http://www.technologyreview.com/news/536...al-worlds/
EXCERPT: [...] The technology could also be used to create real-world simulations that reveal, for instance, the effect that closing a major railway station would have during a disease epidemic, or how a radical change in a government’s housing policy might affect a country’s infrastructure. Improbable has developed techniques that make it possible to share large amounts of information between multiple servers nearly instantaneously. This will allow many more players to experience a virtual world together than is currently possible. It will also allow more realistic physical interactions to take place within those worlds. Currently, in even the most elaborate virtual worlds, some characters and objects cannot interact because it would require more computational power than is available.....
EXCERPT: [...] The technology could also be used to create real-world simulations that reveal, for instance, the effect that closing a major railway station would have during a disease epidemic, or how a radical change in a government’s housing policy might affect a country’s infrastructure. Improbable has developed techniques that make it possible to share large amounts of information between multiple servers nearly instantaneously. This will allow many more players to experience a virtual world together than is currently possible. It will also allow more realistic physical interactions to take place within those worlds. Currently, in even the most elaborate virtual worlds, some characters and objects cannot interact because it would require more computational power than is available.....