Virtual-realty pioneer Howard Rheingold

8/12/2019 Virtual-realty pioneer Howard Rheingold

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irtual rgality may seem at first

akin to terms such as imita-

tion proce'ssed cheese food or

non-alcoholic beer. In actuality-or in

reality, as it were-this new phrase has seized

the public imagination like nothing since the

birth of decaf.

Fearure stories in Newsweek, Rolling Stone,

New York, and The New Yorh. Times paint vi

tual reality as something of a deus ex nin

tendo-a god from the video game-techno

logy which will in the near future allow us

immerse ourselves in a 360-degree, three-d

mensional fantasy world. Vhy lead Mari

through the Donkey Kong maze from outside

when you can actually 6e Mario, running th

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World-tht Feelies. The whole of artificial

experience has been aiming toward the com-

plete illusion of being in anotherreality. The

media-created world used to be in black and

white, and it used to be silent. Then it moved

into sound, and color. And now it's moving

into immersion and three dimensions' So I

think there's a feeling of entering a whole new

world that captures people's imaginations:

AYlz How many years uway are practical

consumer-priced applications? We already have

Mattel\ Power Clouefor video games'

HR: The Power Clove is a toy. However,

consumer applications aren't the first things

you'll see that will be useful. For example,

there's medical imaging and molecular mod-

eling used to create new medicinesr new

chemical compounds, or to take a three-

dimensional X-ray of a tumor. I think in the

world of computer-aided design you'll soon

begin to use versions of virtual reality. In the

next two or three years you'll see the early

applications, and then you'll see the technol-

ogy improving over the next three to five

years. I think 20 to 3,0 years will pass before

it'll have the impact television has had-before you start getting virtual reality so real

you could mistake it for the real world.

AYI: Something about that scenario sounds

ereepy, though, doan't it?

HR: Sure does.

AYlz Are social scientists already exploringthe im-

plications of total fantasy immersionT

HR: It's still pretty early for that. Social sci-

entists are just beginning to get involved.

There?re social implications that ought to be

looked at, [but] I think'it would be criminal to

be frightened by some of the implications and

therefore jeopardize the funding for people

who actually'are creating new molecules to

fight cancer. I think there's really vital work

that directly stems from virtual reality. And

there's also the threat'that it might drain our

energies the way television has.

AVI: Or even do away with ulevision?

HR: Well, television didn't do away wi

radio. There may even be television in virtu

reality.

AYI; I'm eonjuring up an image of Madonn

doing a uirtual reality coflcert, where you're in

front-row seat.

HR: I interviewedJerry Carcia fof the Grat

ful Dead]; he'd like to do it. Peter Cabriel

very interested too.

AYl: Entertainment, medicine, design-th

military?

HR: The military has always been a drivin

force. The technologies are reaching out fro

the military into the civilian area, just as ha

pened with electronics in the 1960s.

AYI; Who\ doing most of thefunding-the m

tary, or the uniuersitia?

HR: Both. But no one in the U.S. is puttin

big bucks into it. InJapan they are, and in Ge

many too.

AYlz Where do U.S. eforts in virtual reality su

in the world?

HR: Vell, Americans really invented t

technology, and we're still the most advance

But the Japanese outfund us by tenfold

combination of government and industry co

tributions. Many millions of dollars a year a

involved.

AVI: Dil you uer see the movie Brainstorm

where Christopher Walben inrtents a headpiece t

sort of uideonpu and plays back experiencu? Is tthefuture of virtugl reality?

HR: It's about synthetic experience, tha

for sure. But you can't read people's though

you can't capture what somebody's thinkin

That's still in the realm of science fiction a

will be so for a long time, Ve just don't kn

anything about the way the mind works

that respect. There's a lot more known abo

how humans create the illusion of being in

three-dimensional environment. I

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Virtual-realty pioneer Howard Rheingold

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