 PRESIDENT’S WEB LOG 2007 Tim Mack, President |
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Virtual Reality 5/07
© 2007 |
May 2007,
No. 6 One of the best things about working for the World Future Society is that you get into conversations about every possible subject. The last Blog was about Korea, and Korean media has now come to the US to talk about the Future of Virtual Reality. Of course I could talk about the development of economic, political and even social foresight models which are supposed to represent new directions for forecasting (even though I am reluctant to trust a model if I can’t see its ‘clockwork’the ‘black box’ syndrome) but in fact there are so many really interesting things going on in VR just about everywhere. I am not talking about 3-D games or Second Life vandalism at John Edward’s virtual campaign HQ, but incredible new ways to interface with technologyshort of becoming a cyborg. One of the confusions about VR is that most attention has been focused on the interactive ‘social’ applications, while much of the early progress in VR was made in the industrial and research arenas, such as visualization of geology for oil exploration or molecular recombination for biotechnology. It is only more recently that development of full interface technology has been accelerating. By full interface, I don’t mean just the sight and sound of a VR helmet or a cartoon world like Second Life. I am referring to the senses of touch, temperature, pressure etc. that are needed in machine interfaces like prosthetic limbs that use neural systems and ‘feel’ like the real thingintegrating control and sensory feedback systems. In the commercial world, the rapid fire development of dressing room mirrors that superimpose different versions or colors of clothing under consideration (and can even send these images over the Internet to get advice from absent friends) are building a sales experience that combines VR and ‘real world’ data to facilitate decision making. And companies are not just setting up sales offices in Second Life, but personnel offices as well. Not only does your avatar apply for the job, but the job duties are carried out totally within this virtual universe. Some of the areas appropriate for a full digital format are advertising, site maintenance and even virtual retail. As always, the challenge is to integrate the content with the ‘look and feel’ so that communications is both appropriate and meaningful. This is done with real time input from sensory tracking technology or through model building in VRML or other comparable language. The next generation is not VR for human learning, but VR to assist AVA (autonomous virtual agent) learning where you avatar is becoming able to act independently on your behalf. As always, I am very interested in your own experiences and understanding of this fascinating area, and in feedback on where WFS should be looking for the ‘cutting edge’ of the future in virtual reality and other areas. So let me know what you thinking is!!!
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