Virtual Reality Essay example -- Technology Science Essays

Virtual Reality Today’s science fiction is often tomorrow’s reality. As the pace of change has quickened, so it appears that we are actually living within a science fiction movie. Programs on TV continue to amaze or frighten us with yet more technological break through and with clever new products and gadgets. Over the last decade and certainly through the rest of this century, the major agent for these changes has been and will continue to be electronic computer and its derivatives. The Digital Age exploded into existence not with a whimper but a bang. The globe still shakes from its entry. The journey was long, but the impact is immediate. Now, for instance, the breath of an unborn baby can be captured and rendered visible, the Dead Sea Scrolls have been bathed in enhanced color, and Mona Lisa’s smile is safely preserved in GIF file. Throughout the world, many homes are lit by dim reflection of computer monitors. Illuminated manuscripts and images coax people to recompose real ity simply by clicking in. Mutation is taking place before our charged and filtered eyes. It is a dynamic re-vision that has altered every aspect of life, as we knew it. This phenomenon is not a fad or a trend, but an evolution. As frightening the new Virtual Technology may seem, it can benefit us in many different ways. Hence it is ethical to pursue developing this new field. Virtual Reality History Virtual Reality (VR) as a concept had its beginnings in the 1960s and it is mostly credited to the work of scientists like Ivan Sutherland and D.L. Vickers [1]. It is a simulation of a real or imaginary phenomenon in a three- dimensional environment. This simulated environment, believed to be real through feeling, is made of virtual objects crea... ...lt;http://www.southernct.edu> BIBLIOGRAPHY May, William. Edges of Reality- Mind vs. Computer. New York and London: Plenum Press 1996 Weimann, Gabriel. Communicating Unreality. London: Sage Publications, Inc. 2000 Kizza, Joseph. Ethical and Social Issues in the Information Age. New York: Springer 1998 Rachels, James. Elements of Moral Philosophy. New York: McGraw-Hill 2003 Inition ltd, Innovative Graphics Solutions. United Kingdom 28 Feb. 2003 http://www.inition.co.uk/inition/services.htm Barrie, Frost, Virtual Reality. Queens University 1 Sep. 1999 http://pavlov.psyc.queensu.ca/~frostlab/vr.html Altaf, Atif. Overview of Tele-Immersion. Università ¤t des Saarlandes 28 Feb. 2003 http://w5.cs.uni-sb.de/~butz/teaching/ie-ss03/papers/TeleImmersion/ Hot Virtual Reality Sites. 28 Feb. 2003 http://www.itl.nist.gov/iaui/ovrt/hotvr.html