Word: virtually
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Warcraft series remains subscription-based. But the trend is the free-to-play, or "freemium," model. Under this system, gamers can play as long as they want at no cost, but they usually find the games are more entertaining when they pay small fees to outfit their characters with virtual weapons, useful tools and other accessories. The popular virtual world Second Life garners some 75% of its revenue from the sale of virtual land and other digital-world dealings, according to the company...
...offers its service in 80 countries. Micropayments are also migrating to mobile phones. In Japan, cell phones are regularly used to pay parking-meter and vending-machine charges, while Apple's iPhone 3.0 operating system includes a purchasing platform that will allow developers of mobile-phone games to sell virtual goods via handsets, with billing through iTunes. That's an industry-changing development, says Juniper Research, which predicts mobile-game revenues will jump fivefold to $14 billion...
...those who say a public plan is a prelude to a single-payer system, Obama insists that it would make sure the competitive free market thrives by "keep[ing] the insurance companies honest." This would be most apparent in parts of the country where some private insurers have virtual monopolies in the individual and small-group market...
Finally, the user interface is especially cool and does something I've never before seen on a smart phone: it can run a dozen applications simultaneously. Each app is represented by a virtual card after it launches; switching between programs is as easy as leafing through the cards. To close an app, you simply flick it away...
...unique to the 21st century, the laptop has no historical rival in its capacity as a portal to infinite distraction. Nothing quite interrupts a lecture on 18th century Romanticism like the fateful “ding” of a G-Chat. The simultaneity of our physical presence and virtual absence in the lecture hall suggests that, for all its wonders, ultra-connectivity can come at the cost of sharp and atomistic disconnects...