Cyberspace - The final frontier


   Imagine  seeing  the  full interior of a house  before  it  is 
built.  Or flying an inter-continental reconnaissance mission  in 
a fighter plane without leaving your home.
   Such  applications  in 'cyberspace'  technology  -  considered 
potentially the most lucrative frontier in computing - are  years 
away.  But researchers insist they can eventually be a reality  - 
or, more accurately, a 'virtual reality'.
   Cyberspace  is the 'space' that exists only as data  inside  a 
computer.   By  getting 'inside' computers with  all  that  data, 
house  hunters, fighter pilots or anybody else can touch  it  and 
control  it directly, in the same way people use their senses  in 
the real world.
   "You  do that by having the computer create a world which  the 
human experiences as if it were a three dimensional place,"  said 
Tom   Furness,  engineering  professor  at  the   University   of 
Washington  (UW) and director of the school's  newly  established 
Human Interface Technology Laboratory.
   Thanks to a $1.4m grant from Digital Equipment, the fledgeling 
computer  lab  is  setting out to  create  virtual  worlds  using 
special devices such as stereoscopic goggles, 3D sound headphones 
and  motion sensing gloves.  Such equipment creates the  illusion 
of  moving through a 3D space, or virtual reality, by  generating 
an image of the wearer moving inside the computer.
   In  virtual  reality, the computer images are as real  as  you 
are.  Or as unreal.  The experience of cyberspace, Furness  says, 
is a powerful, even emotional one.
   "Something magical happens when we create a wide field of view 
display," said Furness about the stereo goggles.  "When you  wear 
those  monitors, they fill your field of vision.  It is like  you 
really are in a new place."
   If  you touch a virtual switch in cyberspace, a virtual  light 
might be turned on.  Or if that switch is hooked by a computer to 
a  real light, then the real light will go on.   Turning  complex 
data  into  3D  visual and audio forms also makes  it  easier  to 
understand.
   For  example, a stock or bond trader who has to watch  half  a 
dozen  financial  indicators before making  an  instant  decision 
whether  to buy or sell, might more easily watch a virtual  image 
of  a  stock  or bond controlled by a  virtual  reality  computer 
program.
   The  computer does the complex work, considering all  possible 
financial  factors.   When those factors indicate it is  time  to 
sell a bond, the virtual bond might turn yellow and swell.   When 
it is time to buy, it might turn green and shrink.
   As  far  out  as  it sounds,  Cyberspace  is  drawing  serious 
attention  not only from the military and Nasa, but also  from  a 
wide range of corporations nationwide, from DEC to Boeing.
   The  UW  lab  will use the DEC grant  -  and  other  corporate 
financing it is seeking through the creation of a Virtual  Worlds 
Consortium  - explore radically new methods of human  interaction 
with  computers and the massive amounts of data stored  in  them.   
That  focus  prompted  DEC, which has  its  own  virtual  reality 
research under way, to give the lab $1.4m in computer equipment.
   "We are trying to find that next big breakthrough in what will 
make  a work station more useful," said Michael  Good,  principal 
software engineer for DEC's software usability engineering group.
   Separately,  Boeing  will  collaborate  with  the  lab  on  an 
evaluation of practical applications for virtual space technology 
during the next three to five years.
   Boeing  is  not  alone in its interest.   The  first  national 
conference on cyberspace, held in the spring at the University of 
Texas, Austin, attracted researchers from diverse businesses such 
as AT&T, American Express and Autodesk, a leading cad company.
   Cyberspace is currently explored in labs nationwide chiefly by 
using  products  from VPL Research in Redwoord City.   It  has  a 
$225,000  system  composed  of  a  bulky  stereoscopic  PyePhones 
headset  and a motion detecting glove, called  DataGlove.   Video 
game  manufacturer,  Nintendo, based its PowerGlove  on  the  VPL 
design.
   Furness  is  known  as the father of the  air  force's  'super 
cockpit',  an advanced virtual reality flight  simulation  system 
being used for air force training.  One of his projects at the UW 
lab  will  be to develop a 'laser microscanner' which  would  use 
tiny solid state lasers to scan colour images directly on to  the 
retina.
   But  as  exiting as the research projects and the  notions  of 
virtual  worlds  are, it is tough to sort the  science  from  the 
fiction.  The term cyberspace was first coined by William Gibson, 
a  science  fiction author, in his 1984  novel  Neuromancer.   In 
Gibson's  futuristic  cyberspace world, computers  are  connected 
through one global network.  Humans access corporate, military or 
entertainment data by entering the 3D virtual world of the data.
   The competition in Gibson's world is fierce, and the  boundary 
between  reality  and  virtual reality  is  often  blurred.   The 
competition  is  only  now  heating  in  the  real  world,  where 
commercial cyberspace remains a virtual reality.