Is Google contemplating a Second Life?

First there was Second Life, which now reportedly has something like 8 million members:

Second Life Trailer

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Then Sony made the decision to get into the mix, with its soon-to-be-released Playstation Home:

And now Google is making noises:

Google eyeing its own ‘Second Life?’

According to the article: “For some time now, we here at CNET News.com have been hearing whispers that Google might be looking to get into the virtual world space, particularly in light of the increasing interest of existing environments like Second Life, and the success of Google Earth and the search giant’s purchase of the Sketchup technology. Well, now we might finally be on to something. According to TechCrunch, Google may already be testing its own 3D virtual world technology, in a secret experiment at Arizona State University.” (see also this article)

No word from Google yet on what will happen.

Speaking of Second Life, this was a really interesting experiment:

Coldwell Banker Puts Real House on Second Life Block

They took a real house that is for sale in the real world for $3 million and they recreated it in Second Life so people could experience it virtually.

And there is this report on AI in Second Life:

Online worlds to be AI incubators

According to the article, virtual worlds can be a big help to researchers: “Robots have a lot of disadvantages, we have not solved all the problems of getting them to move around and see the world,” he said. “It’s a lot more practical to control virtual robots in simulated worlds than real robots.”