Virtual affair leads to real divorce

A British couple are divorcing after the wife discovered her husband with another woman. Nothing that unusual there of course but the discovery of this illicit liaison was in Second Life. The wife found her husband's online virtual alter-ego "a goatee-bearded, medallion-wearing hombre called Dave Barmy" with a similarly virtual woman. The wife said her husband's affair might be in a virtual world but it was a real affair.

The blurring of the line between the virtual and real-life world is always something that has interested me and i can appreciate her point of view. It might be a situation generated by zeroes and ones but are the thoughts and intentions still the same.

As more of us spend more of our lives in virtual worlds then we need to start considering what laws apply and how. For example (and this is just something that interests me not a query about a possible career change) if i was to become a prostitute in a virtual world like Second Life and sell sex to other users would that be illegal? Especially in virtual worlds where the virtual currency can be exchanged for real loot. Would it stand up in court? (Sorry couldn't resist!)

Picasa to offer image recognition

Personally i am a Flickr user but Picasa is also a highly useful image upload and storage site, and as it is a Google site you can be reasonably assured it will still be around in a few years and being part of the Google network ties you into their searches, maps and other toys. Picasa is about to be improved however and one of the new toys looks very impressive : image recognition. The Guardian writer uploaded some images and Picasa apparently used image recognition to group photos of the same person together. Personally most of my photos are of plants but i'm sure it will be able to do plant recognition too.

Something to keep an eye on (literally) for sure. Best watch for news on the Picasa blog.