Virtual worlds and web 'merging'

Virtual worlds and web 'merging'

CEO of Second Life, Mark Kingdon
Second Life boss, Mark Kingdon, said identity is key in virtual worlds

"You take one avatar and you cross multiple virtual worlds… that is going to be a really powerful and important part of the virtual world future," predicted Mark Kingdon, the boss of Second Life.

This online fantasy space had 1.4m users over the past two months, out of its 17m registered users, who can access to products and places replicated from real life.

The residents can spend their time visiting exact replicas of actual tourist hotspots, shops, or even bizarre fantasy lands.

Videos on the site's homepage aim to help users find content that interests them within the vast 3D environment.

Second Life may have been one of the first virtual worlds of its kind, but six years on, the competition is fierce.

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Shedding light on the Catacombs of Rome

By Duncan Kennedy
BBC News, Rome

Rome's underground Christian, Jewish and pagan burial sites, the Catacombs, date back to the 2nd Century AD.

There are more than 40 of them stretching over 170km (105 miles).

But, until now, they have never been fully documented, their vast scale only recorded with handmade maps.

That is now changing, following a three-year project to create the first fully comprehensive three-dimensional image using laser scanners.

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