And now BusinessWeek tells us that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has an avatar in the online playground. The multi-millionaire just chipped into an $11 million funding round for Second Life, and apparently he's been casing the joint. I asked around to verify. But an e-mail to Second Life got a "sorry, no comment" response — damn those pesky user privacy issues.

Calling all virtual-reality paparazzi: Valleywag wants pics of Jeff Bezos playing Second Life. Keep an eye out for an avatar dressed as a rocketman.

A Virtual World's Real Dollars [BusinessWeek]

A Google contingent is heading over to NASA's Moffitt Field facility today around lunchtime. The airfield is currently playing host to a fellow who's created a virtual reality headset for air traffic controllers, and the Google Earth people are stopping by to see it first hand.

Not sure what they'll be doing with it if they buy the fellow out, but we can all rest assured that the Lawnmower man will soon be flying through cyberspace in some badly lit, poorly realized basement at Google's head offices.

Huzzah to Google for having the testicular fortitude to dig up VR as a possible future realm of research. Will they call it GR? Or is Google Reality that thing that happens when you can finally sell your stock options?