"Virtual Motion" for Future Video Games? 288
Piete writes "The BBC's Tomorrow's World has just shown an item on MotionWare.
It looked very impressive.
By stimulating the inner ear, the user feels that they are moving.
Some very impressive shots of children swaying and falling over! "
Re:With my luck... (Score:2)
You're obviously not a true sysadmin. A true sysadmin would be trying to find ways to fit their users with the device. Just imagine it - bounce the user off walls every time they overload the network downloading pr0n. . .
Uuh, I think, I'm getting sick. (Score:1)
Quake 4 - The Vomit Comet
Duke Puke'em
Aliens vs. Pukator
Re:And think... (Score:1)
I suspect, as normal, the first people to REALLY pick this up will be the pornographers. We've already got the bodysuits to give passable VR sex - this could make it all rather more interesting. Imagine the market if they program this to a zero-gravity effect model, somehow...
Greg
Q3A Tier 6 (Score:1)
Mr disco was in the wrong place.
AAAAHHH!!!!
And what happens if I use a teleport while I'm falling? The blow involved in the transition from free fall to standing on solid groud would probably knock me unconscious...
On the other hand, it brings new meaning to force feedback. I'd actually have to moderate my use of the rocket launcher.
+++
Re:And think... (Score:2)
Right, I'm off to patent a vomit-proof keyboard - the next Big Thing.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Re:Some Possible Problems? (Score:2)
There have been some reported eye problems. Imagine you're in a VR world, wandering round. Imagine you walk up to the edge of a cliff and look over it. Ordinarily your eyes would have to refocus, but you're in VR so the screen is still the same distance from your eyes. Which has apparently caused some problems, as the eye was actually tricked well enough to try and refocus...
Greg
Re:Kinesthetic sense (Score:1)
(The cure for 1984 is 1917.)
Re:Test it... (Score:2)
My Dad's pretty reliable at this, too, but with a small amount of practice and thought it's possible to do this from the sun and stars. So if neither are even slightly visible - and on a cloudy day you're potentially going to get one horizone lighter than the other due to the position of the sun - you could test it pretty reliably.
Greg
Gibson (Score:1)
Esperandi
Otaku Programmer and everything else dealing with computers except networking
I fear this... (Score:4)
...So I'm happily playing Descent 5 some evening, with my linux-supported USB (hey, I can dream) Verti-go-go, when some '7337 haxor-type decides that the Ping of Death isn't enough and sends me an Oversized Packet of Core Dump... but it's not X that barfs, it's me. No way, Jose.
What's next? Virtua Fighter arcade machines with a little springy boxing glove to knock the wind out of you? How about the new ultra-VR goggles from STB that burn your retinas out if you look at the flare from a BFG 9000? Ooh! I know! The ultimate in teledildonics-- USB vice grips so you can get blue balls whilst on IRC!
Re:Will it help me play Quake??? (Score:1)
I downloaded the demo for the original Quake, and it made me so sick, that I wrote off the possibility of buying it. I didn't even try Quake 2.
For some reason, though, I decided I'd sit through the download and try Quake 3. It has so much more motion than Quake, and yet doesn't make me queasy. Could it be the increased amount of wide open spaces?
I can see how a virtual motion device may be helpful in Quake, but would proabably be downright brutal in Quake 3 (see my "Q3A tier 6" message below).
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Re:Some Possible Solutions (Score:2)
"Hey - *I'm* walking here..." Fthlurp!
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Re:more senses (Score:1)
Does anyone have a good explanation why birds only have two eyes? We can only effectively perceive depth in one plane due to the orientation of our eyes. Not a problem as we're land bound. But birds could take advantage of three in a triangular formation. So why don't any have three eyes?
Greg
Re:William Gibson (Score:1)
Esperandi
Snow Crash still rocks my ass.
Re:By the way, this brings up one of my pet peeves (Score:2)
Greg
Re:more senses (Score:2)
I would argue against counting the "muscular position sensors", since they are internal sensors. When most people think of "senses", they are referring to mechanisms that return information about the outside world. Otherwise, you could count all kinds of internal sensors, like the oxygen/nitrogen balance in the blood.
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how to inverse your vision (Score:2)
The image captured by your eyeball is actually upside down. The brain has learned to make us perceive that we see everything the right side up, but if you wear a pair of glasses which inverse the image captured by the eye (to make it properly displayed on the back of your eyeball), the brain will temporarily forget how to make you see everything the right side up.
People who wore such glasses went for a number of DAYS seeing everything upside down, even after taking them off.
[I hope to god that's understandable - I should have gone to bed a few hours ago]
The point is that our brain has several functions to perform to adjust to the physics of the real world. If you start screwing with the input, you're likely to get it confused.
bart.
Almost (Score:2)
Which is why Kryten tries lasering messages into Lister's arms, and eventually entering the game himself...
Re:By the way, this brings up one of my pet peeves (Score:2)
I personally would only count the mechanism rather than the particular information content. For example, I wouldn't count air-pressure because (I believe) that is caused by movement of the hairs on your skin, which is activating the mechanism of touch.
That's why I would count balance, because it's a separate mechanism that is making a measurement not covered by the other senses.
Now, as you point out, what we call "touch" does seem to make a lot of different measurements. I don't know enough about how nerves work to know if there are different sensors for each type of measurement, but they're all lumped into "touch".
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Simstim (Score:1)
Whiles the control would need to be much finer, surely similar techniques could be applied to creating induced sensory data directly into the brain. (Though my knowledge of the field is meager to say the least; perhaps there are minute differences in the way people use their brains - however sections may perform multiple functions, such as in the brain damaged.)
Re:more senses (Score:1)
Look at the inner ear
Well, I spoke about it with a girl and tried to look at it but she was so outraged by the comments I made that she left me off with two cheeks having a high blood pressure.
Is that what is called a Geek trying to date a girl???
Wow (Score:4)
Keyboards will need to be much more waterproof.
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Max V.
I'm not sure (Score:2)
(I'm imagining a bunch of teenage kids still living at home never leaving their "lair" rather than to eat and drink... or maybe not even that)...
I'm not convinced it's a bad thing, I just kinda wish that a heightened sense of responsibility came with all of these kinds of advancements...
(Apologies for the spelling errors, I just bought one of those damn ergonomic kbds...)
If you can't figure out how to mail me, don't.
Cure for Motion Sickness? (Score:4)
Wow (Score:2)
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Re:Motion Sickness, Zero Gravity and Car Trips (Score:2)
I know people who can't do it
Re:By the way, this brings up one of my pet peeves (Score:2)
I think that we detect air movement by the hairs on our skin, but I am certain that we can detect air pressure by another method. For instance, when you dive, climb a mountain, or go up in an unpressurised airplane, you will almost certainly need to equalise the pressure between your inner ear and the outside atmosphere.
Come to think of it, the way that is detected might also be a manifestation of touch due to membranes pressing against certain sensors (either from within or from without) harder than they otherwise should at 1 atmosphere.
Whaddya think?
Bah, it's patented... (Score:2)
It would probably ruin my quake playing though - I'm a fast twitch player and it would make me get disoriented. My eyes will move way faster than my ears will let me. =)
Re:how to inverse your vision (Score:2)
The interesting part was that their brains simply saw everything as upside down for a while, somewhere on the scale of a few weeks. The people wearing them just lived with seeing things upside down. Then, reasonably quickly, they adjusted such that their brains decided that it was dumb to be seeing things upside down, and they felt like everything was right-side-up again eventually.
But then, after they had become acclimated, taking the glasses off made everything seem upside down again. More a case of the adaptability of the brain than anything else.
Re:Wow (Score:3)
Considering the way some people like their pr0n, I'm surprised that hasn't already become a problem. :-)
If you can't figure out how to mail me, don't.
We want to know what the limit. (Score:2)
Re:more senses (Score:2)
There's no such thing as "depth in one plane"... the measurement of depth is the same in any plane, defined as the distance from the observer to a distant object.
Or, to put it another way, what information would be gleened from three eyes that you don't get from two eyes? If I turn my head sideways, I can still perceive the same distances.
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Re:Hmm (Score:2)
Oh well
cheats (Score:2)
Next time you're playing quake a player runs up to you and shoots you will something and bam!, your balance all thrown off...actually that would make a pretty cool weapon =)
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla [sourceforge.net]
The 8th Sense... (Score:2)
Re:Some Possible Problems? (Score:2)
Four huge video screens (one at the back for the rear-view mirror), force-feedback steering, completely enclosed car, all powered by an SGI Onyx [sgi.com]. They were going to use it for driver training.
Two very disturbing effects I wanted to share:
A friend of mine has magnetic sense (Score:2)
-Ted
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Do people just love to be masohistic nowadays? Anything that would tamper with this level of interaction with the internal parts of the human body are in fact not usually safe. Silicon breast implants ring a bell. Saccharine. Lead in gasoline. DDT. All of these so called "innovations" had horrendous prices to be paid by the individuals who were effected. Now just imagine if you will this little senario. I decide to play say the newest quake XXXVIII game with the new motion pack enhancements. I put some little thing like a hearing aid in my ear. I play the game for a while. However something slightly interesting goes wrong. You see unbenounced to me I have a congential birth defect or something that just causes me to have a predisposition to having equibrilium problems. Now somwwhere down the line maybe 5-10 years I start to have problems with my equibrilium. This because it's in the inner ear and would either affect my hearing or my brain potentially difficuly to operate on. This will mean that I would be permanently disabled for the rest of my life. Now I am sure that a full CAT scan of my brain my reduce these little problems from coming up but that dosn't insure total safety in terms of the vast majority of problems.
what it'd be like (Score:2)
I can also imagine games designed specifically for use with this, based on flying or something. Jumping off cliffs & such could be interesting. It sounds like this device is relatively weak, so they won't have to add safety measures to avoid convincing your body you just impacted the ground at 300mph, going to 0mph in a fraction of a second. Even when only affecting this one sense, I figure it'd be rather unpleasant.
I also think it'd be very neat to make use of this for blast effects in games, so when that rocket detonates at your feet, you feel the sudden acceleration away from it.
Test it... (Score:2)
Put on a blind fold, spin her around in a chair (with feet off the floor), and see if she can still point north. Repeat several times.
If she can, then tie a magnet to her head, and repeat the experiment. The Earth's magentic field is extremely weak, so the magnet should throw it off.
Frankly, I think that she's probably using dead reckoning rather than a magnetic sense. I seem to recall studies on this that showed that humans don't have a magnetic sense.
I could be wrong... anybody have reference to any studies? It would be interesting to know.
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Re:Just think of the games to come... (Score:3)
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Re:more senses (Score:2)
The point, though, is fairly simple. In the horizontal plane we perceive stereoscopically, due to the alignment of our eyes. In the vertical, we don't. Now, it's not difficult to see that the need is lower, but there should be an advantage for creatures operating properly in three dimensions having a third eye, out of vertical alignment with the other two. So why don't any have such an eye?
Greg
Re:By the way, this brings up one of my pet peeves (Score:2)
Come to think of it, the way that is detected might also be a manifestation of touch due to membranes pressing against certain sensors (either from within or from without) harder than they otherwise should at 1 atmosphere.
I think you're right. It's the expansion/contraction of the air pushing on the membranes, just like I might feel pressure in my stomach from too much gas. :)
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Re:more senses (Score:2)
You're not "looking" at it the right way (pun intended). If I face forward and move my eyes up and down, left and right, I can tell distance to any object in the room. If I tilt my head sideways, I can do the same thing.
The point is that stereoscopic vision gives you the ability to tell the distance between two points.
Your point would be valid if I couldn't aim my eyes up and down and focus on an object outside of the horizontal plane. But since I can "swivel the plane", so to speak, two eyes can focus on any object and tell the distance.
If you're still not convinced, then give me an example of range information that cannot be measured by two eyes, but could be by three eyes.
Thinking about it, I will say this... it's possible that with three eyes you might get a little better peripheral depth perception on the vertical plane. If your eyes are aimed straight ahead, and something comes at you from above, it may be that you could get slightly more accurate depth information about something at the edges of your range of vision. Note, however, that you can still tell the distance with two eyes, it's just a little less accurate. I mean, I manage to duck just fine if something swings at me.
Vision is primarily designed to give fine information on what the eyes are aimed at, and coarse information at the periphery (like movement, etc). I don't think accuracy is really needed all the much.
To answer your original question (why not three eyes), I think the potential small advantages of peripheral depth perception don't outweigh the added complexity of processing a third eye. It's hard enough for the brain to process two eyes, imagine the complexity of merging three images! For evolution to make three eyes work well would require a huge advantage in survivability. It's like asking why don't we have four arms? That would be hugely useful (especially when soldering), but the advantages of four arms don't outweigh the added brain complexity that the coordination would require (and the probably loss of some other ability... brains are only so big).
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Motion Sickness, Zero Gravity and Car Trips (Score:3)
Well, basically, your eyes & ears are telling you one thing ("Woo - I'm running & weaving down a corridor") and your inner-ear is saying another ("Dude, you're sitting on yer ass!"). As a result, your brain hearkens back to the 'good ol days' back in the savannas/trees when, if your eyes & ears didn't agree with your inner ear, it probably meant you'd eaten something nasty that you'd better get out of your system fast. Thus - PUKE-O-RAMA!
I was speaking to a NASA guy *way* back in 93/94 in Boston who was delivering a speach to a VR group. He noted that being weightless meant that your eyes & ears told you one thing, but your inner-ear said another. "Brain to stomach - hello - evacuate!"
When the shuttle went up with mission specialists, many were seriously affected by motion sickness. Every minute that someone is in space costs a fortune, so it was not a good look to have them working at less than peak efficiency. So, NASA wound up using lots of nifty toys to simulate the disorientation on the ground so space-cadets could build up resistance to the nausea, etc. These included slowly rotatating a person who was strapped down sideways with their inner-ear at the center of the rotation. They'd then project images of the inside of the shuttle on the walls as the person rotated, thus inflicting the disorientation that can occur in space.
Now, of course, they can also use a VFX-1 and Descent to produce a very similar result at much less cost (and probably more fun for the space-cadet
Another way of getting a resistance to the disorientation is to have someone drive you around in a car. You sit in the back, facing backwards. Then, get a mirror and position it so you're looking forwards in the direction of travel. Focus on the mirror. Grab your barf-bag and tell the driver to start the car moving. Won't take long
So, the upshot is that yes, you get VR disorientation and this thing could be a cool aid to prevent puke-a-thon's during Quake/Descent/Aerobatics+VFX-1/etc. The problem to me appears to be that if you spend sufficient time wired in VR gear + this gismo, you stand a very real chance of reprogramming your reactions, etc.
Who's played DOOM/QUAKE/etc for hours on end and then tried to walk/drive home? Oh yes, great fun
Oh well, I guess I'll just have to buy one and try it out *grin*
Re:Some Possible Problems? (Score:2)
Speaking with several people who do testing with VR headsets they?ve noted problems with depth perception and motor skills after using the headsets.
That's not too surprising. It's basically an acclimation effect. The brain tends to continuously re-calibrate the interactions between the senses and the environment. VR throws off that calibration (temporarily) by stimulating only some of the senses. I suspect that the virtual motion device could either reduce the effect by providing some semblance of the normal relationship between the visual field and the vestibular sense, or it could make it worse by providing more reasonable but 'unreal' calibration data.
In any case, the effects are ALMOST certainly temporary, and at a guess would wear off in two weeks max. I base that on experiments where test subjects are fitted with glasses that invert their visual field. It took two weeks for the inversion to seem normal and for hand eye coordination to normalize and another two weeks to recover once the glasses were removed.
The plasticity implied by that experiment is amazing to me!
Re:Some Possible Problems? (Score:2)
That would take care of the eye-mind connection, but I guess then you have to deal with the fact that the eyes really are not focusing.
Perhaps a lens system that causes the eyes to actually need to re-focus. Just have the lenses shift focus opposite of what you want the eye to do. That would actually enhance the realism of the visual display somewhat.
Re:And think... (Score:2)
Downside is they're not (l)user-proof. We lost so many keycaps from them we kept a full keyboards worth in the bottom of out service boxes, and forcefully sticking a paperclip into the PS/2 expansion jack will kill them if done just right.
Re:more senses (Score:2)
I would argue against counting the "muscular position sensors", since they are internal sensors.
The position sensors combined with the tendon stretch sensors tell us the weight and firmness of an object. They also contribute to the sensation of falling. I can see your point though, there's a file line to draw somewhere.
Side note: some weightlifters foolishly inject anaestetic into their tendons to defeat the stretch sensors and allow them to lift more. As a result, they get severely torn muscles and tendons. That's why the practice is banned in competition.
Re:more senses (Score:2)
I wonder if you could take one of these things, hook it up to a gyrosope, and provide a prosthetic balancing device?
Excellent idea! I suppose it comes down to where the damage is. As long as the nerve itself is still functioning reasonably well, it should work.
Dangerous (Score:2)
Re:I'm not sure (Score:2)
I'm not convinced it's a bad thing, I just kinda wish that a heightened sense of responsibility came with all of these kinds of advancements...
Perhaps a handy IR controled add-on for the parents? "It's not good for you to stay in your room all the time, you'll get sick! Why don't you get outside and mow the lawn?"...."Yeah, Yeah, later, I won't get sick"...CLICK!... [various yacking noises]
With my luck... (Score:4)
Automated kick-me-while-I'm-down machine.
OTOH, it would be an interesting experiment in negative reinforcement (can you train a good sys admin by causing pain every time he screws the system over?).
Re:Portability, source (Score:2)
Will they also release a LGPL version of the code? IANALU
Since it's a serial port interface, it shouldn't be very hard to reverse engineer. It could be a sickening experiance though.
And think... (Score:5)
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Re:Wow (Score:2)
That being said, I really want one of these for quake.
Nate Custer
Re:Some Possible Problems? (Score:2)
Does anybody here really know what the short and long terms effect of this would be?
Please read the whole thread. That particular thread was not discussing the possable harm from the galvanic stimulation itself, just the effects of inaccurate sensory input.
Galvanic stimulation is generally considered safe, though there hasn't been much testing for long term/frequent exposure like gaming tends to be. It sounds like their employees will be the first to know!
I also imagine they WILL be somewhat concerned about safety since a billion dollar class action lawsuit can really screw up your profits.
I don't know what the Navy has to do with this!
Just think of the games to come... (Score:2)
Rollercoaster Tycoon II -- Now you can take your park for a spin.
NASA Space Camp -- Take a virtual ride in the Vomit Comet
M$ Flight Simulator 1901 -- Before the Y2K patch, you can do 3 flips until you realize there are no planes and start a simulated downward spiral.
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Quake and motion... (Score:2)
At least according to their claims... (Score:2)
Latency is an important issue but if this device's latency is synchronized to that of the display I don't see how it can make things worse
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Re:Bah, it's patented... (Score:2)
Cochlear Sympathy & roller-coasters (Score:2)
For me, random, changing motion == fine. Constant vertical-axis rotation == nausea. I wonder what that says about my inner ear?
Oh, and for the record: My vote for "Ride I Absolutely Will Never Get On Even If They Pay Me" goes to the spinning-teacups ride (the one with an Alice in Wonderland theme) at Disneyworld (or is it Disneyland?). I've never been to Disneyworld/land/whatever, and don't particularly want to. But I've seen short video clips of that ride, and it scares me! Constantly rotating around a vertical axis that ITSELF is rotating around another vertical axis... If you want to see me throw up in record time, put me on that ride.
Let's hear from anyone else who's interested: what roller-coasters or rides make you throw up, and what leaves your inner ear completely indifferent?
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Re:next step (Score:2)
SaintAlex
Observe, reason, and experiment.
By the way, this brings up one of my pet peeves... (Score:3)
It's commonly repeated that humans have five senses... touch, taste, sight, hearing, and smell.
However, I contend that humans have six senses, but for some reason, one gets no respect. The sixth, of course, is balance. You could also call it a sense of gravity. Think about it.
Any theories on why we have the popular notion of only five senses? I've never come up with a good one myself.
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It's probably gonna be bought out... (Score:2)
Some Possible Problems? (Score:4)
Very basically put the problem tends to stem from the fact that the simulations are real enough to fool the senses (obviously the intent). However, the physically the body gets out of sync with the senses. They've suited the effect and have found that the effect takes place after only a few hours for a while afterward. While with after a few hours of such exposure the effects are negligible, they've recorded worse problems after exposure of a few hours each day over a few weeks that even employees noticed outside of testing. The effects so far do seem to wear off in a week or so, but studies of regular usage over more than a few months have not been completed (or at least they haven't released them).
Re:next step (Score:2)
"Honey? What's that you're wearing?"
"OH, nothin'"
-Saxton
_________
Re:With my luck... (Score:2)
Re:Cure for Motion Sickness? (Score:3)
Of course, to be really effective, you setup motion sensors on the boat and then the your sensors are wired to the boat's computer, which sends signals INVERSE to the force sensed by the sensors. If you could do it quick enough, it'd just cancel out and your brain would think you were rock steady...
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It'll make you forget you are at the comp... (Score:2)
Ex1. Imaging retrofitting Gran Turismo with this stuff... no more "Hey I'll spin out and just keep driving", you'll be messed up enough with your senses just from the pull of a normal turn to make the game THAT much more realistic.
Ex2. In Quake, you walk up to someone, hit them point blank with a rocket, and land on two feet and keep walking if you have enough health. But not if you feel like you got blown back halfway across the room in real life like the guy on the screen did. You'll rip out the mouse cord falling backwards.
Ex3. Those free-fall nose dives in MS Flight Simulator (or hell, Corncob 3D) are just a little more realistic now. The sensation of falling straight down while seeing it through 3d goggles and hearing it through headphones should make you shit a nice sized brick.
Re:Bah, it's patented... (Score:4)
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Re:By the way, this brings up one of my pet peeves (Score:2)
Rhetorical question... No, I'm serious. You're probably right that it's not a particularly "sexy" sense since there is not much texture to the information it conveys. Still, it's incredibly important to normal functioning.
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Re:I'm not sure (Score:3)
Too Late. This's already happened. I'm one of them.
The real concern that I raise from this is one of health. If we use these things, and slowly train our mind not to react from motion the same way, we're putting ourselves in danger from things. We rely on our instincts and such to help us physically react properly in bad situations, and it seems that reaction would be dulled using this.
Re:Cure for Motion Sickness? (Score:2)
I found an abstract describing the effect here:
Ant agonist motor responses correlate with kinesthetic illusions induced by tendon vibration [springer-ny.com]
Re:And think... (Score:2)
1)Play on a laptop or other portable(perhaps with a transmeta chip
2)Find 4 meter high roof.
3)Get on top of that roof.
4)As you're rocketjumping ingame jump of the roof in real life.
5)Go back to (3).
This also works for jumppads. If you want to crater, use a higher roof. Perhaps that ear thingie can help get you so dizzy so you fall of the roof.
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Re:Otaku (Score:2)
This is not what I am referring to. I have a better understanding of this than most - I am agorophobic and possible socio-phobic - I must telecommute in order to make a decent living.
I'm referring to those who completely escape. Don't act responsibly - don't do anything - just sit there and play games. Those who don't make any attempt to integrate in any way, shapw, or form.
If you can't figure out how to mail me, don't.
Will it help me play Quake??? (Score:2)
If this would solve that problem I would be first in line. I love the Quake stuff, but feeling absolutely horrid after 10 minutes is not fun.
Delete with confidence (Score:5)
Quake III support anybody? (Score:4)
Imagine if you will millions of teenagers across the globe puking their guts, without alcohol being involved.
Re:I'm not sure (Score:2)
As I used to be. I used to be on IRC for 15 hours a day. I even was an administrator on DALnet for a while (Remember Russell?). But I grew up. The good side is it gave me some needed skills, I don't know where I'd be without them.
But you raise a valid point as well.
If you can't figure out how to mail me, don't.
Hmm (Score:2)
Sorry about the rant here, I fully expect to be -1'd... but why, exactly, are we spending thousands of dollars developing virtual reality technology while other science programs stagnate and die? NASA is running on a shoestring budget.. there's a huge circle out in Texas that was abandoned before it even got moving (supercollider), and there isn't even any funds going into making sure we don't wind up being broadsided by a mile-wide asteroid. I'm just alittle irked that most of the civilized world would rather dedicate their money to fashion and developing trivial advances like this than solving issues which are very near and dear to our existance.
Here's some examples you WON'T be seeing on the front page of any newspapers:
- No funding to make sure an asteroid doesn't see the huge "hit me" sign pasted over the north pole.
- NASA finds extraterrestrial intelligence but Congress cut funding so they can't communicate with ET.
- Congress cuts funding to those "damn welfare mothers" and redirects it to Rebock shoes so they can help economically disadvantaged CEOs.
- Astronomy - God paints the 11-19th commandments on the moon Titan (and also gives instructions for contacting him), but due to cutbacks all telescopes were recycled to help Billy Graham talk about God on weekend sermons.
- Nanotech - one of the few programs that actually gets funding. Result? Thousands of nanobots eat the president and covertly take over the world. Pinky is amused, but Brain is not.
- Medical - Cure for cancer shelved in favor of research on bigger breast implants.
Groan. Sorry about the rant... I'm just getting seriously irked about the lack of responsibility in this Brave New Era of capitalism and global corporatism. Well, that's enough. I think I'll go login to MS-AOL-Sun-Netscape-Time-Warner-it's-internet-but- better version 2000 and download my daily allotment of spam.
Re:Some Possible Problems? (Score:2)
From the MotionWare page:
It helps reduce Cyber Sickness by coordinating the visual and vestibular inputs.
Guess that answers the question
My idea! (Score:3)
By the way, in response to the many that have already posted about it, this gadget would actually eliminate motion sickness if used properly. AFAIK, motion sickness happens when your eyes and your inner ear are getting conflicting signals. Usually people solve this problem by changing what they're seeing, (by leaving the cabin and going up on deck, or turning off Quake, for example,) but fixing the input from the inner ear to match what they're seeing should work just as well.
Anyway, this gives me the opportunity to bring up something a little off-topic... What ever happened to head mounted 3d displays? A few years ago, they were supposed to be the wave of the future; there were even a few consumer devices with game support. (I always wanted to play "Magic Carpet" in 3d...) But they were clunky and expensive, because A) LCDs were lousy and costly, B) it was hard to get driver support, and C) computers had trouble pushing the polygons quickly enough anyway.
Now we have much better LCDs, MS-imposed standard driver interfaces, and ubiquitous 3d accelerators. So where the hell are my head-tracking 3d goggles?!? I'm not talking about specialized hardware, I'm talking about a $300 "Head Blaster" from Creative Labs or Diamond. (Or more likely, both.)
Wouldn't they enhance the gameplaying experience immensely? Am I the only one who thinks so?
Motion is part of the nervous system (Score:3)
The above blurb, however, brings up some very important questions about manipulating the senses via external stimuli (read:cochlear implants). I'm not sure this is alltogether good. An article in the Feb. 2000 issue of Wired features a gentleman who will be implanting a transceiver in his arm to stimulate his nervous system (if a success, the experiment should be able to generate muscle movement via outside sources. this could possibly even lead to an electronic soma. If you were feeling blue, you could just send happy waves via computer to your own brain).
While i, for one, am a HUGE advocate of the modernization of the world, including new technology and such...where exactly do we draw the line?? Just something to think about the next time you see a blind person plug an optic nerve emulator into the back of his head, ala the matrix. (think that sounds a little outlandish? so did I, untill i saw a documentary about it on the history channel.)
-FluX
I would have stop jumping around like a rabbit. (Score:2)
Re:It's probably gonna be bought out... (Score:2)
(Actually I don't think they could do this -- I think too many people would lose their lunches.)
But you have a good point, if home technology keeps getting better and places like Disneyland keep getting more expensive theme parks may someday be looked on as quaint relics of the past, sort of like renaissance festivals or something.
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Virtual effect (Score:2)
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Re:I'm not sure (Score:2)
IMAGINING? Why don't you visit me sometime? :P
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Re:Wow (Score:2)
This is interesting and all . . . (Score:2)
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Kinesthetic sense (Score:2)
The sixth, of course, is balance. You could also call it a sense of gravity.
There's also the sense of the position and motion of parts of your body. This sense is sometimes referred to as the kinesthetic sense. (without moving your hands at all, what position is each of your fingers in?)
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Re:Some Possible Problems? (Score:2)
But as I said, I'm not a doctor so I could be dead wrong here
more senses (Score:5)
It's actually two senses:
Rotational accelleration.
Linear accelleration/gravity.
Look at the inner ear and you'll see three loops at mutual right angles, embedded in the skull. At the point where they connect to the rest of the inner ear, there are nerve ending hairs protruding into the channel, similar to those that connect to the membrane down the center of the coclear spiral to sense sound. When you increase/decrease the component of the rotation of your head around the axis of one of the loops, the fluid in the loop lags behind the structure, pushing the hairs.
I think gravity/linear accelleration is measured by similar hairs with a mass on the end embedded in fluid (for damping) in the same structure - but I'm not sure.
You also have position sensors in your muscles and tension sensors in the tendons, which allow you to figure out the position of your body and the force you're exerting/having exerted on your limbs. This is in addition to the pressure sensors in your skin.
There is some question whether people have a weak magnetic directional sense. There's magnetite in some nerve cells in the same region of the nose as the nerve endings which processes smell. This spot is also is fixed to the skull and thus ideal for navigation. It might also be used to smell magnetic dust in the air. Or it might be random evolutionary morpholigic junk or a vestigial leftover of something ancient and now defunct.
The (rest of the?) sense of smell consists of a number of molecular shape detectors, plus sensore for the electric field from ions. The shape detectors seem to be part of the same system that produces antibodies: People with weak senses of smell are sometimes cured when they have a strong immune reaction (such as toxic shock), and smell becomes much more sensitive during a viral prodrome. (Ever notice that your house smells REALLY dusty and everything else smells annoyingly strong the day before the cold/flu hits?)
Re:My idea! (Score:2)
Re:By the way, this brings up one of my pet peeves (Score:2)
What is it that defines a sense? Is it a mechanism for detecting stimuli to which a response is appropriate? Or something else?
Humans are able to detect changes in air pressure, there's no denying that. Is that a sense?
A sense of temperature? Maybe it's just another manifestation of the sense of touch, or maybe it's related to touch in the same way as taste is to smell.
What about a sense of time? We can detect the passage of time, does that count as a sense?
What about thirst and hunger, are those sensations the result of a sense?
So is that 7, 8, 9, 10, or 11 senses in all?
Web development applications! (Score:3)
Re:This is a lawsuit waiting to happend (Score:2)
And win...
//rdj
Portability, source (Score:2)
The Virtual Motion MotionWare API will be implemented in 3 parts.
That sounds closed-source. Will they also release a LGPL version of the code? IANALU, but I don't think linux takes dll's.
I'm sure it would be advantagous for them to release the source for their driver anyway -- they have the device patented [vm3.com], and the same geeks who refuse to run closed source software also like cool toys
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Re:Motion is part of the nervous system (Score:2)
Virtual Reality Dissonance (Score:5)
It's been a while since I dealt with this study, but here are a few different reasons for VRD, or Virtual Reality Dissonance, the problems with people not being able to handle various 3D visuals:
The screen can be 75fps, but if it takes more than about 50ms (1/20s) to register an intended move from peripherals to environment, user can get woozy. (Since we're talking about a write-device, instead of a read-device like a head-tracker, it may have different effects but I bet it still would cause suffering.)
A small monitor does not cover a lot of the wide area of the user's view. The THX movie theatre standard has constraints that a certain number of degrees of arc from left to right be covered by screen; this is for a sense of immersion. Sit closer to a smaller screen, pending the next item...
3D algorithms assume a certain "viewing frustrum," where a given angle of view is assumed. From the angle of view and the size of the monitor, that means the viewer's eyes should be at a specific distance from the monitor. The rendered perspective should match that perspective, or subtle bearing cues the brain has learned are not acting properly. Regardless of the focus, the brain will work to refocus to correct the perspective. Try sitting closer or further away.
One dropped frame at 72fps can tear your brain out of your skull, if it's pretty accustomed to watching the continuous motion of smooth acceleration. Turn off your Apache server or whatever else is chewing unpredictable CPU.
Some people just can't sit in a car if they aren't anticipating the road bumps and curves with their eyes. Same goes for simulations, only more so. If you like roller-coasters, you don't have a strong cochlear sympathy; your brain can decide whether to trust gut or ear or eye on command.
Some people just don't get ill even on the wrong setup. Who knows why?