Word: virtual
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Eventually, subscribers will be able to use the software to conceive and create their own online games. Already users can build models of the exteriors of their homes or other buildings and place them in real settings on Microsoft's Virtual Earth. (Google Earth offers something similar with its SketchUp modeling software...
...hosted services and communities of Web 2.0 already amount to an entirely new form of communication. But now a new site called 3DVIA.com is taking the social-networking concept to another dimension - both literally and, well, virtually. Instead of FunWalls and Scrabulous games, users of 3DVIA generate three-dimensional simulations of everyday objects using professional-grade 3D modeling software. Its designers say their software could eventually allow Web 2.0 users to construct their own virtual worlds - and invite friends in for a visit...
...Virtual behavior may even affect real-world health. Stanford graduate student Jesse Fox randomly assigned avatars to 75 volunteers and divided them into three groups: one group watched their look-alike avatars run on treadmills for about five and a half minutes; another group saw their virtual counterparts lounge around; and a third watched avatars who did not look like them, but were of the same age and sex, run on treadmills. A day later, Fox found that participants who watched avatars of their own likeness exercising had themselves exercised an hour more in the intervening 24-hour period than...
...course, the effect could potentially work both ways - for good or for bad. "In a therapy setting, we could use these virtual environments to get people to become more confident," says Yee. "But they can also be used in advertising and as propaganda...
There are no longer any Hizballah fighters surrounding the grand red sandstone Beirut town house belonging to Walid Jumblatt, a member of Parliament and one of the leaders of Lebanon's governing coalition. Still, Jumblatt, a top American ally, is under virtual house arrest. After the lightning speed with which opposition Hizballah fighters defeated government supporters in a six-hour battle on Thursday - only to vanish a few hours later - it became clear that it is pointless to resist the Iranian and Syrian-backed militia, which could return at any time. "I am a hostage now in my home...