From: Michael M. Butler (butler@comp-lib.org)
Date: Thu Mar 11 1999 - 18:37:19 MST
Guess I'll see your two cents and raise three. :)
Consider extending your description: retinal painting *and* three multimode
cameras (binocular from you, plus a face shot); and five sound
channels--binaural to you ("headphones" based on Wolf Ear tech, but made
failsafe), binaural(those "wolf ears" again) + close-mike from you. The
retinal sprayers might look like Ant Man mandibles and sit over your eyes
only as much as a classic Plantronics Starset sits over your mouth. OK so far?
I also want 24/7 record capability with "911"-style parallel
playback-while-record for all channels. That's SMOPD. Ana-Digi cellphone
with silent cuing? Naturalamente.
The rest of your stuff about [not] "needing" I/O devices seems muddled to me.
Trackballs drift; I'd suggest a Cat trackpad.
I consider the following to be a partial list of things that would be handy
when I'm trying to move about in the world:
Proximity detection fields (spare eyes & ears) so I can subcontract my
attention if I am willing to risk it. Realtime orientation and location
data, both center-of-mass and head tracking (twelve degrees of freedom);
somthing that can pass for force feeback (which probably won't actually
*be* force feedback, but can be learned by those motivated) --either
vibratory or galvanic or both; and gestural, voice tone, vital sign and
postural tracking and input. Many of these could possibly be based on
video&laser technology or ubiquitous computing. Some could be built into a
vest or shirt yoke today. Some are being prototyped for the military right
now.
And there's always Morse code in extremis, and no, I'm not joking.
Augmented reality *ought* to be more effective than closed-world ("hard") VR.
That especially includes reducing simulator sickess. Ubiquitous computing
or cellular computing *ought* to make AR easier. But that probably puts us
in David Brin privacy territory.
Having worked in VR and pen computing, I gotta say the RAH quote is right
on the money.
MMB
>say... basicly, it said that what with retinal projection system tech
being so
>close on the horizen, the conventional wraparound goggle systems will most
>likely never be. the most likely setup for portables (to fit in the palmtop
>niche) will be a combo of headphone, microphone, and retinal projector, all
>built into one little unit... if u just had a cable running from that to the
>proccessing unit, u wouldnt really need any other input-output devices
(except
>maybe a trackball)...
> just my two cents...
>
>"a nine day's wonder is taken as a matter of course on the tenth day" --
>robert heinlien
>
>sayke
>
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