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By Al Giovetti





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Wild Bill Stealey and Interactive Magic Preview new Speaking Technology MEGAvoice(TM) and DEMON-2(TM) Technologies

Interactive Magic's new MEGAvoice Technology allows people from around the world to speak to one another while playing games directly over the Internet.

Interactive Magic Chairman "Wild Bill" Stealey demonstrated the new technology while flying the company's award-winning WarBirds game against other players from Europe, Asia and Australia. At the news conference, programmers from Interactive Magic outlined that their MEGAvoice technology tackles limited bandwidth issues so that players can talk over the Internet using ordinary modems and telephone lines.

"Traditionally players have had to type messages back and forth while trying to fly at the same time. Now I can focus on flying and talk to my wingman using a Radio Shack microphone or headset," said Interactive Magic CEO "Wild Bill" Stealey. "It's more like the real World War II pilots who used their radios to communicate with each other." The new MEGAvoice technology will be available in all current and future iMagic Online games.

Interactive Magic also unveiled details about future development of their DEMON(TM) terrain technology series. Interactive Magic's DEMON technology works in several layers. First, the DEMON engine creates a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of an entire battle area. This high fidelity DEM accurately depicts mountains, hills, and valleys, and sloping terrain in the area of the world depicted. Next, the DEMON engine takes the actual satellite data from each area and applies it directly to the Digital Elevation Model.

DEMON-1(TM), which is being used in Interactive Magic's upcoming iF-22 simulation, allows players to fly over actual satellite data from Bosnia and the Ukraine. At the morning news conference, representatives from the iMAGIC LAB's team discussed their new DEMON-2(TM) engine. DEMON-2 is being enhanced to improve terrain details at lower levels for Interactive Magic's upcoming simulation of the A-10 Warthog airplane.