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A report commissioned by the World Bank’s infoDev unit has cast fresh light on one of the more fascinating aspects of our brave new interconnected world: the virtual economy. The “third-party gaming services industry” — where wealthy but impatient players have someone else grind away at online games for them in exchange for monetary reward — is one of the focal points of the study, chiefly owing to it having generated revenues in the region of $3 billion in 2009 and now serving as the primary source of income for an estimated 100,000 young folks, primarily in countries like China and Vietnam. What’s encouraging about these findings is that most of the revenue from such transactions ends up in the country where the virtual value is produced, which contrasts starkly with some of the more traditional international markets, such as that for coffee beans, where the study estimates only $5.5 billion of the $70 billion annual market value ever makes it back to the producing country. The research also takes an intriguing look at the emerging phenomenon of microwork, which consists of having unskilled workers doing the web’s version of menial work — checking images, transcribing bits of text, bumping up Facebook Likes (naughty!), etc. — and could also lead to more employment opportunities for people in poorer nations. To get better acquainted with the details, check the links below or click past the break.

Continue reading World Bank report finds selling virtual goods in games more profitable than ‘real’ economy

World Bank report finds selling virtual goods in games more profitable than ‘real’ economy originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Apr 2011 04:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on November 05, 2006 by CyberNet.

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Well, we managed to put together a wider version of CyberNet because it was requested by a few people. The content area is a little wider and the most obvious thing is that there are two sidebars. We aren’t going to clutter up the sidebars like a lot of sites do but it makes it easier to see things like the calendar that we just added. Pretty soon we’ll start adding a poll every week to the sidebar so that we can get our community involved and spark some fun discussions!

We definitely took into consideration those people who are still using monitors with a resolution of 800 x 600 or lower. Those people will still be able to see all of the content perfectly without scrolling sideways but the last sidebar won’t be visible. In the last two months we have had over 500,000 visitors and only 2% of those visitors were using a resolution lower than 1024 x 768, so we thought we should expand the view a little so that the other 98% of you can enjoy the use of your full browser window.

We would definitely love to hear any feedback you may have regarding the new look so leave us a comment below. Thanks!

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DARPA dabbles in all matter of defense drones, and it’s no stranger to leveraging the wisdom of the masses to help develop tomorrow’s military machinery. The agency’s latest program to go the crowdsourcing route is its Anti-submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV), and it wants you to help develop the software that’ll control the thing. DARPA’s borrowed a bit of the Sonalysts Combat Simulations Dangerous Waters game to create the ACTUV Tactics Simulator, where players complete missions tracking a target sub while navigating through and around commercial ocean traffic. Would-be captains can then choose to submit their strategies and game data to DARPA for use in shoring up the autonomous seabot’s strategic submarine pursuit software. Hit the source link for a free download and dive into the sub-hunting action.

Download DARPA’s sub-hunting sim, help train its ACTUV automaton originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 23:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As trippy as mind-control still seems to us, we’ve already seen it implemented in everything from wheelchairs to pricey gaming (and car driving!) headsets. But the problem is that they measure brain activity outside the skull — you know, the thing we’ve evolved to shield the murky goings-on in our minds from prying EEG sensors.

Now, though, a team of Washington University researchers appears to have happened upon a more effective — albeit, invasive — approach. The researchers got some brave specimens to move a mouse cursor by implanting plastic pads containing electrodes underneath their skulls, with the sensors sitting on the surface of the brain. That, they say, gives them access to more telling, high-frequency waves that say a lot more about cognitive intentions. In the end, the subjects moved the cursors by thinking one of these sounds: “ee,” “ah,” “oo,” and “eh.” Brain-computer interfaces ain’t new, of course, but the scientists say the subjects with electrode implants had more success than people wearing electrode-studded EEG caps, which could translate to less frustration for people with severe disabilities.

Test subjects with electrode implants use mind control to move a cursor originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 21:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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IBM might be cautious about touting graphene as a a silicon killer, but that hasn’t stopped it from pushing the production of ever faster graphene transistors. With the recent demonstration of a 155GHz graphene transistor, the firm successfully outdid its previous record-setting efforts, which produced a cut-off frequency of 100GHz. What’s more, the thing is also IBM’s smallest to date, with a gate length of 40 nanometers; that’s 200 nanometers less than the 100GHz iteration. This smaller, faster transistor was produced as part of a DARPA research project that aims to develop high-performance RF (radio frequency) transistors. So, no, we probably won’t be seeing the things in our PCs anytime soon, but it looks like they could be right at home in war machines of the future.

IBM shows off 155GHz graphene transistor in the name of DARPA research originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 20:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Computerworld  |  nature  | Email this | Comments