From: weiser@parc.xerox.com (Mark Weiser) Subject: Re: Computerized Reality: Better than VR Date: Thu, 18 Jul 1991 00:49:31 PDT Organization: Xerox PARC I agree with Pierre (with whom I have spoken on previous occasions as well) that much of VR seems rather opposed to what Pierre is talking about, EV (my name for the opposite of VR. EV == embodied virtuality. Also sometimes called ubiquitous computing ("ubicomp" to a PARC person)). I think there is a sharp distinction between augmenting the real world, and creating an alternative. I say quite a bit more about what I think the challenges are in creating EV, and why it is important, in an article that will be appearing in the September 1991 special issue of Scientific American on Computers and Networks. Here are some excerpts (I get no royalties, I don't care if you buy the issue). -mark -------------- The Computer for the 21st Century Mark Weiser The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it. . . . Silicon-based information technology . . . is far from having become part of the environment. More than 50 million personal computers have been sold, and nonetheless the computer remains largely in a world of its own. It is approachable only through complex jargon that has nothing to do with the tasks for which which people actually use computers. The state of the art is perhaps analogous to the period when scribes had to know as much about making ink or baking clay as they did about writing. . . . The arcane aura that surrounds personal computers is not just a "user interface" problem. My colleagues and I at PARC think that the idea of a "personal" computer itself is misplaced, and that the vision of laptop machines, dynabooks and "knowledge navigators" is only a transitional step toward achieving the real potential of information technology. Such machines cannot truly make computing an integral, invisible part of the way people live their lives. Therefore we are trying to conceive a new way of thinking about computers in the world, one that takes into account the natural human environment and allows the computers themselves to vanish into the background. . . . Perhaps most diametrically opposed to our vision is the notion of "virtual reality," which attempts to make a world inside the computer. Users don special goggles that project an artificial scene on their eyes; they wear gloves or even body suits that sense their motions and gestures so that they can move about and manipulate virtual objects. Although it may have its purpose in allowing people to explore realms otherwise inaccessible -- the insides of cells, the surfaces of distant planets, the information web of complex databases -- virtual reality is only a map, not a territory. It excludes desks, offices, other people not wearing goggles and body suits, weather, grass, trees, walks, chance encounters and in general the infinite richness of the universe. Virtual reality focuses an enormous apparatus on simulating the world rather than on invisibly enhancing the world that already exists. . . . Indeed, the opposition between the notion of virtual reality and ubiquitous, invisible computing is so strong that some of us use the term "embodied virtuality" to refer to the process of drawing computers out of their electronic shells. The "virtuality" of computer-readable data -- all the different ways in which it can be altered, processed and analyzed -- is brought into the physical world. . . . [and then stuff about new technology we are building and so on...] -mark -- Spoken: Mark Weiser ARPA: weiser@xerox.com Phone: +1-415-494-4406 [MODERATOR'S NOTE: I and others will no doubt make this issue of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN a best-seller! :-) Avoiding the need for another quicky post, let me admit, I still can't distinguish "embodied virtuality" from 2-1/2D computer graphics. Can you enlighten me and others who may be similarly unaware? I have asked before for definitions, without result. Thanks. -- Bob Jacobson]