Mannea LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of online media and ad company Church & Crawford, announced the development of a new, soon-to-be-deployed technology that will allow users to navigate virtual worlds using existing web URLs.

Mannea feels that currently, users in virtual worlds face challenges finding preferred locations unless they appear in a built-in search function, or unless the user is able to create a "landmark" with in-world location info.

The company's new technology, so far unlaunched, claims to allow companies or individuals to tie their web-based URL to a virtual world location (providing Second Life as an example in their press release), so that users can find locations by simply typing in a web address.

An obvious payoff of this sort of technology is that companies that have considerable investments in their online marketing will not have to incur further expense to make users aware of new virtual locations, supporting the security of existing brands.

[Note: Linden Labs already provides the SLurl service to the same effect-- it's unclear how Mannea's plans are different, or if they plan to tackle other virtual worlds outside Second Life. ]

Here's an odd one -- WaterRower, a Rhode Island-based manufacturer of fitness rowing machines, has created a online virtual rowing and racing program, We-Row.com, so that rowers can stay on top of their game during the cold fall and winter months. Users will be able to race other rowers and set their avatar's performance to their own metrics and level of fitness; the idea, it seems, is that they can use the information gleaned from playing head-to-head online to inform their actual training regimens, in conjunction with their home rowing machines.

Kinda a new way to look at "online world with real item tie-in," certainly! The rowing machine actually hooks up to the PC so that rowing fanatics can stroke along against up to five other opponents online. After connecting the WaterRower to a PC, users log in at the site, create a personal profile based on fitness level, weight, height and lifestyle factors, and complete a 2,000 meter row to set a benchmark fitness level. The Web site uses this information to help set personalized workout goals. There's also "online personal training," including customized advice and training programs designed to meet specific goals, such as building strength or increasing stamina and endurance.

We-Row also has all the hot-button community elements of virtual worlds -- users can view each other's profiles to choose opponents for races, and participate in training discussions on a forum. The site's just entered beta -- it also says the software's PC, Mac and Linux compatible-- and there isn't much visible yet, but it could be an interesting idea.

“The colder temperatures of fall and winter mean a lot of people will be bringing their workouts indoors, but not having the shared energy, motivation and support of workout partners can take its toll, even on dedicated exercisers,” said Dominik Kuprecht, director of sales and marketing at WaterRower. “With We-Row.com, WaterRower users get the best of both worlds. They can exercise in the privacy of their own home, but they still can enjoy the benefits that come from working out with others and maintain their racing skills even during the harshest winter months. The excitement of competition makes it an exhilarating way to exercise – whatever the season.”

Altadyn, developer of 3DXplorer (a “plug-in-less” browser-based web3D platform) has touted the concept of the "Meet in 3D" button for corporate websites in a recent release -- intended to "standardize 3D spaces and virtual worlds on corporate websites" by being a commonly-used link akin to those usually featured in website navigation bars (i.e. Home, Contact Us, etc.)

Using 3DXplorer, Altadyn expect the concept to allow businesses to interact with web visitors "who until now have largely remained anonymous," as the platform allows communication via text chat, integrated Skype calling, or "traditional conference call services", while also including avatars featured in the usual ways users have come to expect (movable in real time, can interact with others, express emotions, etc.)

Altadyn's own website now features a Meet in 3D button as an example of the concept.

“We believe our Meet in 3D concept is a critical element of Web 3.0,” said Darius Lahoutifard, CEO of Altadyn. “Since the inception of the web, businesses have invested billions to identify and track largely anonymous visitors to their web sites. At first, with Web 1.0, communication was unidirectional, from companies to their web visitors. With Web 2.0 and the widespread acceptance of tools like blogs and social networks, individuals started expressing themselves, but not necessarily to corporations, so businesses still struggle to monetize web 2.0. With Web 3.0 and technologies like 3DXplorer, individuals are motivated to enter informative and entertaining 3D web spaces with their avatars, enabling corporations to finally bridge this gap. They can now directly engage prospects and customers in a personal and interactive environment, in a manner similar to the way they do in everyday life when exploring a tradeshow, attending a seminar or walking into a store.”

Mytopia, developer of the online social gaming community of the same name, has announced RUGS, "the Real-time Universal Gaming System", a patent-pending, proprietary framework for rapid rich media creation across the web, mobile and smartphones.

The technology was announced at a presentation given at the TechCrunch50 conference in San Francisco, and is intended to allow developers to code applications only once but simultaneously deploy native versions to every supported platform, including mobile platforms such as iPhone, Windows Mobile, Blackberry and Android, as well as web platforms like Facebook’s F8 and Google’s Open Social.

Content created on RUGS is to be able to "harness the unique capabilities of each platform," while running from a single code base, according to their announcement, by employing a plug-in architecture and patent-pending semantic translation.

“Smartphones are no longer just phones, but mobile internet devices. People want to access their rich media anytime, anywhere, no matter which device they happen to be using,” said Guy Ben-Artzi, Founder of Mytopia Inc. “RUGS has cracked one of the major barriers to innovation in the mobile space: platform fragmentation. Developers no longer need to learn and code for each distinct operating system in order to create immersive applications for every phone.”

Jacksonville-based BitRaider launched an eponymous digital distribution technology it says lets users start playing PC games without interruption or performance reductions -- even with as little as ten percent of a game's installation complete.

"We want the experience to be the same as if it were already pre-installed without any hit in performance," says BitRaider founder and CEO Royal O'Brien.

BitRaider works for a variety of genres -- such as MMOs, FPSes, and casual games -- using adaptive threading in multiprocessor/multicore systems to stream and adapt needed assets ahead of gameplay.

The technology is designed to allow gamers to play through a title without noticeable interruption of play or reduced computing performance by streaming game content in the background.

BitRaider utilizes a small loader program that locates needed streaming assets, installs the package, and runs a profiled file for the player. According to the company, it has been tested to work without conflict with major DRM and virus protection software.

Originally founded in 2005 as Game xStream, the company changed its name and focus from its previous streaming on-demand service for playing graphic-intensive PC games online.

"For gamers, they just want to play, they really do not want to be involved with how the download is being performed," O'Brien says.

[The preceding article by Eric Caoili originally appeared on Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra.]

MMO/virtual world/serious games platform developer Icarus Studios has announced the expansion of their 3D development platform to the iPhone. The official launch of the Icarus 3D iPhone client is be in the first quarter of 2009.

The current prototype of the iPhone extension includes the ability to create virtual worlds that are navigable using the accelerometer.

The Icarus platform incorporates a number of technologies, such as Vivox for VoIP, Ageia's PhysX for its physics engine, IDV's SpeedTree, and OC3 for avatar speech and facial expressions, and was designed to meet the needs of next-generation Virtual Worlds and MMOGs, supporting functionality such as user generated content, in-world social and entertainment activities, scriptable AIs, dynamic game systems, diverse revenue models, and in-world profiled marketing.

“We are committed to porting our platform to established and emerging devices. The iPhone offers a tremendous opportunity to extend Virtual Worlds and MMOGs to mobile devices in a visually rich and intuitive device,” said James Hettinger, Chief Executive Officer of Icarus Studios.

Ntreev USA (the North American arm of South Korean publisher Ntreev) has announced that the newest update for the MMO "action brawler" Grand Chase includes a new job class; "Arme," one of the five playable characters in Grand Chase, is now able to advance to the job of "Warlock."

As a Warlock, the magician character Arme is capable of "calling spirits" to cast spells and execute melee moves. This add melee techniques into her repertoire, allowing players to mix magical and physical attacks.

Developed by Korean developer KOG Studios, Grand Chase is set in a medieval fantasy world that follows a group of knights who join an order of nobles known as the “Grand Chase” to defeat a villain known as Kaze'aze. Grand Chase combines side-scrolling dungeon crawling with player vs. player matches.

Shanghai-based online game operator The9 announced the addition of Allegorithmic’s procedural texturing middleware ProFX to its game development pipeline for an upcoming free-to-play MMO targeting the Chinese market.

According to Allegorithmic, ProFX enables developers too potentially produce textures with file sizes several magnitudes smaller than traditional textures, which translates into shorter download times for users, an attractive solution for MMOGs, virtual communities, and casual and downloadable games.

The9 manages the operation and distribution for several popular MMORPG titles, including Ragnarok Online 2 and World of Warcraft and its expansions, in mainland China. The company chose ProFX specifically to help reduce the file size and download time for its forthcoming MMO.

"In developing a successful title using the Free2Play model, there is a direct relationship between the size of the game client and the success of the game," says The9's R&D center senior director Liu Kun. "This means it is imperative that we offer players incredible graphics and an improved gaming experience overall with a minimum download time and storage footprint. ProFX helps us accomplish this goal quickly and efficiently."

[The preceding article by Eric Caoili originally appeared on Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra.]

MMO portals Aeria Games and IAHGames announced the integration of BitTorrent’s Delivery Network Accelerator (DNA) content delivery service to distribute their massively multiplayer online games and patches.

Based on the popular BitTorrent client, BitTorrent DNA is designed to improve the speed and reliability of content delivery with peer network acceleration. The service targets the needs of commercial content publishers, including video game developers and distributors, as well as media companies and software providers.

According to BitTorrent, DNA is able to automatically detect game play on a user’s system and, through BitTorrent’s congestion control technology, eliminate any impact on game play as well as other sensitive real-time applications, such as Voice over IP (VoIP) calls, streaming media, or internet browsing.

Founded in 2006 and based in Silicon Valley, Aeria Games offers a variety of PC MMOs and casual titles on its site, such as Shaiya and Last Chaos. IAHGames is a Singapore-based publisher, operator, and distributor of both online and console games in SouthEast asia, hosting titles like Hellgate: London, Top Speed, and EA Sports FIFA Online 2.

“By adopting the BitTorrent DNA content delivery service, we have increased the percentage of successful downloads of our game clients and patches while saving on bandwidth costs,” says IAHGames deputy CEO David Ng. “It plugs right into our existing infrastructure, giving us a greater degree of control over how we distribute our titles with reliability and efficiency.”

[The preceding article by Eric Caoili originally appeared on Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra.]

Billing and fraud management software provider Vindicia has announced a new version of its hosted billing solution, CashBox. CashBox is "designed for recurring and one-time transactions," and includes a built-in tax engine and support for multiple processors, currencies and languages.

New features include integration with payment processor Global Collect (for access to global payment methods), metering (allowing pricing plans based on usage) and increased support for Chase Paymentech Account Updater, which automatically provides VISA/MasterCard cardholder account updates relating to upgrades, card expirations and account closures.

Merchants auto-cancel subscriptions if chargebacks occur—especially useful, with fraudulent chargebacks a constant threat for MMO publishers.

“Building and maintaining a loyal, satisfied customer base is job one for all online merchants,” said Gene Hoffman, chairman and CEO of Vindicia. “This latest CashBox release supports our merchants to that end by offering a compelling infrastructure on which to serve their own customers. We handle over 140,000 transactions per day and we continue to work closely with our merchants to ensure that our billing solution optimizes their customer acquisition and retention techniques."

French tools developer N-Sided has announced a new avatar creation solution for virtual worlds and MMOGs, QUIDAM. The company promises the software is “unique in combining and merging various anatomical elements and clothes into one seamless model.”

QUIDAM, they continue, is the only character generator able to "perfectly" export multi-resolution models with meshes, textures, UV maps, bones and skinning to the leading 3D modeling tools, including 3D Studio Max and Maya.

In order to accelerate production, QUIDAM includes several other tools, such as a geometric engine to allow artists to search through databases of body parts, clothes and props before automatically merging all parts into “one seamless model.”

“We strongly believe in the development of Virtual Worlds and Massive Multiplayer Online Games. By anticipating the market’s considerable needs, N-Sided has been focusing its work on real-time for years and is now able to claim a leading position by offering a productive and mature solution for avatar creation.” said Pierre Bretagnolle, President of N-Sided.

A search engine specifically concentrating on virtual worlds, developed at the University of Teesside and known as the "Meta-Mole" has been launched in a beta version.

The beta version focuses on 3D virtual world platforms, such as Forterra, Blink 3D and Twinity.

Created by the university's Centre for Design in the Digital Economy (D-LAB) based within its Institute of Digital Innovation, the Meta-Mole is intended to be a dedicated searchable online resource for all virtual worlds currently existing on the Internet, though relies on data being provided by the platform developers themselves.

Philip McClenaghan, Deputy Director of D-LAB explained, “We were analysing virtual world platforms and realised that there doesn’t appear to be a comprehensive service offering to list and compare key data for major 2D and 3D environments. This surprised us, considering the current popularity of virtual worlds. We intend to fill the gap with the Meta-Mole.”

The upcoming 2.0 release of BigWorld's Technology suite will include web capability alongside its client/server game tech and world-building tools, the company announced today.

BigWorld says its new "Web Content Anywhere" capability lets developers implement "browser-like" functionality including Flash, Javascript/CSS or HTML on any 2D or 3D surface in-game.

The company says licensees will also be able to integrate social networking service and instant messages into their games to complement BigWorld Technology's existing mobile functionality.

"The overlap between games and virtual worlds and social networks is not looming – it’s been here for some time," says BigWorld VP Gavin Longhurst.

"We have looked at pioneering efforts in the space – including those from our own customer base with virtual worlds like Metaversum’s ‘Twinity’ built on our core technology, and see the possibilities and flexibility to enable greater social connectivity and content injections into future games and virtual worlds."

[The preceding article by Leigh Alexander also appeared on Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra.]

Epic Games China has announced the Atlas Technology MMO suite, an extension of Unreal Engine 3's functionality focused on supporting persistent online games.

The Paul Meegan-headed Chinese division of Epic is currently using Atlas Technology for its unannounced projects, and has also been in private evaluation for a year, licensed by developers in North America, Europe and Asia, according to the firm.

Atlas Technology is intended to be a pre-integrated online game development solution for Unreal Engine 3 licensees, aimed at saving them the time and money involved in adapting third-party persistent server solutions or building proprietary server apps.

Epic Games China itself was most recently in the news for the establishment of Seattle-based Titan Studios, whose core team previously operated as Darkstar Industries and most recently unveiled Fat Princess, a PlayStation Network-exclusive game slated for 2009.

According to information released at the time, Titan Studios is currently helping on several unannounced Unreal Engine 3-based projects, including a massively multiplayer online game, presumably also using Atlas tech.

"UE3 is already a proven and powerful MMO engine,” says Epic Games China CEO Paul Meegan. "With Atlas Technology, we’re now providing a purpose built solution that takes care of a lot of the heavy lifting and Unreal client modification.

[The preceding article by Leigh Alexander also appeared on Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra.]

Multiplayer online development services provider Exit Games has announced Photon, a multiplayer development engine for PC, browser, Mac and mobile devices including iPhone and Android.

Exit says Photon is geared for the development of games that let players compete against one another in real time, and the first Photon-developed game is Cmune's Paradise Paintball, a browser-based 3D multiplayer shooter also available on Facebook.

Photon comes with multiple platform SDKs including Flash, Windows, .NET, Unity3D, Android and iPhone, among others, notably recently adding support for Unity 3D. It features a purely C-based core engine and Exit Games' Neutron 5.0 managed service for connectivity features.

"Photon is absolutely unique in the market, and delivers an affordable, easy-to-use experience to developers," says Exit Games CTO Chris Wegmann. "Most of the commercial network middleware services are either difficult to use, or are based on technology which is not the natural choice for many game developers."

"What makes Photon so unique is its second-to-none platform support, the purely C-based core engine which, quite simply, delivers the best performance while also being easily expandable using C#/.NET."

[The preceding article by Leigh Alexander also appeared on Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra.]