VentureBeat

Funtactix wants to set itself apart in online games by addressing one of the most annoying problems: the inability for users to take their game characters and achievements from one game to another. With the Moondo cross-gaming universe being unveiled today, you can do just that.

So far, the universe is small with two games involving shooting and racing. But Sam Glassenberg, chief executive of the Menlo Park, Calif. company, says the company’s 3-D engine allows it to churn out new games every eight to 12 weeks. A new selection of sports games will debut in August. With each game, players can reuse their own avatars, or animated game characters, and their “power ups,” which give them special powers such as better speed or armor.

The games are a step up from simple Adobe Flash games and require a 90-megabyte download. That’s a barrier to some gamers, but it’s not a huge download burden. By October, Funtactix plans to introduce a browser-based version of the cross-gaming universe. Glassenberg says that most games build up barriers that keep you from going to another game. In online multiplayer games such as World of Warcraft, the last thing the company wants you to do is take your character and go to another game.

But the Funtactix games are more casual, with sessions typically lasting two to five minutes. Glassenberg says mainstream players who appreciate variety will like Moondo.

The games have been available in a limited beta since February. Funtactix was founded in 2006 by Yaron Leifenberg and Ilan Graicerand. The company received $6 million in a first round of funding in 2007 from Benchmark Capital and Jerusalem Venture Partners. Glassenberg, former lead program manager for DirectX graphics at Microsoft, joined five months ago. The company has 25 employees, with most of the development team in Tel Aviv, Israel.

The company’s idea of porting characters and achievements across games faces no direct competition today. IBM and Linden Lab announced earlier this year that they were exploring the idea of making avatars portable across virtual worlds, but retrofitting their games to support such capabilities would require a huge amount of standardization. With so many worlds, it would be tantamount to boiling the ocean.

Microsoft and Nintendo have endorsed the idea of cross-game play to some extent. Microsoft talked at its E3 press conference about letting players create their own avatars for Xbox Live. In casual games such as Uno, players can use their avatars inside the game. Likewise, Nintendo Wii players can create their own Mii avatars, which they can use in games such as Wii Sports or Wii Fit. However, those players can’t take their achievements in one game and apply them to another.

Funtactix has thousands of players already. When it put up its second game earlier this year, usage of both games shot up 80 percent. And the number of game sessions played by new users jumped 250 percent. The games include Slider Party, a fast-paced shooter game where players can play in groups in a light-hearted style; Boost, a high-speed racing game where players race customized vehicles head-to-head; and Crystal Run, a team-baesd “capture the flag” game with a top-down view.

The real hurdle for the company will be game quality. Games made in eight to 12 weeks just aren’t going to compare to some of the hardcore fare out there. On the other hand, the cross-game play will allow Funtactix to set itself apart from all of the other casual game companies, ranging from Gaia Online to PopCap Games. The games are free to play now and will be ad supported. Over time, Moondo will add virtual item transactions and other business models.

Even spooks need their virtual worlds. Where else, after all, could they rehearse their training missions against the bad guys of the world?

Forterra Systems and IBM said today that they’re teaming up to create virtual worlds for U.S. intelligence-gathering agencies. The so-called “Babel Bridge” project will allow spy agencies to use virtual worlds and Web 2.0 technologies to share intelligence information. Last month, Forterra raised a $10 million round (our coverage).

The project will feature a 3-D “unified communications” world which ties together voice, e-mail, text messages and other forms of communication. Users would access intelligence data from computers or mobile phones with secure connections. The two companies have already completed a prototype and will begin development in the second quarter, said Chris Badger, vice president of marketing at Forterra in San Mateo, Calif.

Intelligence agencies could soon use a virtual world to rehearse how they could attack a location that houses a terrorist cell, according to Forterra. The same technology could be used to prepare a hospital’s staff on how to react to a natural disaster.

Forterra was founded as part of There.com in 1998. In 2004, Forterra spun out of There, while Makena Technologies focused on its own consumer-oriented virtual world, There.com.

Forterra’s backers include the CIA-funded In-Q-Tel venture firm and Jerusalem Venture Partners, Chichen Itza Ventures, and Sutter Hill Ventures.

While Makena Technologies pursued consumer technologies, Forterra focused on using the virtual world technology for military simulations. Video demos of its projects are available here.

Badger said the alliance with IBM gives it a stamp of credibility as virtual worlds have gone through their own cycle of hype and despair. Deb Magid, director of software strategy at IBM’s venture capital group, said in an interview that business and government applications are now clearly becoming viable as virtual worlds spread beyond entertainment and games.

Altair, an Israeli company, is joining the race to be at the forefront of what some believe will be telecom’s next hot trend—mobile WiMAX. Altair, which makes chips that work with mobile WiMAX networks, announces today an $18M round of funding.

Mobile WiMAX is considered attractive because, compared to Wi-Fi, it offers much greater range and broadband access, although it has plenty of critics.

Wireless is a complex space with enough acronyms—UMTS, 3G and 4G, LTE, HSPA—to make your head spin. Paul Grim recently wrote a column for VentureBeat providing an overview of mobile WiMAX and competing standards and came away critical of WiMAX.

Mobile WiMAX is being backed heavily by Intel, Motorola, Sprint, Clearwire (who recently went public) and numerous startups, although the technology remains unproven. Sprint, for instance, plans to spend $2.8 billion over the next two years to roll out WiMAX infrastructure while Intel and Motorola have invested a combined $900 million in Clearwire. According to Infonetics Research, mobile WiMAX equipment increased 35 percent in the first quarter of 2007.

Altair is one of two dozen companies leading the charge to develop reliable, power-efficient and smaller WiMAX chips. (VentureBeat recently wrote about Beceem, one of those companies.)

Chip size matters. In this case, smaller is better to fit into ever tinier mobile phones.

According to Altair co-founder Eran Ershad, his company is set to ship chips that approach existing Wi-Fi chips in size and power consumption. While current WiMAX chips are roughly 400-500 sq mm, Wi-Fi chips are in the 80-100 sq mm range, showing how far the technology still has to develop. Altair claims to be the only company whose chips are comparable in size to current Wi-Fi chips. Altair has patented technology that controls interference from Bluetooth devices, a common concern among wireless users.

Bessemer Venture Partners led the funding round along with returning investors BRM Capital, Giza Venture Capital and Jerusalem Venture Partners. Altair plans to use the funding to expand sales and marketing, notably in Asia where low-cost manufacturers are located.

References:
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/24269.php
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070109-8582.html

Update: Separately, WiQuest, an ultra-wideband wireless chip company of Allen, Texas, has raised $28 million in a third round of financing led by Adam Street Partners. D.E. Shaw Group’s venture arm and TriplePoint Capital also invested, as did existing investors Sequoia Capital, Menlo Ventures, Palomar Ventures and iD Ventures America. See statement here.