Immersive Environments: The Future at Port 80: Charthouse

The Heliodisplay (TM) projects TV, streaming video and computer images into free space (i.e. mid-air). It is plug-and-play compatible with most video sources (TV, DVD, computer, videogame, etc.). The Heliodisplay is interactive -- a "floating touch screen" -- allowing a hand or finger to navigate and select. ...

In 2000, Dyner left the Los Angeles firm of Gehry Partners to spend time tinkering in the two-bedroom apartment that he shared with a roommate in Hermosa Beach, California.

Dyner wanted to transform thin air into a movie screen--a full-color display. And he wanted users to be able to use their hands to manipulate the images, the way Tom Cruise did in the film Minority Report. "I wanted to come up with a system that would allow for collaboration," Dyner says. "It would give designers and architects a way to manipulate data and discuss a project together."

Dyner bought a digital projector--the same kind used to display PowerPoint presentations--and took it apart. Inside was a micromirror system, a single chip that relies on a million tiny mirrors that tilt back and forth to create images. Dyner spent "seven days a week, 18 hours a day" trying to figure out "how to make the light stop in free space" using the micromirror system.

This network of cooperating devices offers the promise of providing us with exciting new experiences in the home. Suppose, for instance, that while you are reading a book or watching a movie the whole room around you begins to reflect the imaginary scene?

Total Immersion
by Chrysostomos (Max) Nikias, Alexander Sawchuk, Ulrich Neumann, Dennis McLeod, Roger Zimmermann, and C. C. (Jay) Kuo
oe magazine, July 2001

Streaming 3-D video, audio, and a sense of touch will surround people with a virtual environment over their high-speed Internet connections.

The National Tele-immersion Initiative (NTII) will enable users at geographically distributed sites to collaborate in real time in a shared, simulated environment as if they were in the same physical room.

Imaging in 4-D
by A.J.S. Rayl
The Scientist, April 30, 2001 (free registration required)

State-of-the-art imaging technologies and new biological reagents and probes are sending biologists and other scientists on fantastic voyages into the molecular world of living animals to watch how cancer develops, grows, and spreads.

"This isn't just three-dimensional biology--this is four-dimensional analysis."

Tyzx is going to change the way people and the world interact through its 3DAWARE visual interaction technology. The concept of visual interaction is simple: use digital imagers in products to see the user and environment, interpret what is happening and respond automatically - visually sensing the environment rather than waiting for input from keyboards and switches. Tyzx's 3DAWARE technology inexpensively "sees" accurate, real-time, 3-dimensional information and interprets it - transforming it into actionable events.

This ability to see, interpret and respond will have a profound impact on every product that relies on interaction with users or their environment. Markets that will gain a strategic benefit from 3DAWARE's unique real-time 3D tracking abilities include: game consoles, interactive toys, security and monitoring, computer input peripherals, robotics, navigation, automotive, and assistive care. Ultimately, Tyzx sees 3DAWARE-based systems as the cornerstone of pervasive computing environments - creating intelligent offices and homes that see, interpret and respond to our needs.

University of Illinois at Chicago Electronic Visualization Laboratory's Tele-immersion

virtual reality (VR) devices, software libraries/toolkits and applications for collaborative exploration of data over national and global high-speed networks

The Faculty of Medicine at the U of C is launching the Sun™ Center of Excellence for Visual Genomics – a bioinformatics facility that puts Calgary scientists at least two years ahead of the pack in research capabilities. Christoph Sensen, PhD, professor, biochemistry and molecular biology at U of C, opened the doors to the centre that will benefit students, industry collaborators and scientists studying a broad range of diseases from cancer to lupus. Click here to view a short video on the new Center of Excellence. (Note: 29MB)

systems, interaction devices and environments for interactive visualization technologies.

With our innovative visualization systems, organizations worldwide are realizing more ways, and faster ways to create, display, express and explore large complex datasets as a shared experience.

telepresence: being present at an event while physically being some other place (space-shifting), or at some other time (time-shifting). The key to successful telepresence is emotional: that you feel present, and others feel you are present. Therefore, we focus on presence and communication, instead of the more task-oriented collaboration which telepresence enables.

We believe that telepresence will be central to the future of ubiquitous digital media. Low-cost and easy to use software and hardware must emerge to enable the capture, storage, editing, and transmission of digital media such as video, audio, images, and animations. Telepresence may be synchronous (at the same time) or asynchronous (at a different time).

simulated 3D reality on a 2D computer screen

The Active Worlds Universe is a community of hundreds of thousands of users that chat and build 3D virtual reality worlds in millions of kilometers of virtual territory.

multiplayer online games

Welcome to the world of EverQuest®, a real 3D massively multiplayer fantasy roleplaying game. Prepare to enter an enormous virtual environment-an entire world with its own diverse species, economic systems, alliances, and politics. Choose from a variety of races and classes, customize your character, and begin your quest in any number of cities of villages throughout multiple continents. Equip yourself for adventure, seek allies and knowledge, and experience a rich world of dungeons, towers, crypts, evil abbeys-anything is possible-even planes and realities beyond your imagination. Meet new friends from around the world to face epic challenges. Make yourself a noble human knight, a vicious dark elf thief, a greedy dwarven merchant, or whatever suits your desire.

"Stickiness" is making a comeback, if recent press chatter is any indication. So what's the stickiest site on the Internet? Is it Yahoo!, which, according to Nielsen//NetRatings, takes the traffic cake at 22 billion page views a month? Is it eBay's 42 million-strong registered user base?

For sheer interaction time and per-user page views, neither comes close to a youth site called Neopets.com.

You may not have heard of it, but your neighbor's kid probably has. Neopets.com, based in Glendale, Calif., is the home of a complex multi-player fantasy game geared to kids and teenagers. According to the company, it consistently garners upwards of 1,000 monthly page views per active user and interaction times of more than four hours, leaving all the major portals in its wake. Global membership is above 23 million, of which approximately 11 million are active monthly users. The site totals approximately 4.2 billion page views per month from a diverse audience of kids, teens and young adults.

Buying ads in games, and creating so-called advergames, have both become increasingly popular with advertisers seeking to tap into the affinity users have with their playthings. That's why Neopets' management is leveraging its immersive gaming model to create some lucrative and innovative marketing packages.


trends and currents for exploring webs


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modified: July 13, 2002 by Douglas Anderson http://RicciStreet.net/port80/charthouse/future/immersive.htm