VWCE2008M

OK, come on, 'fess up... what am I missing? I was minding my own business, out for a late night stroll among the islands of SL, and stumbled upon VWCE2008M. Now, if you know my modus operandi, you will see immediately why I went for a squint at this sim. If not, let me explain: one of the small and distinctly dodgy tools I use in deciding to check out a site is whether the name seems to consist of initials. If it does, it is likely to be non-residential and generally of relevance to this blog. So.....

I can tell you that the name is shorthand for VW 2008 Conference and Expo, that the sim is Japanese, and that IBM (Japan?) have a pavillion here (with a couple of freebies). At which point I hit a metaphorical (if not virtual) brick wall. Oh... apart from: there's a whole ruck of "VWCE08" groups in Second Life. A little light googling has not turned up what I expected to find, namely: a Virtual Worlds conference, hosted in Japan, with sponsorship by IBM and Sun, amongst others. Meanwhile, the sim itself is in a fairly early stage of development, which would suggest that the conference is a few months away - but it lacks any links to websites, or other obvious clues.

There's a couple of rudimentary stands so far - including one for "Lamity", which I understand to be a Japanese cellphone-based game world.

Here's a piccy or two... if you know more, then do tell:


Oh... and of course, I have to wonder why I was able to simply blunder in here in the first place.

UPDATE May 10th: See comments. My thanks to Ak Yip, who has nailed this one for me.