Women kills husband in an online game, arrested

Online games where people live in a virtual reality using 'avatars' have become wildly popular, with millions using such games. But if people think that online worlds are a more utopian alternative to the real world, they are mistaken. There are the same kind of emotions, same kind of strange behavior, same weaknesses that exist in real life; they are making their existence felt in such online games as well. Consider the case of this lady who was married in virtual reality to a person who actually lived more than 620 miles away. One day she found herself divorced, and this unnerved her so much that she decided to kill the 'avatar' of her online husband (no implication in real life, but his online character died):

A 43-year-old Japanese woman whose sudden divorce in a virtual game world made her so angry that she killed her online husband's digital persona has been arrested on suspicion of hacking, police said Thursday. The woman, who is jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his identification and password to log onto popular interactive game "Maple Story" to carry out the virtual murder in mid-May.
"I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry," the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations.

There have been other cases like this, with people swindling virtual money (with this virtual money capable of being converted into real currency, this is a crime), people objecting when their spouses spend too much time in these games or get married in the virtual world to somebody else, and so on. As time passes by, the probability of such incidents happening would increase.

HBO joins the online TV content fray

HBO, one of the last holdouts in the age of providing digital entertainment media online, has finally given up (or maybe acknowledged that it will lose out on a whole bunch of subscribers if it does not enter the race) and launched a service called HBO On Broadband that features 400 hours of both movies and serials that can be downloaded onto a computer. However, as of now, there are several restrictions, with these restrictions across computer platforms, and locations:

The catch: To gain access, you must be a digital cable customer who subscribes to HBO, and you must use your cable company as your Internet provider. And, at least initially, you must live in Milwaukee or Green Bay, where Time Warner Cable will first test the service. (There's no extra cost for online access.)
HBO Broadband offers a broad selection of programming, including 130 movie titles that rotate monthly and top hits ranging from The Sopranos to Sex and the City, as well as documentaries. Usually, about six episodes will be offered at any one time, but for one series every month, every episode ever produced will be available. HBO co-president Eric Kessler blames technological issues for the delay in offering online video but says the new service continues the network's plan to "enhance the value of the HBO subscription by giving viewers greater access to our content."

This is almost like testing the waters, and one can forecast that geographical locations will get added, and so will more controls to prevent piracy. And right now this service is free, but one can be sure that at some point, HBO will want to make money with this.

Bank shutting down: Problems inside Second Life

Second Life is a game where you can feel that you are in a different world, and indeed you are. It is a world with different rules, totally online and where you can be somebody different from what you are in real life, and also do something different. This lofty objective seems to have been getting badly bruised in the last few months. First, it was the whole concept of gambling inside Second Life that got clobbered by the real-world rule about no online gambling in the United States. And now this, a closure of a bank in the online world has prompted calls for monitoring of Online Financial Institutions by the actual real world monitoring bodies. Calls for monitoring of something that happens in an Online Game may seem crazy for an outsider, but things in Second Life are not so disconnected from the real world.
The currency of Second Life, the Linden is not disconnected from actual Dollars of the real world, with there being an actual conversion factor. And hence, the closure of a bank, Ginko, located in the online game, has had an impact on the real life wallets of people playing the game. The affected people are now obviously calling for greater supervision:

The recent collapse of Ginko Financial, a "virtual investment bank" in Second Life, has spurred calls for more oversight, transparency and accountability, especially when it comes to business practices in the metaverse. Last week, Ginko Financial -- an unregulated bank that promised investors astronomical returns (in excess of 40 percent) and was run by a faceless owner whose identity is still a mystery -- announced it would no longer exist as a financial entity.
The declared insolvency meant the bank would be unable to repay approximately 200,000,000 Lindens (U.S. $750,000) to Second Life residents who had invested their money with the bank over the course of its three and a half years of existence.

Combined with recent stories about the link between people who have had romances online and the obvious resentment felt by their offline mates, it seems that the original dream of 2 separate worlds, an offline world where you live in reality, and an online world where you live the life you want to lead, this dream is gone. There is just too much linkage between these 2 worlds, and to wish otherwise seems unlikely. What all of us are just waiting for is the first divorce case based upon a person being too dedicated to an online partner, and real world spouses. This will get to be even more problematic as you get better game playing equipment that provides a sensory feeling of the game.