Google’s long-anticipated foray into virtual worlds seems to be gaining speed, according to the discussion at the Virtual Worlds Forum in London on Wednesday.

The company has already announced a partnership with Multiverse which will allow users to create their own virtual worlds by combining Multiverse’s technology with 3D data from Google Earth and Google SketchUp. And word has leaked about a mysterious project that Google is field testing at Arizona State University.

Among the industry’s insiders there is no doubt that something big — a Second Life killer, or something else entirely — is in the works, according to Jess Mulligan of Cyber Sports Ltd.

“Everybody in the industry knows Google are building a virtual world - they hired all our friends to work for it,” Mulligan told conference attendees.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet. This is just the first couple of steps down a much longer and potentially very interesting path,” Multiverse co-founder Corey Bridges told us on the sidelines of the conference.

Google spokesman responds: “We’re always looking for new ways to help our users connect with each other, share information, and express themselves, but we don’t have any new details to share at this time.”

Incidentally, director James Cameron sits on Multiverse advisory board and is currently shooting his next film in New Zealand. Coincidentally, or not, it is titled “Avatar .”

(Photo: Reuters / Google co-founder Larry Page at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show)

Susan Lyne went from greenlighting “Desperate Housewives” to selling them house paint and linens.

But the CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia has no hard feelings about her former employer Disney, which she abruptly left in 2004, only to see the shows she picked, which also included “Lost,” become monster TV hits.

Asked at the Reuters Media Summit which media company she would hypothetically invest in (barring her own), Lyne hesitated before naming Disney.

“Of all the media companies out there, they have a brand that actually means something, they have phenomenal content, and a real understanding of the future of media,” she said. “There’s a lot of real talent at the company and on the board. I think having Steve Jobs on that board is hugely valuable to that company.”

But would she have said the same before Robert Iger replaced longtime Disney honcho Michael Eisner?

“No,” she said. She also said she’s recently returned to watching “Desperate Housewives,” though she’s “not religious” about it. Lyne also gave a thumbs-up to Aaron Sorkin’s meta-TV show “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” a behind-the-scenes look at a comedy sketch show which happens to feature a charming female network boss, played by Amanda Peet.

“I think that show is just brilliant, it’s uneven but it’s really fun to watch,” she said.

Pirates, at least the Caribbean kind, have been good to Walt Disney Chairman Dick Cook.

Those ones on the Internet? Not so much, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about their opinion.

“I hope we make the kind of movies that people want to steal — not that we want them to steal them,” he said at the Reuters Media Summit on Thursday.

“Youre not going to upload, download, sideload or however way you want to load, a turkey. Youre going to do that with movies you want to see.”

Apparently there was a small mix-up as Walt Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook made his way to the Reuters Media Summit in New York on Thursday.

“I thought I was going to be attending this summit,” he joked, pulling out a copy of Wednesday’s New York Post.

In addition to its coverage of Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton — a trio it dubbed “The 3 Bimbos of the Apocalypse” — the Post has also been covering news out of the Media Summit, including Richard Parsons’ political ambitions and Barry Diller’s response to a critical news column.

Time Warner’s Richard Parsons isn’t closing any doors when he addresses speculation that he might seek a political career when his contract as chief executive of the world’s biggest media company expires in 2008.

“Why would I rule anything out?” he said at the Reuters Media Summit in New York. “I dont know how these things start. But once they start you seemingly cant get them back in the bottle.”

“This has been either my fate or my challenge for 30 years ever since I got out of government. Everybodys speculating hes just hanging around, waiting for his moment,” Parsons added. “Currently I dont have any plans to do that. My focus is really on completing the journey with Time Warner.”

He’s currently on New York Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer’s transition committee. Half a lifetime ago, Parsons served as counsel for New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller and as a senior White House aide under President Gerald Ford.

“I’ve been on everybody’s transition committee — Giuliani, Bloomberg, Spitzer,” Parsons said. Turning to some of his staff members, he joked: “Who else has run for something?”

Parsons, who has been mentioned as a possible New York City mayoral candidate, has a simple explanation for his involvement on the committees: “It’s one way to avoid getting nailed.”

Time Warner Inc. Chief Executive Richard Parsons thinks that Carl Icahn, who mounted a bid to break up the company last year, has a sunnier disposition these days.

“Somebody asked me if he is happy. I’m not sure that’s a word you’d ever apply to my friend Carl, but I’m sure he’s happier, because he’s going around town telling people how much money he made on Time Warner stock,” Parsons said at the Reuters Media Summit in New York.

Is Parsons concerned about Icahn mounting another challenge to Time Warner management?

“I will give you my opinion: I doubt it.” he said. “It’s not like Carl or anyone else has any new ideas that would help move the company forward more rapidly than it is under the current plan.”

What kind of world do we live in when even the prison escapees have MySpace accounts?

The Times of London is running a story on Farah Damji, a former magazine editor in jail for theft. In the latest twist, Damji received a day pass out of prison and decided she really didn’t feel like going back. What’s a modern absconder to do?

Blog it! On MySpace!
“It seems I am the cause for great consternation because I have apparently absconded.’ I don’t think you can call it that, Damji wrote on her blog. The Times has more:

On Tuesday, in an entry entitled Sea Air, she wrote of how much she was enjoying not being in prison. Its so peaceful, the sound of seagulls replacing the screaming police sirens streaming up and down Kings Road.”

She added: Blue skies, sea air. Some of the prison pallor is leaving me, Im starting to feel awake again. Gonna go for a long walk this morning.

A spokesman for the Downview prison, where Damji was held, confirmed to Reuters MediaFile that a prisoner released on temporary license has failed to return and it is now a matter for police.

In related news, check out the MySpace pages for the band Planning a Prison Break and the Prison Moratorium Project.

Looking for a lucrative job in the legal profession?

Specialise in libel law in Britain, which has a famously combative press corps and a legal system that puts the burden of proof on the defendant. This inevitably results in a slew of high-profile libel cases, often between celebrities and tabloids.
Which brings us the colourful case of Paul McKenna (right), a radio DJ turned hypnotist turned motivational speaker, who won his lawsuit against the Daily Mirror on Friday for reporting that he bought a bogus PhD. The Mirror will have to pay an initial £75,000, additional damages to be assessed later, and McKenna’s not inconsiderable legal fees, MediaGuardian reports.

The judge described the case as “much energy expended to very little purpose.”

The last time McKenna was in the high court it was as a defendant, when he was accused of causing a man that he hypnotised on-stage to develop schizophrenia.

McKenna tells the story of the trial to the Sunday Times:

Did I hypnotise the judge? Of course not. But I did use psychological techniques to put my case powerfully.

McKenna, aside from hypnotism specials like “I Can Make You Thin,” is also famous for being dumped on live TV. His girlfriend, a presenter on the TV channel Auctionworld, texted him to watch her programme, turned to the camera and told him she was leaving him.

It’s “Who Shot J.R.?” for the Internet Age.

ABC is revealing the meaning of the mysterious digits on “Lost” — say it with me people, 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42 — through its interactive multimedia project, The Lost Experience, which has the show’s rabid fans chasing down clues online and in the real world.

“Currently in phase three of five of the interactive challenge, the meaning behind the numbers 4 8 15 16 23 42, which play a significant role on the television series, will be revealed,” ABC said in a press release.
The numbers have turned up throughout the show — they were the inspiration for Hurley’s (pictured on the right) winning lottery picks and were typed into an antique computer in order to…well, we just don’t know. Of course the Web is awash with theories, which the show’s producers have cleverly tapped by creating a slew of websites that purport to shed light on Lost’s interlocking riddles.

As the writer Steven Johnson observed in an interview last week, the Internet has allowed shows like Lost to be much more complex, because there is a legion of dedicated fans annotating and explaining every little detail for the rest of us.

“I think Lost is a show that could only have been made in the Internet age, and from the way the creators have embraced the fan sites, its pretty clear that they feel the same way,” he told the Adaptive Path blog.

PS — For you “Dallas” fans out there with cloudy memories, it was Kristin Shepard, the younger sister of JR’s wife, Sue Ellen

Britain is doing its part to bring a nefarious brand of criminals — iPod owners who use mini-FM transmitters like the iTrip – safely within the fold of legal society.

It turns out that low-power FM transmitters, which many people use to listen to their iPods through a car stereo, run afoul of Britain’s Wireless Telegraphy Act of 1949, which states that all radio stations, no matter how small, must be regulated so they won’t interfere with legitimate radio stations.

Never mind that the iTrip has a range of less than 30 feet, and was openly sold in Britain with a warning sticker telling people not to (wink wink) use it in the country — violators actually faced penalties of up to 5,000 pounds ($9,000) or three months in prison. According to media regulator Ofcom, at least one seller has been prosecuted and a number of the devices have been confiscated.
To remedy the situation, Ofcom is proposing to “legalise the use of low power FM transmitters which can be used to connect MP3 players and other personal audio devices wirelessly to radios and in-car entertainment systems.” Interested parties — white ear buds optional — have 10 weeks to comment on the proposal.