“With the launch of Diablo 3’s public beta, gamers around the world will jump into Blizzard’s dungeon crawling masterpiece that, with its auction house system, promises to allow players to buy and sell virtual items from the game using real money,” a spokesperson for PayPal tells WebProNews. “PayPal will be the payments solution for the auction house service in several regions of the world and PayPal will also be added as a payment option on Blizzard’s Battle.net platform.”

The announcement comes just after PayPal’s recent announcement with Microsoft that will see Xbox 360 users be able to pay with PayPal directly on their Xbox consoles.

The announcement on Blizzard’s Battle.net blog says:

We’re pleased to announce that in most regions, PayPal will be our payment-service partner for the Diablo III auction house, allowing players who trade with real-world currency the ability to cash out the spoils of their battle-torn adventures via a PayPal account.

We’ll share region-related specifics, as well as further details on everything mentioned above, in the near future.  Stay tuned!

“Gamers want to focus on gaming and prefer an in-game payments solution that’s convenient, easy and secure,” says PayPal’s senior director of emerging opportunities, Carey Kolaja. “Last month we told you that our research has shown that over 70% of gamers are PayPal users, and we believe that’s because we understand that central principle.”

Yahoo says the launch is in response to a growing demand for a popular topic on Yahoo Finance, as traffic to the site’s currency resources has doubled over the past year.

"Our increasingly globalized economy has led to an internationally-minded audience with more sophisticated investment needs," said Mark Interrante, general manager and vice president of Yahoo! Finance.

"The new Currencies Center on Yahoo! Finance addresses the growing demand of mainstream investors to manage more complex global portfolios."

Users can access the currencies center beginning today by visiting the Yahoo Finance homepage and clicking on the "Currency Investing" or "Currency Converter" links.

Features include new rates tables with flat rates and cross rates of the most traded currencies around the globe, a global economic calendar that can be filtered by country and that provides information on economic events impacting currencies.

Yahoo has also introduced a new currency calculator, which allows users to search for currencies in six different ways including by country, capitol or symbol. Users can also scroll alphabetically.

Other features include a printable pocket guide and an exchange rate calendar that provides historical exchange rates data.
 

Currency hedging has been a strategy for multinational corporations and investors who prefer to spread out the potential risks of a weaker currency against the strength of others.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt understands this, as shown by his comments in Beijing to the Wall Street Journal:

“Even if there is a U.S. recession, and especially if the U.S. dollar gets weaker, [Google tends] to benefit from currency effects,” he said, though he didn’t provide data or forecasts for overseas revenue.

Another issue between Google and China did not receive a mention in the Journal’s chat with Schmidt about currency futures. China began blocking YouTube in response to the appearance of protest videos shot in Tibet, amid violent protests against Chinese rulership.

Newer reports have emerged now, saying China also blocked Google News as well as the video sharing site. Since Schmidt noted China’s rise as the largest Internet-using population, coupled with the need for currency hedging against the dollar, and a strident protest by Google against Chinese censorship seems highly unlikely.