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Now you can be anyone or anything you want to be - online. With www.lively.com, even Google is stepping into the world of 3D. And it may be the answer to your wildest dreams.

Download a simple plugin and voila, it is virtual reality at your fingertips. You can even join a room and choose your virtual character. But how’s this different from other virtual worlds like Second Life?

Lively is accessed over your web browser, which means no large software downloads. And your personal room can be embedded into your own web page. It even works with Facebook and chat.

Virtual Worlds Expert, Rahul Dutta says, “I hate it. It required way too much bandwdth to run properly and because it’s a new application and it crashes often. But I see what Google’s doing. They are trying to bring Web 3D or virtual reality into the mainstream.”

www.vivaty.com and www.imvu.com all let you experience virtual reality. They both require you to download players but claim to work seamslessly with social networks. And since they have beeen around longer than Lively, the bugs are fewer and far between.

Although all these applications are still being tested, what you see is a clear step from two dimensional to three dimensional characters changing the way you interact online

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Sachin Tendulkar’s childhood friend, Vinod Kambli, and coach, Ramakant Achrekar, are hoping that the ‘master batsman’ overtakes Brian Lara’s record of most runs in Test cricket during the first outing in Sri Lanka.

“Knowing Sachin’s penchant for runs, I will not be surprised if he gets those 172 runs at the Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC), the venue for the first Test itself. Moreover, the SSC ground is one of his happy hunting grounds as he averages over 110 runs per innings with three hundreds and one fifty from three Tests. I sincerely hope he gets those runs,” former Indian batsman Kambli told Cricketnext on Tuesday.

“Another reason, I can think of for him (Sachin) to get those 172 runs at the SSC is, his current form and his hunger for runs when in good form. He top-scored for the Indians with a 60 plus runs in the only practice match on a difficult pitch and the SSC is relatively a batsmen-friendly wicket. My hunch is that he (Tendulkar) will go for it sooner than later,” Kambli, who has been in many partnerships with Tendulkar since their schooldays, added.

“Sachin loves to play without any pressure whatsoever. He also knows that the sooner he gets those (172) runs the better it will be for him as well as for his team.

“If he manages to get those runs in the first Test itself, then there will be no stopping him for the rest of the series. Mendis (Ajantha) or even Murali (Muralitharan) will have no effect on him and that will be a very good sign for the whole team,” the former southpaw observed.

Dronacharya award winner and the man who continues to shape many a Mumbai cricketer’s career, Achrekar, was not very sure of his former ward getting to the world record in the very first Test but hoped he would do so.

“Whether Sachin gets to the record in the forthcoming series or not is difficult to say even though everyone would be praying for him to do so. I wish he plays an important role for his team on this wicket, which has seen him score heavily,” Achrekar observed.

“When he called me up last week, like he does during foreign tours, he sounded very positive even though I did not ask him about the record. Thankfully, he has started the tour on the right note, top-scoring for his team in the three-day match and I am sure we can expect many more runs from his blade,” the coach added.

After stately homes, the Mittals are now eyeing heritage hotels of Britain.

One of the world’s richest families, they are considering investing in the company behind upmarket country hotels including Cliveden, near Heathrow, and The Royal Crescent in Bath.

An agency representing the Mittals is said to be in talks with Von Essen Hotels, one of Britain’s largest privately-owned collections of luxury hotels, for a stake in the business, according to The Telegraph. However, there is as yet no confirmation of the talks from both parties.

The Indian-born family’s interest in high-end heritage hotels is a departure from their previous pursuit of expensive private homes in London. They already own three properties in Kensington Palace Gardens, London’s most expensive street.

The senior Mittals live in a house, probably the largest private house in central London after Buckingham Palace, which they bought for 57 million pounds four years ago. Their second purchase was considered Britain’s most expensive, at 117 million pounds, apparently to house the Mittal heir-apparent, Aditya, and his family. A month later, the former embassy of the Philippines changed hands for 70 million pounds.

The hotels they are said to be interested in are seeped in British history. Cliveden House, set amid 376 acres of formal gardens, parkland and an idyllic bend in the River Thames, has a past going back 300 years.

Several prominent persons have called it their home over the years, the most famous being Nancy Astor, the first woman MP of Britain. Queen Victoria, a confidante of the original owner, the Duchess of Sutherland, used to drop in for a quite cup of tea, records show.

Guests have included every British monarch since George I as well as Charlie Chaplin, Winston Churchill, Harold Macmillan, Roosevelt, George Bernard Shaw, to name a few.

The campus also houses the Spring Cottage, an exclusive mansion, which was the hub of the most famous political scandal in the 1960s when Stephen Ward, John Profumo and Christine Keeler were staying when they triggered the infamous Profumo scandal.

The Royal Crescent in the Roman town of Bath in Somerset is among the world’s unique buildings. The crescent-shaped structure, now a heritage hotel, was built by Britain’s well-known architect, John Wood, and is considered a masterpiece of European architecture

Lewis Hamilton had just produced a drive of breathtaking brilliance to win the German Grand Prix and, having finished all the podium celebrations, the winner’s press conference and assorted television interviews, was about to walk back into his team’s motorhome.

As Hamilton walked in, still dressed in his driving suit, the milling throng burst into spontaneous applause and cheers; everyone wanted to shake his hand and hug him as the team’s winning anthem pumped out on the speakers.

Such are the pleasures of life for Hamilton, who now rules McLaren like a young prince and is treated with affection and love by his colleagues who, like him, believe that it is his destiny not only to win the world championship this year, but for many years hence. That, of course, is because there is something special about Hamilton on the track and his performance yesterday, like his drive at Silverstone in the rain two weeks ago, was indeed special. Having dominated the field in qualifying, the 23-year-old, who now leads the championship by four points, started in blisteringly fast form, whipping round Hockenheim’s sweeping corners and twisty “infield” section half a second quicker than Felipe Massa, of Ferrari. The Brazilian, who started alongside him on the grid, was to finish the day looking shell-shocked in third place, behind an improbable second place for Nelson Piquet, his young fellow countryman, in the Renault.

Hamilton was in a class of his own as he played his car like a virtuoso in front of thousands of Mercedes employees in the crowd at a circuit that is a home from home for McLaren. In the early stages there was something almost Schumacheresque in his precision and ruthlessness and it looked like we were in for a clinical but uneventful afternoon. Then came the curve ball and a sequence of events in which Hamilton revealed his fighting qualities.

After a big smash for Timo Glock, the Toyota driver, whose car suffered a suspension failure at 130mph and then slewed across the track before hammering into the pitwall, the safety car was deployed. McLaren and every other team faced a difficult decision. Most of Hamilton’s rivals were pulled in for fuel, to last them until the end of the race, but McLaren decided to leave a somewhat puzzled Hamilton out there behind the Mercedes saloon. They were gambling that the interruption would be short and that Hamilton would be able to build a big enough lead afterwards to pit again and still win. It was a debatable decision and, with hindsight, it was probably wrong.

Hamilton was like a climber who, through no fault of his own, had fallen in sight of the summit. Now he had to climb all over again because when he did pit for the second time he came back out in fifth place, nearly 19 seconds off the new leader, Nick Heidfeld, of BMW. Between him and an improbable victory were his team-mate Heikki Kovalainen, Massa and Piquet and he had only 16 laps of the 67 left to get past them.

There are plenty of drivers, even at this rarefied level and even with one of the two fastest cars at their disposal, who would buckle in the face of this task and settle for a podium position or less - Kimi Raikkonen, of Ferrari, who could finish only sixth, being a case in point, as are Massa and Kovalainen - but Hamilton is not made that way. There was never any question that he would settle for less than a win and there was little doubt that he would pull it off so long as those who would have to be beaten did not do something stupid.

First Kovalainen made way, another stark reminder of his demotion to a supporting role to Hamilton, then the driver in the smoky yellow helmet in the car with No22 on its silver nose set about butchering Massa’s lead as Heidfeld pitted. Like a lion stalking his lunch, there was only one way this was going to end as Hamilton put the Brazilian out of his misery at the Spitzkehre hairpin, his favourite killing ground.

Afterwards he revealed that he thought he had won at that point and had to be told by his team that there was still Piquet to pass. Again big cats and their prey was the imagery that came to mind as Hamilton hunted down one of the worst rookies in recent Formula One history and roared away to his fourth win of the season.