O Brave New World That Has Such Avatars in It!

The virtual world Second Life, a landscape of primping avatars, ballroom dancing bears, space stations and vampire castles, has a new -- and maybe even more surreal -- inhabitant: the Arlington County government.

Visitors can take a seat in swiveling office chairs and scan understated orange and gray promotional posters

While the setting is cyber, the economic development official behind the site is real.

Virtual worlds remain a social and technological frontier, where people, through their animated alter egos, or avatars, can act out fantasies

But as designers keep pushing to make the worlds more realistic and easier to navigate, the Washington area has become home to creative efforts to move government toward such realms.

At the University of the District of Columbia, criminal justice students practice investigations and patrols

clipped from: www.washingtonpost.com

Second Life is an opportunity to be what you always wanted to be

virtual settings can stimulate the imagination.