You will be able to express yourself through an animated character and even give other avatars a virtual hug using the Lively.com service from Google, the company said.

In specially-created chatrooms that can be embedded into websites your avatar will be able to meet other avatars belonging to surfers around the world.

"If you enter a Lively room embedded on your favourite blog or website, you can immediately get a sense of the room creator's interests, just by looking at the furniture and environment they chose," said Niniane Wang of Google.

Within the rooms, virtual TV sets and picture frames can be used to show YouTube videos and your digital photographs.

It's currently only compatible with Windows XP and Vista operating systems and the Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers.

www.lively.com

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