets some funds…

Directly below is a list of VC deals in the games space + Mergers & Acquisitions activity in the games space:

Source: Stuck in Customs 

VC Deals (in no particular order):

Company: Red 5 Studios, Aliso Viejo, CA
Investment: $ 8.9 million
Investor: Benchmark Capital
Description: Red 5 Studios is an online game studio which develops original MMO games.

Company: Digital Chocolate, San Mateo, CA
Investment: $ 22.5 million
Investors: Bridgescale Partners; Chengwei Ventures; DN Capital; Glynn Capital Management; Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; Montagu Newhall; Outlook Ventures; Sequoia Capital; Sutter Hill
Ventures; WHI Capital
Description: Digital Chocolate is a developer of games and applications for mobile phones.

Company: Electric Sheep, New York, NY
Investment: $ 7 million
Investors: CBS; Gladwyne Partners
Description: The Electric Sheep Company designs experiences and delivers add-on software for 3D virtual worlds. The Company delivers strategic, creative, and technical insight and services to organizations, works with multiple virtual world platforms, and has developed many projects on behalf of brands.

Company: Double Fusion, San Francisco, CA
Investment: $ 26 million
Investors: Accel Partners, Hearst Corporation, IDG; Ventures Pacific, Jerusalem; Venture Partners, Norwest; Venture Partners, Sedona; Capital, Time Warner
Description: Double Fusion is a provider of in-game advertising and marketing solutions. The company’s technology delivers a range of advertising possibilities inside and around video game and casual game titles.