Virtually a Reality: Here Comes the "Emotion Engine".

The new Sony Playstation II, still more than a year away from store shelves, is already creating a sensation in California's high-tech industry because its graphics are so amazingly lifelike--and its price tag will be under $500.

Featuring an advanced microprocessor dubbed the "Emotion Engine," the machine promises to deliver animated graphics with the realism of the movie Toy Story. That means movement, characters, and entire environments can be produced on the fly in response to the movement of a joystick or other control. Sony and partner Toshiba say the new graphics processor has enough power to show humanlike motions such as facial expressions, as well as to learn, and to recognize speech. One analyst says it will merge TV and video games.