Adding to the experience are the free plastic buckets and spades for making sandcastles, portable goals for beach soccer, nets for volleyball and even giant touch-screen internet terminals on the boardwalk.

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Because only 20% of French homes have internet access, the government promises that computer terminals will be set up in town halls, with officials on hand to help citizens complete their online transactions.

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Much the way Ethernet changed PCs from stand-alone terminals to local networks and the broadband Internet changed everything else, the full-scale networking of the slot machine will reshape the largest profit stream in the casino business.

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Mr Kusnetzky predicted that sales of information appliances - from stripped down terminals used primarily to access to the internet, to smart mobile phones and handheld computers such as the Palm Pilot - would outpace PC sales by 2004.

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