No matter where you go, there you are.

The makers of the online role-playing game There.com would like you to believe that their online getaway is THE place to be. Not only that but they are betting that once you ARE there you will fork over real cash to buy virtual items like hip clothes and floating surf boards. (There calls them hoverboards.)

Based on There's website, and some of the reviews I read, it seems like that target audience might coincide with the Lizzy Mcguire set but it might be worth a look. You know...for research. Or perhaps Sims enthusiasts looking for something different. One "cool" feature is the use of chat balloons instead of the traditional chat screen used by so many MMRPG.

If you don't want to download the program, check out the QuickTime movies linked off the homepage that give you a virtual tour of the best features of the game. Somewhat unusual for the online gaming world There offers a two-week free trial without requiring you to plunk down credit card first. I wonder if we will see more of that practice in the future as people shun free trials because they don't want to hand over there financial information to just any online business.

Need A Job?

Artifical intelligence research meets computer games. The Intelligent Agents Lab located in Munich Germany will be hiring experts to join their research group to "develop and analyze theory and application of intelligent agents". Using computer games as their primary application domain, they want to take artificial intelligence to the next level. Think about this for a moment...you can be part of a team who creates characters in games that react to situations in ways unforseen to programmers. They plan, they have sensors, they basically act as though they are human. If you join the team, you could be working on Excalibur, a "generic architecture for automonously operating agents". If you want to be on the forefront of gaming, this is it.