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Kristopher Kubicki (Blog) - March 9, 2007 1:45 AM

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12 comment(s) - last by darkavatar.. on Mar 12 at 4:04 AM

Nearly 25 years in the making, is Sony building the foundations for ubiquitous virtual reality?

I should preface by saying anyone who hasn't read William Gibson's Neuromancer should run, not walk, to the nearest bookstore and pick up a copy.

Neuromancer, the 1984 cyberpunk thriller, is one of my favorite books of all time. Over the years copious amounts of little details in Neuromancer have become everyday components of daily life today.

The matrix (not capitalized) was Gibson's virtual reality in 1984. Hackers portalled around on "decks" -- personal consoles that were more like appliances than computers. Ultra-rich denizens of the supercities picked up cybernetic matrix implants as casually as executives today run out to an afternoon liposuction.

Growing up to see large portions of Gibson's fantasy come true had always intrigued me, but the latest announcements from Sony put me over the edge. Gibson often describes his cyberspace as if it's a real place; people mingle with each other, programs are objects you can pick up and use. I say his cyberspace because the term did not exist before 1982, when Gibson first used it in his novels. The equivalent of a website in Gibson's novels is always described as a physical place, yet surreal and manmade.

In Gibson's 1996 novel, Idoru, large portions of the book takes place in personal cyberspaces. A primary character, Chia, spends almost all of her time listening to music in her virtual room as an avatar. Sound familiar? It should, because it's exactly the roadmap Phil Harrison lined up for the PlayStation Home.

It's not to say Sony overnight duplicated what Gibson has been writing about for 25 years. Even many of Gibson's ideas are not unique, just evolutionary advances on older ideas. What makes me excited about Sony's announcement is that PlayStation Home will be the first ubiquitous virtual reality, if Sony can pull it off.

Now, I should give Second Life some credit here as well. If anything, Second Life is actually closer to Gibson's descriptions of the matrix -- yep, Gibson called it the matrix 15 years before The Matrix and a decade before Ghost in the Shell. The difference between Second Life and Playstation Home is that Sony wants the interaction between virtual and reality to be transparent, especially with media and the internet. Gibson anticipated this dozens of times over the last 25 years in his novels.

When Neuromancer was re-released in 2000, a quote from Jack Womack was added to the epilogue. "What if the act of writing it down, in fact, brought it about?"

I couldn't have said it better myself.

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True VR?

By therealnickdanger on 3/9/2007 8:25:22 AM , Rating: 3

I dunno if Playstation Home (PH) or Second Life (SL) are really VR. Those are more like games that aren't really immersive to the senses. To me, true VR would be The Matrix (capital). PH and SL are just windows into a virtual world, whereas VR is an all-encompassing experience of the mind inside a computer, or rather, a complete melding of mind and machine. The computer provides your mind with all necessary stimuli to replace earthly reality, that's virtual reality.

RE: True VR?

By Scabies on 3/9/2007 9:42:17 AM , Rating: 2

I dunno, I consider myself to be a logical and rational thinker (which some of you may disagree with, as I own a PS3,) so when things are artificial or synthetic, I will treat them as such. That being said, I was somewhat suprised to find my heart racing as I was playing Motorstorm online. I was playing single player for two hours up to that point, so I was baffled as to why the human opponent got my adrenaline going. Was it simply because whatever my opponent was doing was semi-planned, and not stimulus/response AI type competition? Or was it because winning and losing has a visible (and irreparable) effect on your public rating? I really dont know what it was, but after experiencing that, I really think that a PS3 app like PS:Home could totally blur the lines. Not quite to the point of Ghost in the Shell where you cant tell man from machine or The Matrix where you can live life with an IV and a plug in your brain, being comatose but still interacting in a digital world.
It's whacked up. Who knows if its going to be revolutionary and change the way we think of online interaction or what, but I'm excited to be a PS3 owner right now. If nothing else, to try something new after that four month software drought (praise the Lord! European launch is accompanied by tons of new games!) will be refreshing. Just hope theres an age filter (blocking chat and content input from youngins, so we dont have to deal with squeaky voices and pookyman apartments)

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RE: True VR?

By therealnickdanger on 3/9/2007 9:53:25 AM , Rating: 2

I can get very much into a game as well, but I doubt that would compare with actually being *IN* the game. Imagine playing Motostorm in the exact same manner in which you drive your car in the real world. Now imagine the smell of fuel and dirt, the vibrations and impacts of your seat and steering wheel, the sensation of flying through the windshield and off of a cliff... We have no idea yet what "immersion" means. We have immersive devices which still rely on physical interaction, therefore still relying on the outside world. A rumble pad, surround sound, and triple-monitors are nothing compared to how it will be.

I still always fall back on the old Playstation 2 ad for the "PS9" where the kid is sitting on the couch and inhales his "game spores". That's reality made virtual.

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RE: True VR?

By ObscureCaucasian on 3/9/2007 4:48:15 PM , Rating: 2

Oh man, playin GoW online can make me shake because of all the adrenaline. Sure computer AI can do that to an extent, but if your the last one on your team in GoW, you know you have 3 people sitting there watching what your doing. I really don't see how having a virtual world would make this better, but all I know is I already spend wayyyy too much time on my 360, and I would much rather hit the guide button and be able to set up a private chat/game invite/friend request than being required to steer a virtual character to where I need to be.

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RE: True VR?

By noirsoft on 3/10/2007 6:58:07 PM , Rating: 2

I've worked as a VR researcher in academia, so I can shed a bit of light on this.

In general, there is a continuum of VR experience, from "fishtank" VR (using a computer monitor, where the VR experience is akin to looking in at a fishtank) to a fullly-immersive experience with a head-mounted display, positional audio, etc. So, Second Life and Playstation Home do count as VR, if on the low-end of the immersion spectrum.

As far as your experiences with increased heart rate, studies have shown that even static environments can produce that; it's not just a matter of having human opponents. VR has been used to treat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, fear of heights, fear of spiders, and even crack addiction (a virtual "crack house" has been shown to actually induce cravings in addicts)

Interestingly, one thing that doesn't make a huge difference in the physiological reaction to a VR is the eye-candy graphics. Plain flat-shading seems to work as well as high-quality lighting with global illumination effects, etc.

Sadly, the biggest hurdle right now is the chicken-and-egg problem plaguing VR hardware. Without a compelling application that demands a "goggles" style display, there isn't enough of a market for good quality, inexpensive goggles. And without a good installed base of goggle-wearing people, no one is willing to make an application that demands their use. Same goes for other control schemes, limb-tracking, etc.

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RE: True VR?

By darkavatar on 3/12/2007 3:44:56 AM , Rating: 2

The MMORPG "The World" in the .hack// series is a good example of solving the chicken-egg problem: a 20mil user online game with the option of playing via a VR headset.
But I guess this is too risky for any real company to pull off... WoW maybe....

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Must get around to reading this book.

By danskmacabre on 3/9/2007 9:10:59 AM , Rating: 2

Been meaning to read this book over the years and keep on putting it iff.

Will have to grab it over the next few days and see what the fuss is about.

RE: Must get around to reading this book.

By Hawkido on 3/9/2007 12:02:00 PM , Rating: 2

Reading Neuromancer is a must. However, you will laugh when he goes to retrieve his 8 meg memory module.

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RE: Must get around to reading this book.

By KristopherKubicki

(blog) on 3/9/2007 3:01:13 PM , Rating: 2

LOL I suppose in 1983 no one realized yet that Moore's Law also applied to solid state storage :)

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RE: Must get around to reading this book.

By Webgod on 3/10/2007 11:00:11 AM , Rating: 2

I've read Neuromancer way back in '93, but not the next two Gibson books, which you may want to give a shot. But also add Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson to your list. It's got a lot more of a 90's flair to its imagination of what the future Internet could be. Instead of the matrix, it has kind of a 3D polygonal reality called The Street, and it has a lot of appeal. I forget how the matrix is used in Neuromancer, but in Snow Crash goggles project the screen directly onto your eyes. Kind of like a DLP laser I guess.

Snow Crash kind of gets some dates wrong, so when it was probably supposed to be the late 90's, just in your head kind of project that out to ~2025. Actually if you transpose the WWII vet to a Vietnam vet that would probably get the dating right.

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RE: Must get around to reading this book.

By darkavatar on 3/12/2007 4:04:55 AM , Rating: 2

Sounds like a great book, I'll pick it up from the front desk of our school library tomorrow after I fill out this online reservation form. I'm not good at finding books in libraries you know....

BTW, the original GitS comic series started in 1989, first book published in '91 in Japan. I don't quite recall anyone using the term "matrix", but I then again, I never read or saw it in english.

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But at the end of the day...

By Chocolate Pi on 3/11/2007 8:59:15 PM , Rating: 1

Not to sound like the obligatory Sony trolling, but it's fairly transparent that in the end, PlayStation Home is nothing more than an attempt to both out-glitz the competition and maximum micro-transactions.

Sony is not attempting to revolutionize the way we interact with technology as a society with this fancy avatar system, the primary purpose is evidently to repackage content in more "tangible" packages... More specifically, packages that consumers are more likely to feel OK with buying constantly in the brave new micro-transaction world. Joe six-pack needs to feel comfortable and satisfied, instantly gratified, after buying extras for his content so that he keeps doing it.

Any advancement that comes out of PlayStation Home can only come from true visionaries getting funding as a reaction to it.