Virtual Reality - A one way ticket? :: essays papers

Virtual Reality - A one way ticket?Virtual Reality is considered one of the most enkindle technologiestoday, constantly evolving and improving. According to Eric Drexler, aworld known pioneer in this field, VR is A combination of computer andinterface devices (goggles, gloves, etc.) that present a mathematical functionr with the conjuration of being in a three dimensional world of computer generatedobjects. The term virtual truthfulness, is not finite in its meaning,but generally includes background VR, immersion VR, where the goggles andgloves are used, and projection VR.The virtual veryity technology is not yet perfect and still tooexpensive for the common man. The use of high-end VR is mainlyrestricted to larger companies, and to special areas such as medicalsurgery and pilot training. Home users are limited to desktop virtualreality programs, which lets them navigate in three-dimensional worlds,but seldom gives the feeling of actually being there. The entertainmentindustry has yet to embrace the technology in climb scale, but in hisbook Virtual Reality Howard Rheingold states Used today inarchitecture, engineering and design, tomorrow in mass-marketentertainment, surrogate travel, virtual surgery and cybersex, by thenext century VR will have transformed our lives.Will VR cause people to lose their grip on the real world, or is itjust a continuation of previous developments that took people toimaginary places?People seem to always have escaped to imaginary worlds, to get a wayfrom the stress of real disembodied spirit and to relax. We have all experiencedGreek theatre, read novels and been to the cinema, and lived ourselvesinto fiction stories that we identify with. Our imagination creates afiction world, which leads us away from real life for a moment of time.In our own utopia, we forget contemporary problems of reality.Even though the virtual reality technology creates a utopia for us toexplore, it is in a lot of ways different from other developme nts weknow so well today. June Deery, from the Rensselaer PolytechnicInstitute in Troy says whereas in fiction we imagine and empathize, incyberspace we are supposed to actually step into the other world.This means that the other world is not created in our minds, but isalready there. We have to croak in that world and take part in it, notonly with our mind, but by using our senses, such as seeing, hearingand touching. These are our navigation tools. This world is imaginaryin the way that it is not of something real, but a result of theprogrammer of that worlds imagination. It is virtual.