Since then, related innovations have produced a new marketplace where businesses of all sizes turn prospects into customers in a virtual, parallel universe.
Australian researchers successfully implanted and tested an early prototype bionic eye, while online retailer Ditto released its new 3D virtual fitting technology that lets customers try on glasses online.
With the rapid rise of the consumerized endpoint, many enterprise customers are looking at Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) as a security solution that can deal with an unmanaged, heterogeneous set of endpoint devices.
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Hiro estimates that the potential market size for sales of virtual items in the U.S. is in the billions of dollars, but that issues like too many virtual currencies are roadblocks for potential customers.
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NTT, with bags of cash, a great brand name and a virtual monopoly on local calls, offering customers a one-stop shop.
Behind the scenes, data traffic for the sites from regular customers was directed to a series of virtual traps, known as sinkholes, that log information about who is trying to use the service.
This virtual currency will be available for U.S. customers to purchase apps, games, and in-app items on the Kindle Fire.
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Through its turnkey CNG system, OsComp is successfully delivering gas to customers in the oilfield though a natural gas virtual pipeline that includes trailers and unloaders.
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Credit card issuers are increasingly using social-media sites to engage with customers, and some consumer advocates worry the virtual may replace the physical pitch on college campuses.
Customers of this new offering will use the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud to organize their cloud resources.
Social business leaders are prepared and eager to have their customers actively participate in the business by leaving their virtual doors open and lights on encouraging ongoing participation across product, marketing, sales and service areas.
Most customers are confining their virtualized infrastructure into secure zones, or virtual local area networks (VLANs).
Resource pooling is the ability of a cloud to serve multiple customers using a multi-tenant model with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to demand.
Its 150 news, music and entertainment channels draw to the site customers who spend real money for real goods at NetRadio's virtual music and software stores.
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The slow U.S. sales growth and the virtual halt to expansion here explain why Greenberg is so eager to bring in new customers.
But OnStar's virtual diagnostic service provides immediate data that can give engineers a jump on potential quality issues before customers even notice a problem.
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But it also takes a slice of the sales of digital tractors, swords and other virtual goods in games run by Zynga and others that use Facebook's platform to reach customers.
The virtual currency also is starting to make inroads in the brick-and-mortar world, where customers can pay with bitcoins using their mobile phones.
For most Stackato customers, this means their own private cloud, whether on-premise or a hosted virtual private cloud (or even a combination of both as a hybrid cloud setup).
The slow sales growth and virtual halt to expansion in the U.S. explain why Greenberg is so eager to bring in new customers.
With Nina, companies can quickly add speech-based virtual assistant capabilities to their existing iOS and Android mobile apps, greatly enhancing the self-service experience for their customers.
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