Monday, September 25, 2006

Virtual Estate Market Emerges. Virtual World Goes On Sale

11:55 pm | Yaroslav Lyssenko

Starting from September 26 with the help of imagination of Weblo CEO Rocky Mirza, and financed in part by former MySpace.com Chairman Richard Rosenblatt, Weblo will offer people a virtual world for the taking.

TechWeb that the online world of Weblo creates a virtual carbon copy of the real life, down to individual streets in cities around the world. It’s a place where people can become real estate moguls, politicians, or celebrities.

“Anything that exists in the real-world, you can buy it in our online world,” said Rocky Mirza.

The site will offer ways for people to make money through commerce transactions, pay-per-click advertising methods, and online commissions. People will purchase property in real U.S. dollars, paying taxes to the mayor of the town, the governor of the state, and the United Nation of Weblo.

“It sparks creativity and provides a way for people to publish, and it entices people to make money from the real estate they develop online. It’s intimidating for people to think about setting up a blog, but not intimidating for them to purchase something online they have seen and understand in the real world,” said Richard Rosenblatt.

For those who wish to become real-estate tycoons, houses will cost approximately $2 each. All monetary transactions are done in U.S. dollars. Every piece of land, from the United States to Asia, in the real world will go up for sale at launch. California, the most expensive, will sell for $50,000.

• TechWeb: Virtual World Goes On Sale Tuesday.

The Benefit of Disconnected Charger. EU and Nokia Remind to Conserve Energy

11:54 pm | Yaroslav Lyssenko

Cnet News.com  reports that a mobile industry task force led by Nokia announced on Thursday that it has agreed to do its part for the environment by reminding you to conserve electricity.

“The members of the task force, a project of the European Commission (EC), agreed to include alerts on the cell phones they make that will remind people to unplug their charger once a phone is fully charged. If 10 percent of the world’s cell phone owners did this, the group’s final report said, it would reduce energy consumption by an amount equivalent to that used by 60 000 European homes per year,” says Cnet News.com.

Nokia announced that it will have the alerts in place on its phones by the middle of 2007. The initiative is part of a pilot project by the environmental agency of the EC intended to encourage industries to “reduce the environmental impact of their products throughout their lifecycle.” Groups from various industries looked at everything from raw materials to manufacturing processes to the effects of product decomposition.

“We are quite happy with this first approach, though obviously we would like to go deeper. We will issue a report on what has born fruit from this and we will look at, in a year from now, the results. This is an ongoing process and hopefully other companies will come on board,” said Barbara Helfferich, a spokeswoman on the environment for the Commission.

Companies that participated in the EC mobile task force, whose research spanned two years, include AMD, Epson, France Telecom/Orange, Intel, Motorola, Panasonic, Teliasonera, and Vodafone.

The EC listed passenger cars, meat products and housing as having the largest impacts on the environment overall.

• Cnet News.com: Your Cell Phone is Charged. Please Unplug.

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