Technology is a process of development. Human brain doesn’t have a limit of excellence. And tends to develop throughout life. We may say that technology process began with the invention of a wheel. Technology growth can be viewed as a geometric progression. The distance between first breakthroughs were millions of years and now it’s less then one decade. So when we talk about modern technology, we can hardly describe its range in last five years.  Five years ago such computers as PIII (Pentium III) were not even imaginable. But as far as technology goes we can wait five more years and these machines will no longer be as fast as they are now.

Technology is the science of systematic knowledge of the industrial arts, especially of the more important manufactures, as spinning, weaving, metallurgy, etc. Note: Technology is not an independent science, having a set of doctrines of its own, but consists of applications of the principles established in the various physical sciences (chemistry, mechanics, mineralogy, etc.) to manufacturing processes. --Internat. Cyc. (Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc)

Virtual reality is a hypothetical three-dimensional visual world created by a computer; user wears special goggles and fiber optic gloves etc., and can enter and move about in this world and interact with objects as if inside it. (WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University)          

            The latest technology breakthroughs are artificial intelligence and virtual reality, which are available because of new computer systems. This AIBO puppy from SONY is a good example of artificial intelligence. Instead of brains it has 100Mhz RISK processor and 16Mb internal memory. It can understand some human voices and react on common behavior like anger or happyness. It can learn from a piece of a software, which can be bought for additional price.(www.sony.com)

Avatars are being used in virtual chat rooms now. It's a digital presentation of a real person, who is representing him/herself with avatar. Avatar can change positions, can cary things, can show some feelings, can point to something. www2.cs.man.ac.uk/~owende/Project/PurposeV2.html

There are some appliances, which make virtual reality more real. One of them is binocular display. It throws you in 3D world and you can feel all reality of it. There are some entertainment concentrations that uses the technology of these displays to make virtual inviroment more realistic. With this displays, "gloves" also can be used to navigate through virtual world.

(www.thevrstore.com/industrial.htm)

I will point out some companies which have to do with entertainment technologies. Companies such as Microsoft, GT Interactive, Eidos, Macromedia are developing software for entertainment, such like 3D games and other related software. Eidos known for creating game personage Lara Croft, who never existed in reality, but fits perfectly in her 3D world. GT Interactive, which is in 100 Top companies, concentraiting its production on games.

I think that every company is being somehow related to technology. And technology will affect these companies, by mean of constant upgrades. Companies, which are producing different goods like SONY are always coming up with some new products. Because to stay on the ship of progress, company has to develop new technologies. So different companies are working in variaty of fields, where these companies take leading place. The more company is being involved in technology, the quicker it will develop. The technology development leads to new job places.

I don't think that something completely new might emerge, that nothing leads to that new change. There are always some factors that lead to something new. I think that game producing compamies may come out with virtual reality + game combination. There are already some projects, that might lead to it. I saw some games, that were using binocular display + glove combination.

In general I think that technolgy will make a big impact on everybody. As we can see now cars have a lot of devices, that can say; "Fasten your seatbelt", or "Your car have some problems with engine, go to repair". As it was mentioned in PC Magazine, even refrigirator might tell, that you are running out of milk, or something else.

I am in opinion that technology will affect my life crusially. I think I might work in some development laborotory. Working on new technology projects. Basicly technology can affect education. I can imagine a virtual classroom, where everybody study staying at home at the same time. Virtual environment can be used in medicine to train surgeons. It's harmless to do surgury on virtual patient.