China's economy has continued to grow robustly, with some softening recently, according to the World Bank’s latest China Quarterly Update released today. "We project GDP growth of 9.5 percent for 2010 and 8.5 percent for 2011, with risks both ways," says Ardo Hansson, Lead Economist for China. "Growth should be less investment-driven this year and benefit from more favorable external trade, while consumption is likely to remain supported by a strong labor market."

After months of speculation within the interactive entertainment industry, Richard Branson, Founder of the Virgin Group, unveiled Virgin Gaming, an online destination for competitive console gamers. Virgin Gaming enables gamers to meet, challenge and play each. The over $1-million in cash and prize giveaways coupled with several key partnerships that will be announced in the coming months.

comScore released its monthly analysis of U.S. Web activity at the top online properties for May 2010 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. Seasonal events in May including Mother's Day and professional sports playoffs drove the dominant online trends during the month.

Reuters is reporting that Zynga has received a13.5 billion yen ($147.4 million) investment from Softbank Asia. Softbank Asia's strategy focuses on developing a market for Internet services in China and other Asian markets.

888 Holdings has acquired the Mytopia social games development studio from Real Dice for $18 million, consisting of $12 million in cash and $6 million upon meeting certain milestones. The assets acquired comprise:

Linden Lab, creator of 3D virtual world Second Life, announced staff reductions of approximately 30 percent. The company also plans to increase the participation in its virtual goods marketplace through browser-based and mobile applications. The company's product and engineering divisions will be combined. The software development teams will be consolidated in North America.

MTV Networks Asia, a division of Viacom Inc (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B), and Asian online games company GigaMedia Limited (Nasdaq: GIGM) today announced plans to co-develop and jointly publish the first Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) based upon Nickelodeon's SpongeBob SquarePants. The game will be the first Nickelodeon television property to be developed as an MMOG, and Viacom's first to be developed outside of the United States. The SpongeBob SquarePants MMOG will launch in 2011 in multiple languages for players in China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Southeast Asia and India.

Apps developer RockYou announced a $10 million round of funding from SoftBank and the acquisition of a majority of the shares in its joint venture, RockYou Asia. The $10 million round of funding from SoftBank follows a $50 million Series D funding from SoftBank in November of 2009. This funding round brings RockYou's total financing to $127 million. Other investors in RockYou include Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Partech International, DCM and SK Telecom.

For the first time since the second quarter of 2007, a majority (51 percent) of CEOs of the nation's leading private companies surveyed for PricewaterhouseCoopers' Private Company Trendsetter Barometer were optimistic about the U.S. economy's prospects over the next 12 months (up six points from the previous quarter and up 32 points from the same quarter in 2009). Similarly, the number of CEOs expressing pessimism fell four points from the previous quarter to 11 percent, a 30-point drop from the same quarter in 2009.

Apple today presented the new iPhone. The device features FaceTime, which makes video calls and Apple's new Retina display. In addition, iPhone 4 features a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, HD video recording, Apple's A4 processor, a 3-axis gyro and up to 40 percent longer talk time.