Virtual Worlds Forum

Chinese virtual world HiPiHi is ramping up for launch with a series of deals, with the biggest being a partnership with Intel, which will have its own 160,000-square-metre island within the world. Intel joins Procter & Gamble as launch partners, although HiPiHi says it's confident of attracting "other companies of such stature" in the future. The other deals aren't as high-profile, but are still interesting. HiPiHi is working with US interactive agency Centric and Japanese virtual world service provider 3Di. The latter developed the web-based Movable Life browser for Second Life, as well as open-source community platform Jin-Sei, while Centric works with it to market both. Centric will also apparently use its Hollywood contacts to bring "internationally renowned" projects into HiPiHi. The overall aim is to promote HiPiHi as a world fit for creative art, media and video production, with HiPiHi founder and CEO Xu Hui saying that he hopes the fusion between HiPiHi and the Western culture embodied by Centric and 3Di will result in some "amazing and wondrous opportunities". (via Kzero and Worlds in Motion) EDIT - Centric got in touch to point out a factual error in the piece, which has now been corrected to show that 3Di is the developer of Movable Life and Jin-Sei.