Real Virtuality
Posted: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 11:59 AM by Will Femia
Filed Under:
CES2008
From what little media I was able to see over the last two days it looked like the ZCam was going to be something of a star. It's an infra red camera that can sense depth and has body-part recognition algorythms. So it's like the Wii but 3D. The boxing demo game was probably the best illustration of it.
The company calls it "genuine immersion" but I saw it in a theme of what I'm thinking of as the opposite of virtual reality - real virtuality? There were several products at the show that dragged virtual technology into the real world.
The biggest illustration was Panasonic's concept "Living Wall."
It's a big blank wall that reads you and your gestures. Make it look like a living room wall, add a TV, change the size of the TV, turn it into a picture frame. It's all virtual but it's in reality. Virtual reality would have us put on special sensory equipment (goggles, gloves, etc.) and visit a virtual room where this kind of thing is possible. Panasonic and others are saying screw that, keep your own senses and we'll bring the technology into the real world. I don't actually think I'd want a big blank interactive screen instead of a living room wall, but I like it better than putting on VR sensory suit. (P.S. Wasn't there something like this in Total Recall?) (P.P.S. It was intersting to have this displayed in Las Vegas where things already aren't quite real. There's definitely a fine line between bringing the magic of technology to real world and creepy Truman Show fakeness like the Venetian Hotel's artificial piazza.
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Elsewhere I ran into a booth displaying little dolls (the i-Buddy) that clip to your monitor and plug into a USB port. When a friend sends you an instant message with an emoticon, the doll reacts with color and motion, depending on what the emoticon is. So now even a virtual smile is getting close to being a real one.
I may be stretching it a bit here but a lot of the big exhibitors had theaters like this set up for speeches and demonstrations and almost all of them had odd seats. These are more like leaners, or else you're supposed to hitch your horse to them. Anyway, this set-up looks straight out of Second Life to me.
Later on I'll have a post about all the rumble chairs that vibrate with the explosions as you watch TV. I count those to the theme of real virtuality as well.
