Word: virtually
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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HAMILTON: "I've tested new products since the early 1990s, when I started out at a computer magazine. What made the Inventions project fun was that we could focus purely on great ideas without worrying whether they would be successful in the marketplace. For example, I love the virtual keyboard designed by VKB. Typing on it was like magic because the keyboard is an optical illusion. Will it ever get to market? Who knows? It's still a great idea...
...computer monitors can shrink to almost nothing, why not keyboards? They soon may. Two companies have developed prototype "virtual" keyboards designed to accompany portable devices like PDAs, tablet PCs and cell phones. Here's how they work: a laser beam projects a glowing red outline of a keyboard on a desk or other flat surface. A sensor like those used in digital cameras monitors the reflection of an infrared light projected on the same spot. It can tell which "keys" you are trying to strike by the way that reflection changes. Someday, similar keyboards may be built into the gadgets...
Ever want to build a cathedral? Underwater? Change your clothes, your face, your whole body? Fly? You can't do any of that stuff in real life, but you can do it all and more in Second Life, a startlingly lifelike 3-D virtual world now evolving on the Internet. Unlike other shared online adventures, Second Life isn't about slaying monsters or zapping aliens. It's about building things, meeting people and expressing yourself. Even if you already have a life, you may want to get a second one. INVENTOR Linden Lab AVAILABILITY Summer 2003, for a monthly...
...least the next best thing. The Earth Simulator, the most powerful supercomputer ever built, was designed for a single purpose: to create a virtual twin of our home planet. Before the Earth Simulator arrived, the fastest computer in the world was an American military machine that can perform 7.2 trillion calculations per second. The Earth Simulator runs at more than 35 trillion calculations per second, almost five times faster. In fact, it's as powerful as the next 12 fastest supercomputers in the world put together. Located at a vast, newly built facility in Yokohama, the Earth Simulator...
...forecast of global ocean temperatures for the next 50 years, and a full set of climate predictions will be ready by year's end. Soon, instead of speculating about the possible environmental impact of, say, the Kyoto accord, policymakers will be able to plug its parameters into the virtual Earth, then skip ahead 1,000 years to get a handle on what effect those policies might have. That kind of concrete data could revolutionize environmental science. By digitally cloning the Earth, we might just be able to save it. --By Lev Grossman