Susan Lambert shares insights gleaned from AvatarLabs' experience with the development process and the iTunes App Store over the last year.  Read her article at Gamasutra.com. Additional insight on the iPhone approval process can be found in this story from Business Week that features in interview with SVP of Apple Phil Schiller.

Hundreds of millions of real dollars are flowing in and out of virtual economies, creating fun ways for people to interact via social games.  Some of those millions having been flowing into the pockets of the unscrupulous, putting legitimate companies and advertisers at a disadvantage .  We attended the Virtual Goods Summit in San Francisco and enjoyed immensely the panel discussions and conversations about this exciting and rapidly growing sector of the social web.  Being pioneers in the creation of engaging games and activities as part of larger marketing efforts, it's exciting to watch this industry mature, albeit not without some growing pains.  Overshadowing some of the innovations and success stories presented at VGS at the end of October, have been the ongoing "ScamVille" posts on Tech Crunch that lead to the replacement of a founder/CEO at her own company, and possibly to class action lawsuits against big players like Zynga, and even Facebook.  Hopefully the outcome will be a high-quality channel for advertisers to find and engage consumers, and for those consumers to be able to play safely.  This may happen quickly if all the players in the space follow the lead of new Offerpal CEO George Garrick who has moved quickly to admit wrong-doing and implement a quality rating system for advertisers.  Read the whole thread on Tech Crunch here.  Whether or not you agree with Michael Arrington's approach to journalism, it is entertaining reading.

AvatarLabs' own Helen Huang was recently interviewed for the VectorTuts+ blog here. Beautiful illustrations and discussion of the dreams and daily life of a top online designer.  We are lucky to have Helen on our team!  Visit her site here for more!

Gizmodo covers a TriCorder-like prototype created by a Nasa scientist here.  "The low-cost, low-power system can detect minimal concentrations of ammonia, chlorine gas, and methane, showing the values in an iPhone application. It can automatically communicate the results with other cellphones or the Enterprise's computer using Wi-Fi or 3G".  Cool stuff! We are big Star Trek fans and were thrilled to win multiple DMACS, Davey and W3 awards for our work on the campaign for Paramount's blockbuster (the DVD is on sale today.)  One of the highlights of the campaign is a rich media unit that features a 360-degree recreation of the Enterprise’s bridge built using Action Script 3 and Papervision.  The unit features standard EPK features plus several Easter eggs: the ability to put the ship into warp drive by clicking on one of the consoles underneath the main view screen, and turn on red alert by clicking on the button panel on the right side of the captain’s chair.  Explore the bridge here!