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MySpace defeats YouTube in war game

Which business model is likely to be the most successful: MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, or Second Life?

According to a war game played out at London's Business School last week, MySpace wins. But, in a conclusion that was validated by this week's Viacom lawsuit against Google and YouTube for copyright infringement, the participants concluded that both MySpace and YouTube are vulnerable to legal attacks and government regulations that target illegal activities and objectionable content, such as child pedophilia and pornography.

Copyright lawsuits will be a "major distraction at best or they could undermine" the businesses, says Leonard Fuld, president of Boston-based Fuld & Co., which ran the war game. "Sexy and cool as MySpace and YouTube seem, they are prone to attacks."

Meanwhile, the team of students representing MySpace successfully convinced the panel of experts who judged the war game that MySpace has the most viable business strategy among the social network sites. "MySpace won the game by a fairly good margin. They had a much better argument: that content is king," Fuld says. "MySpace won the strategy event...whether it will win the war" is unclear. … Read more

PS3 'Home', a second life away from home

Sony finally unveiled its big PlayStation 3 surprise at GDC 2007. After its short but intense pre-GDC rumor war with Kotaku, Sony announced Home, the new online service for the PS3.

Underneath the marketing hype that Gamespot and News.com both already covered, Home is essentially a cross between Second Life and Nintendo's Mii avatars. PS3 users will get their own customizable avatars and virtual homes with which they can go online, chat with and host friends, find players for online gaming, buy and show off clothing and decorations, accumulate game trophies, and other social gaming activities. The service … Read more

Where there's smoke, robot smells fire

A few months ago we wrote of a rather odd-looking Japanese bot named "Ubiko" whose purpose was somewhat vague--"to replace humans for such tasks as welcoming clients, promote products on site." (The "replacing humans" phrase freaked us out a bit.) Now we find out its true mission: a rolling smoke detector of the future.

Ubiko doesn't just beep when your macaroni and cheese starts to burn; it actually has olfactory sensors designed specifically to react to odors associated with fire. The robot had its first public demonstration yesterday, which Pink Tentacle described … Read more

Weekend Webware: Buy your way in to 'World of Warcraft' with Sparter

Auction giant eBay has disallowed the buying and selling of World of Warcraft currency. But if you want to buy your way into the upper echelons of the game, you still can: Head over to Sparter, an online exchange for WoW gold (and also currency in EverQuest and Eve).

Sparter is not an auction site like eBay is. Sparter enables the trade of just one type of item (so far), and prices vary depending on lot size (how many golds) and how quickly you want them delivered to your account. Sparter escrows the transactions, so you're not charged until … Read more

Two Dell laptops go for $12,000

Better luck next time, Sparky. Remember those two special-edition World of Warcraft Dell laptops we mentioned that were up for charity auction on eBay? In case you missed it (shame on you for not reading Crave more carefully), they were a pair of custom XPS M1710 gaming notebooks painted by artist Mike Lavallee and signed by Michael Dell himself.

The company announced the winners, Trip Hoover of Texas and Daniel Marinow of Germany, whose combined bids totaled nearly $12,000, according to Laptoping. So don't feel too bad. The proceeds went to the America's Second Harvest.

Kaneva: MySpace + Second Life mash-up

Part social network and part 3D virtual world, Kaneva also throws in a dash of YouTube, with media sharing for pictures and Flash video. I received news of the service today, but Kaneva has been kicking about since late 2004. Essentially you begin with a standard social-network profile, then earn prestige points to work your way up a site leaderboard until you're invited to join the 3D social world, which launched its beta in April of last year.

Points are given as rewards for adding content to your profile and interacting with other Keneva members. Once you join the … Read more

Apple's portable fashion

Just when you thought the ubiquitous iPod Shuffle couldn't get any smaller, Apple showed us all by releasing its second-generation Shuffle. Of course, that's not good enough for Apple, which has just unveiled a multifarious array of colors to delight even the most fashion conscious music lover. At a price under $100, who wouldn't want to say goodbye to their current, bulky Shuffle and move on up into the world of color? Of course, if iPods aren't your cup of tea, there are plenty of excellent alternatives.

3D scanning for our future lives

As we enter our second lives, we're seeing the floodgates beginning to open on 3D technologies. Unfortunately, a lot of the equipment on the market today comes with futuristic price tags--but competition is helping already.

Take this 3D scanner from NextEngine, for example. Sci-Fi Tech, which reported the item first, says it can scan an object in about 2 minutes and then "render it onscreen for you to stretch, rotate, or break apart in any number of applications, many of which are provided," with accuracy to 0.005 of an inch.

The cost still isn't cheap--$… Read more

We'd all crave Segways if they could fly

Those of us who followed the Segway phenomenon back when it was known as "Ginger" and was touted as the biggest technological innovation since the Internet sometimes ask--what if? What could be done to this thoroughly dorky mode of transportation to make it really catch on? A ways back we wrote about a fratboy prototype called the "Kegway," which would make it a whole lot easier to booze on the go but also a whole lot easier to score yourself a DUI. Plus, there's the whole "laws of physics" thing that would probably … Read more

Speeders, achtung!

If you're prone to speeding, you might think twice before doing it anywhere in Deutschland. The German Federal Traffic Ministry and the Association of German Automobile Tuners (a group that encourages tuning?) have launched a punctuation-happy program called Tune It! Safe! that will feature a Mercedes CLS V12 Rocket sedan decked out for German polizei at this year's Essen Motor Show.

The modified police rocket can reach speeds of up to 225 mph--a necessity, I suppose, when going after reckless drivers on the autobahn.