David Cameron has launched his own interactive web page, with online video posts, written blogs and podcasts from him as a attempt to win the votes of the younger generation who are “disaffected from mainstream politics”.

The website www.webcameron.org.uk is part of initiative designed to make the Tories, one of the most technologically progressive parties in Europe.

Taking inspiration from online networking site MySpace and online shared content sites YouTube and flickr, “Dave” as Cameron likes to be known, wants to use the power of the Internet to reach out to the blogging generation.

Tying in with the annual party conference in Bournemouth, the launch of the website has a series of video blogs by the Conservative leader. Cameron will provide regular clips to the site, with him speaking directly to the camera.

The site will also feature guest bloggers, starting with US Presidential-hopeful John McCain as well as video blogs and written posts from members of the public that will be stored and shared online.

Cameron in one of his first posts states: “I want to tell you what the Conservative party is doing, what we’re up to, give you behind-the-scenes access, so you can actually see what policies we’re developing, the things that we are doing and have that direct link…this is one of the ways we want to communicate with people properly about what the Conservative party stands for.”

A Tory official told the Guardian: “The Cameron team saw the need to reorient the way we conduct politics, not just by doing things for the traditional media.

“This is a real challenge to us to show that we understand the web: it’s open, it’s not spin, and we have got to take risks”.

Ironically, one of the posts shows Cameron in his homely kitchen with his family around him washing up whilst using environmentally friendly Ecover detergent, and talking about the importance of “clean politics”. Subtle stuff.

Psychiatry Professor Peter Yellowlees has helped his students better understand the experience of hallucinations of schizophrenics by creating his own practice in a virtual world.

Residents in this “metaverse” or metaphysical universe-a three dimensional world created by a Californian firm called Second Life can meet, discuss, mediate and experience other things that other residents have created.

Yellowlees, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Davis, leases his own island from the online virtual world creators.

There, he has built a clinic, where his students can visit and attend his lectures inside Second Life and then experience hallucinations that he created, to help them understand the effects of schizophrenia.

It was by using Second Life software, that Yellowlees could create hallucinations of what schizophrenics go through, helping others and his students better understand what their patients experienced.

“It’s so powerful that some get quite upset,” Yellowlees told the Economist.

The Economist reported that when Mr Yellowlees invited, as part of a trial, Second Life’s public into the ward, 73% of the visitors said afterwards that it “improved [their] understanding of schizophrenia.”

Admittedly, many of the 747, 263 users participate in Second Life “just for fun”, jumping from cloud to cloud or wandering through castles being some of the features residents can experience.

However this virtual world is not a just a pretty façade of exotic imagery as support groups for cancer survivors meet and converse online, politicians meet and discuss issues with reporters, making Second Life an “enhanced communications medium”.