Video games help students in 'fire drills'

At a university in durham, they have turned a game into an educational fire drill simulator, ithe team used The Source Engine, the 3D game engine used to drive Half-Life 2, and created a virtual model of one of the university's departments.
They have planned the game so they can examine peoples behaviour towards a fire and to train people in good fire practice.
The interior of most buildings can be mimiced although modification will be needed.
Durham University's Dr Shamus Smith, who helped spearhead the project, told BBC News that that while bespoke 3D modelling software was available, modifying a video game was faster, more cost effective, and had better special effects

Facebook faces its fifth birthday

Facebook is giving its 150 million users a mystery virtual gift to celebrate its fifth birthday, The gift shop's presents usually range from cuddly bears to a pint of beer and from champagne to a four-leaf clover.

In the battle for online friends, Facebook is now the world leader, In the blog he has also taken a trip down memory lane and shared old images of how the site has changed since it was launched in 2004.
For a company that started in a dorm room, Facebook's rise has been regarded as impressive with its 150 million active users beating rival MySpace's 130 million users

Founder Mark Zuckerberg said, "In the spirit of celebrating connections between people, we encourage you to use this gift to give thanks to [those] you are connected with on Facebook."

VIRTUAL LIFE

Creating an avatar that represents you has been available for years, its very popular with many people all over the world.
The use of technology has allowed inventers to go full blown on designing websites / games for people to play.
For example a very popular game all over the world is called WoW


WORLD OF WARCRAFT
This game is where you create a virtual character whether it be representing yourself or just some made up person, but you can make friends, and become addicted at the same time.
you have tasks to do or giant monsters to slay.
The creaters have made so much money out of this, but the game is based on a imaginary world, but most other virtual games are based on real life, so that when people make their own characters they can make there life how they want it.

TOUCH MOBILES / IPODS.

The new touch iphone and ipod are rather popular now, they are the 'must have' item.

Smartphones were common before the iphone and ipod touch came out.

Its the way the phone and ipod is operated that makes it so much better.

Its great that the internet has become useable on a phone and a MP3 player.

IPHONE has many features, it allows you to use;

SMS

EMAIL

PHONECALLS

VOICEMAIL

GAMES

INTERNET

ETC.

you can get updates on weather/directions for journeys

all in one phone.

IPOD TOUCH you can get;

GAMES

EMAILS

INTERNET

NETWORKING COMMUNICATION

ETC.

because the ipod/ iphone have become so popular the phone industry is improving at a rather fast pace looking for better features.

Internet TV set to take over?

In the future, internet will be taking over TV sets, Real is now offering a mini memory stick which has hardware in it, which will allow you to plug it into the tv and lets you play videos you have on it.
You can save files like pictures, videos and music on a memory stick and then plug it into the tv, then it will allow you to watch them on the tv.
This new way of watching your personal memories and stuff is quite popular in china.