PlayStation 3 gamers would  likely already know that Sony will soon be launching a video download service for the console. When though? They've been pretty vague on a release date. A report from the LA Times pegs the release for this summer. More details after the "read more" link below.

Gore Verbinski got box office success when he directed Pirates of the Caribbean, but would gamers take to him as well? (They took well to the Pirates game though.) According to an interview by the LA Times, Verbinski has a new video game project in the works, but details are locked up as tight as the Dead Man's Chest. Full story after the "read more" link below.

The residents of Second Life may see less of marketers in their second lives: real-life businesses are slowly abandoning their virtual businesses.

 

In an investigative tour of the marketing islands - private islands are purchasable in-game - in Second Life, LA Times discovered that a lot of shops, like Best Buy Co.'s Geek Squad, Sun Microsystems Inc., Dell Island and American Apparel are either abandoned or empty. Both in most cases.

It's believed that despite the efforts of real life businesses to make their presence known in the virtual world, local residents aren't all that much interested. Most of the popular activities in Second Life tend to focus on things you can't do in the real world. You can always visit a car shop in the real world, why do it when you're inside your 3D skin? It's not like you'll able to savor that new car smell.

Also, it's been pointed out in a recent article by Wagner James AU in GigaOM that while Second Life does have 7.9 million "residents," this does not reflect on the actual number of active players. In reality, the servers of Second Life only peaks at about 40,000 players. That's not a lot of people in marketing terms.

It doesn't work out in the end for marketers because they have to pay not only for their avatars' accounts, but for the islands that their shops will occupy and the design of said shops. The price they pay doesn't balance out with the actual advertising they could accomplish. On average, a real life marketing shop will only get 1,200 to 10,000 visitors in a week. On the other hand, local in-game markets aren't doing bad.

It has also been pointed out in the GigaOM article that Second Life will not be suffering should the corporations totally disappear off the face of the digital world. Corporations only account for about 6% (pointed out to be a generous estimate) of the 8,336 islands Linden Labs have sold. So even if Second Life will experience a void of real life marketing, this virtual world will still turn.

Researchers from UC San Francisco have finally found some solid evidence that points to a potential cause of the widespread Colony Collapse Disorder that is affecting bees in the U.S. And no, it's not mobile phones.

According to the LA Times, a single-celled parasite called Nosema ceranae has been found in affected hives from across the country. This fungus was responsible for widespread loss of bee colonies in Europe and Asia and may be playing a crucial role in the disappearance of bees in the U.S.

The fungus was also found in some hives where bees had survived. Two other fungi and half a dozen viruses have also been found in the dead bees.

Researchers have cautioned though that the results are still "highly preliminary" and are from only a few hives found in Le Grand in Merced County. "We don't want to give anybody the impression that this thing has been solved," said UCSF biochemist Joe DeRisi. Entomologist Diana Cox-Foster of Pennsylvania State University echoed DeRisi's caution, noting that by itself, N. ceranae "is probably not the culprit ... but it may be one of the key players."

Bee researchers haven't ruled out other factors such as pesticide exposure and inadequate food resources following a drought. "There are lots of stresses that these bees are experiencing," said Cox-Foster, noting that a combination of these factors could be responsible.

If the N. ceranae is found to play a role in CCD, there is still some hope for the bees, which are used to pollinate a third of the country's agricultural crops. There is evidence that the antibiotic fumagillin, used mainly against a closely related parasite called Nosema apis which also affects bees, will also work on N. ceranae.

LA Times have caught on the Wii-health craze, making it their cover story for today's Fitness edition. While this may be nothing new to us (we've had a healthy coverage on the subject, after all), it sure is amusing to see how the rest of the mainstream population are only now catching on.

Here's an excerpt from the said article:

Since its Nov. 19 release, the Wii has become a mini-phenomenon - 1.5 million of the consoles were snapped up by U.S. consumers between the product's launch and the end of January, according to market researcher NPD Group Inc. The lightning lift off has made the Wii the fastest-selling console in the video game industry in the last ten years.

Also mentioned in the article is the now-famed Mickey DeLorenzo whom we met through his Wii Sports Experiment. But even more interesting is how this "mini-phenomenon", as they would so eloquently put it, is stirring up some sort of debate as to just exactly how healthy it actually is.

"Digging into" the other side of the spectrum, the report cites a Mt. Sinai School of Medicine sports physician and orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Mark Klion. According to him, "The problem is you get someone who's a couch potato, and put them in front of a TV, swinging their arms countless hundreds of times, and that's enough to cause injury to the soft tissues, whether it's the muscles, tendons or ligaments."

But his comments ain't all that bad. After all, he did agree that for the most part, while playing a game with the Wii as a substitute for outdoor exercise ain't the best thing around, it's still better than nothing.

Still, it remains amusing at the end of the day. Leave it to them non-gamers to blow out of proportion something as benign as playing the Wii. I don't know about you, but debating over whether or not the Wii does provide for a viable alternative to working out is simplistic at best. Nor do the "experts' citations" make it any richer. Of course you'd develop sore limbs and tendons if you suddenly picked up an activity after being used to being a couch potato for so long. That goes for any physical activity that is not within your usual routine, as a matter of fact.

So really, we just want to enjoy our Wiis. And if there's any benefits being derived from it in the course of playing, then we'll take it as some kind of added bonus. But please, we don't need any more value-judgment or cost-benefit analysis on enjoying our Wii. It just spoils the fun.