VR (yawn), AR (hmm) was Re: Sexbots??

Michael M. Butler (butler@comp-lib.org)
Thu, 11 Mar 1999 17:37:19 -0800

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
>