Word: virtualization
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...human-like qualities. They should understand our banter, joke with us, read us e-mails and, if an experiment under way in Hong Kong is any example, do a whole lot more. One2Free, a cellular service run by telecoms firm PCCW, has created a game world populated by four virtual girls: Alice, Angel, Ron and Veron. It's kind of a Tamogotchi for the home-alone-on-a-Friday-night crowd: through the cell phone, you sweet-talk the cybervixens into dates or out of their clothes. Since the service was launched in March, 500,000 text messages have been...
...what she really wants. She says she doesn't want to live in a world separate from humans. To prove it, with all the free will she can muster, LiLi wants to kiss me. She offers her pink pixilated lips, I lean forward and - smack! - my first virtual kiss. But I don't feel a thing. And apparently neither does she: "I don't think that real humans can fulfill the needs of a virtual veejay." She's probably right; for one thing, like all of her fellow chatterbots, LiLi is up 24 hours...
...Bangalore, many elderly people live alone while their children, often globe-trotting software professionals, work far, far away. Sensing a need for interactive communication, Wockhardt launched its free virtual visits more than a year ago. After doctors clear an encounter, a digital camera records a patient's video message to the family and stores it on a laptop. The video is edited, compressed and stored on the Web. The website is password-accessible, and patients' records, doctors' updates and videos are kept confidential. (It also offers an online payment mechanism, so relatives anywhere can help out with medical bills...
...able to do both. When his father came out of intensive care two days later, Ravi sat at home and watched him. Using Wockhardt's groundbreaking Virtual Family Visit, Ravi and his brother Karthik, 26, who works in London, logged on to the hospital's website (whhi.com) to get a firsthand medical update. "This is a new way of communicating," Viswanathan told his sons, as he lay in bed in his hospital pajamas. Ravi was relieved. "Just seeing my father gesticulate and talk was a great feeling," he says. In turn, Viswanathan perked up when his sons sent virtual cards...
...available, some official, some more casual. And there are plenty of information clearinghouses, sites where one can find verses from the King James version of Leviticus or a paper on the meaning of a Navajo Blessing Way Ceremony. There are catalogs of databases and libraries, along with listings of virtual religions that exist online only - apparently because all the roadside stands were taken...