Welcome To The Holodeck

If the designers at NAU have their way the Star Trek holodeck could be a thing of our future. Actually it's more of a Cocoon than a deck but the idea is similar, it could even be compared to The Minority Report where the user reaches out and touches data.

"You've got display, sound and interaction all combined to create this fully immersed digital experience," explains Tino Schaedler, one of the designers at NAU.

"It is completely different from me sitting in front of a screen, looking at a little picture and typing something in -- almost like the experience is reduced to my brain and my fingers. In the Cocoon we have the whole body immersed inside."

NAU hopes to have a prototype by October of 2009 and expects that commercial versions will be available in 2014!

CNN story here.

Virtual Reality curtesy of your Wii remote!

This YouTube video was sent to me by Chris, who will someday provide some guest posts... ;-)
This heads up display using a Wii remote really has to be seen to be appreciated. the video's creator, Johny Chung Lee, does a great job of demonstrating the project, doesn't hurt that Johny is associated with Carnegie Mellon University either.

Holodeck technology a reality in Edmonton?

Researchers at the University of Alberta's computer science department have partnered with Hewlett-Packard, and Edmonton's TRLabs, and are working on 3-D virtual reality technology that they say resembles the holodeck on the Enterprise or Voyager. The application is meant to be more of a high definition video conference than the virtual holiday's enjoyed by the crew of Voyager, but the researchers say the technology "will be so realistic users will be able to see an eye twitch or a bead of sweat". So much for racking up the air miles on the company's dime... CBC story here.