This volume explains how advances in computer technology will augment communication in person-to-person, organizational, and educational settings. It describes the convergence of virtual reality and group decision support, and how these will serve educational and organizational effectiveness. Contributors--experts from business and academia--examine what the computing/communications world will look like in the near future, what the specific needs of various industries will be, and how innovations will fit into organizations and society.

These three topics are addressed with attention to the following questions: What will be the size of initial and future markets for advanced computer and communications technology? What will be the future computing environment in manufacturing operations, in the executive suite, in the office, in the field and on the road, at the point of service, for the computer-integrated enterprise, at home, in the school, and in the global marketplace?

This book explores how after 20 years of existence, virtual world games have evolved: the social landscapes within digital worlds have become rigid and commodified, and "play" and "fun" have become rational and mechanical products. Twenty million people worldwide play Massively Multi-Player Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs). Online role-playing gaming is no longer an activity of a tiny niche community. World of Warcraft-the most popular game within the genre-is more than a decade old. As technology has advanced and MMORPGs became exponentially more popular, gaming culture has evolved dramatically over the last 20 years. Game Worlds Get Real: How Who We Are Online Became Who We Are Offline presents a compelling insider's examination of how adventuring through virtual worlds has transformed the meaning of play for millions of gamers. The book provides a historical review of earlier incarnations of virtual world games and culture in the late 1990s, covering the early years of popular games like EverQuest, to the soaring popularity of World of Warcraft, to the current era of the genre and its more general gaming climate. Author Zek Valkyrie-a researcher in the areas of gaming culture, digital communities, gender, sexualities, and visual sociology as well as an avid gamer himself-explores the evolution of the meaning of "play" in the virtual game world, explains how changes in game design have reduced opportunities for social experimentation, and identifies how player types such as the gender switcher, the cybersexual, the explorer, and the trial-and-error player have been left behind in the interest of social and informational transparency. Explains how social rigidity in digital communities often robs these spaces of experimentation and identity play Suggests that new technologies such as virtual reality are unlikely to revolutionize the media or cause dramatic social change

In recent years, virtual communities have attracted the attention of scientists and researchers across a variety of disciplines as the cross-disciplinary nature of the field creates the potential for a wider impact than initially intended or anticipated. ""Virtual Community Practices and Social Interactive Media: Technology Lifecycle and Workflow Analysis"" provides an analysis of virtual communities, explaining their lifecycle in terms of maturity-based models and workflows. An authoritative reference source valuable to academicians, practitioners, and researchers, this book reflects upon key results of research and development projects within online groups.

Avatars at Work and Play brings together contributions from leading social scientists and computer scientists who have conducted research on virtual environments used for collaboration and online gaming. They present a well-rounded and state-of-the-art overview of current applications of multi-user virtual environments, ranging from highly immersive virtual reality systems to internet-based virtual environments on personal computers. The volume is a follow-up to a previous essay collection, a ~The Social Life of Avatarsa (TM), which explored general issues in this field. This collection goes further, examining uses of shared virtual environments in practical settings such as scientific collaboration, distributed meetings, building models together, and others. It also covers online gaming in virtual environments, which has attracted hundreds of thousands of users and presents an opportunity for studying a myriad of social issues. Covering both a ~worka (TM) and a ~playa (TM), the volume brings together issues common to the two areas, including:

What kind of avatar appearance is suitable for different kinds of interaction? How best to foster collaboration and promote usable shared virtual spaces? What kinds of activities work well in different types of virtual environments and systems?

Avatars at Work and Play will be required reading for computer scientists and social scientists who are researching and developing virtual worlds. It will be useful on courses in New Media and human-computer interaction

This book presents a survey of past and recent developments on human walking in virtual environments with an emphasis on human self-motion perception, the multisensory nature of experiences of walking, conceptual design approaches, current technologies, and applications. The use of Virtual Reality and movement simulation systems is becoming increasingly popular and more accessible to a wide variety of research fields and applications. While, in the past, simulation technologies have focused on developing realistic, interactive visual environments, it is becoming increasingly obvious that our everyday interactions are highly multisensory. Therefore, investigators are beginning to understand the critical importance of developing and validating locomotor interfaces that can allow for realistic, natural behaviours. The book aims to present an overview of what is currently understood about human perception and performance when moving in virtual environments and to situate it relative to the broader scientific and engineering literature on human locomotion and locomotion interfaces. The contents include scientific background and recent empirical findings related to biomechanics, self-motion perception, and physical interactions. The book also discusses conceptual approaches to multimodal sensing, display systems, and interaction for walking in real and virtual environments. Finally, it will present current and emerging applications in areas such as gait and posture rehabilitation, gaming, sports, and architectural design.

Virtual reality--one of the most advanced and exciting technologies to emerge in recent decades--offers businesspeople a new way to grasp information and use it quickly and effectively. By literally experiencing information in an artificially created computer generated world instead of reading, hearing, or viewing it on a screen, businesspeople can get information in a way that has proved most successful and most natural for humans. The result is saved time and money, savings that are essential to any enterprise if it is to survive and prosper in today's fast-paced, competitive business environment. The first book to explore virtual reality strictly for businesspeople, Virtual Reality Systems in Business provides essential information not only on theory and the scientific underpinnings of this new technology, but also on its methods, purposes, and day-to-day applications.

Readers will learn how virtual reality applies to retailing, marketing, design, manufacturing, accounting, finance, training, human resource management, and other functions critical to the operations of any organization, public or private. They will learn the types of hardware and software currently available to develop the virtual worlds they need in their specific organizations, and how to procure them from vendors. Also covered are the methodologies by which computer professionals can develop their own virtual reality systems, and the relationship between virtual reality systems and computer databases and data communications. Explained too is the basic framework underlying business-oriented virtual reality systems and how these systems tie in with nonbusiness oriented systems. A major contribution to our understanding of today's technologies and the benefits that will accrue from them in years to come.

This volume provides the latest outcomes of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) research conducted in various industries. It reveals how AR and VR are currently changing the business landscape, and how new innovations provide opportunities for businesses to offer their customers unique services and experiences. Collecting the proceedings of the International AR & VR Conference held in Manchester, UK, in February 2017, the book advances the state of the art in AR and VR technologies and their applications in various industries such as tourism, hospitality, events, fashion, entertainment, retail, education and the gaming industry. The papers presented here cover the most significant topics within the field of AR and VR for both researchers and practitioners, approaching them from a business and management perspective.

Texture accounts for an important part of the realism of simulated experiences, and it is most certainly true during tactile interaction. We usually experience roughness by running our fingers onto the explored surface. The perception of this fine texture is mediated by the vibrations generated by the encounters of the skin and the asperities of the surfaces. Reproduction of Tactual Textures presents factors that contribute to the mechanics of the interaction between a bare finger and a surface with a view to their artificial reproduction. It discusses the recording and reproduction of tactual textures, and analyses a case study of the development of a device able to record the vibratory signal from a fingertip sliding over a textured surface. The same device is then used in a reverse way to render those previously measured signals to the user's fingertip. These developments open new questions about the biomechanical properties of the skin and their relation to perception. The second half of Reproduction of Tactual Textures focuses on the implication of the dynamic parameters of the skin onto rendering performance, and it concludes with a study on the important features that are present in the vibratory signal and their relation to texture perception. This state-of-the-art volume highlights the importance of the mechanics and biomechanics during the haptic exploration of surfaces and their possible contribution to perception. Collectively, the findings reported are pertinent to many applications, including robotic perception and the design of effective virtual reality systems.

3D Virtual Applications: Applications with Virtual Inhabited 3D Worlds deals with the use of virtual inhabited 3D spaces in different domains of society. (Other volumes deal with interaction, production methodology and space.) From focusing on virtual reality (a reality into which users and objects from the real world should be moved) we are increasingly focusing on augmented reality (i.e. on moving computers out into the reality of real users, objects and activities). This book deals with the use of virtual inhabited 3D spaces in both contexts. Based on the structuring of the application domains, this book looks at the use of VR and augmented reality in the following major application domains:

- Production oriented applications - use of VR and augmented reality for control of complex production plants, for navigation support (ships, cars, aeroplanes) and for support of collaborative work processes

- Communication support applications - virtual spaces are used for supporting communication in learning environments and for support of organisational communication. Also virtual spaces are used for supporting the navigation of people in public spaces, i.e. as maps, planning tools

- Scientific applications - use of 3D models for medical research; use of dynamic models for representation of abstract concepts and ideas (data-mining applications); use of dynamic 3D models for simulating biological or social processes

- Artistic and cultural applications - the construction of stages representing concepts and/or emotions

"Advances in computer technology and developments such as the Internet provide a constant momentum to design new techniques and algorithms to support computer graphics. Modelling, animation and rendering remain principal topics in the filed of computer graphics and continue to attract researchers around the world." This volume contains the papers presented at Computer Graphics International 2002, in July, at the University of Bradford, UK. These papers represent original research in computer graphics from around the world and cover areas such as:- Real-time computer animation - Image based rendering - Non photo-realistic rendering - Virtual reality - Avatars - Geometric and solid modelling - Computational geometry - Physically based modelling - Graphics hardware architecture - Data visualisation - Data compression The focus is on the commercial application and industrial use of computer graphics and digital media systems.

As virtual reality approaches mainstream consumer use, new research and innovations in the field have impacted how we view and can use this technology across a wide range of industries. Advancements in this technology have led to recent breakthroughs in sound, perception, and visual processing that take virtual reality to new dimensions. As such, research is needed to support the adoption of these new methods and applications. Cases on Immersive Virtual Reality Techniques is an essential reference source that discusses new applications of virtual reality and how they can be integrated with immersive techniques and computer resources. Featuring research on topics such as 3D modeling, cognitive load, and motion cueing, this book is ideally designed for educators, academicians, researchers, and students seeking coverage on the applications of collaborative virtual environments.

Virtual Reality (VR) offers the potential to develop human testing and training environments that allow for the precise control of complex stimulus presentations in which human cognitive and functional performance can be accurately assessed and rehabilitated. However, basic feasibility and human issues need to be addressed in order for this technology to be reasonably and efficiently applied in clinical psychology. The book, written in a scholarly style, will provide rationales for virtual reality's applicability in clinical psychology. We will review the relevant literature regarding theoretical and pragmatic issues for these applications, and provide a description of ongoing work developed world-wide. The topics directly involve critical issues for clinicians, designers and users, and will be discussed with scientific competence without neglecting clarity and empirical cases with suggestions for actual use. The book is divided in three main sections: VR in clinical psychology: opportunities and challenges, VR in treatment of phobias and VR in clinical assessment and therapy.

"Sense of Touch and its Rendering" presents a unique and interdisciplinary approach highlighting the field of haptic research from a neuropsychological as well as a technological point of view. This edited book is the outcome of the TOUCH-HapSys European research project and provides an important contribution towards a new generation of high-fidelity haptic display technologies. The book is structured in two parts: A. Fundamental Psychophysical and Neuropsychological Research and B. Technology and Applications. The two parts are not however separated, and the many connections and synergies between the two complementary domains of research are highlighted in the text. The eleven chapters discuss the recent advances in the study of human haptic (kinaesthetic, tactile, temperature) and multimodal (visual, auditory, haptic) perception mechanisms. Besides the theoretical advancement, the contributions survey the state of the art in the field, report a number of practical applications to real systems, and discuss possible future developments.

We humans are tribal, grouping ourselves by a multitude of criteria: physical, intellectual, political, emotional, etc. The Internet and its auxiliary technologies have enabled a novel dimension in tribal behavior during our recent past. This growing connectivity begs the question: Will individuals and their communities come together to solve some very urgent global problems? At MMVR, we explore ways to harness information technology to solve healthcare problems - and in the industrialized nations we are making progress. In the developing world however, things are more challenging. Massive urban poverty fuels violence and misery. Will global networking bring a convergence of individual and tribal problem-solving? Recently, a barrel-shaped water carrier that rolls along the ground was presented, improving daily life for many people. Also the One Laptop per Child project is a good example of how the industrialized nations can help the developing countries. They produce durable and simple laptops which are inexpensive to produce. At MMVR, we focus on cutting-edge medical technology, which is generally pretty expensive. While the benefits of innovation trickle downward, from the privileged few to the broader masses, we should expand this trickle into a flood. Can breakthrough applications in stimulation, visualization, robotics, and informatics engender tools as ingeniously as the water carrier or laptop? With some extra creativity, we can design better healthcare for the developing world too.

This text compiles research from a vibrant social simulation community of researchers who have developed unique and innovative approaches to social simulation.

As this comprehensive and multi-disciplinary anthology makes clear, virtuality has a pedigree that pre-dates the computer age and modern virtual worlds, a pedigree that can be traced back to classical mythology and beyond. Equally, the concept of virtuality is not the province of one field of study alone but is the foundation and driving force of many, both theoretical and applied. Our conceptualizations and applications of virtuality are multiple, as is shown across the nine sections of the book that move from philosophy to technologies and applications before returning to philosophy again for a discussion of the utopias and dystopias of virtuality. The almost 50 essays contained within range freely across subjects that include the potential of virtuality, ethics, virtuality and self, presence and immersion, virtual emotions, image, sound and literature, computer games, AI and A-Life, Augmented Reality and Real Virtuality, law and economics, medical and military applications, religion, and cybersex. Throughout, contributors discuss differences between virtuality, reality, and actuality, in debates filtered through the lenses of the disciplines represented here, and speculate on future directions. It is not at all clear that there are differences and, if such distinctions are to be found, the boundaries between virtuality, reality, and actuality continually shift as ideas, modes of organization, and behaviors constantly flow from one to the other regardless of direction. The Handbook presents no unified definition of virtuality to comfort the reader, rather a multiplicity of questions and approaches underpinned by provocative statements that should further fuel the debates surrounding our notions of virtuality.

Born from today's evolutionary psychology and its studies of developing human behavior and emotions is the radical new concept from psychotherapist Jeri Fink that virtual reality has been with us since humans first walked the earth and has only been heightened by today's technology. Psychologically, humans are "wired" to crave experiences beyond our daily existence. From the cave dweller's fireside stories of slaying massive beasts and the Elizabethan experience of Shakespeare's tragedies to today's blockbuster disaster movies and, most importantly, interactive computer communication, we have always lived in a "virtual" culture.
The brilliant visionary founder of "psychotechnology," an inquiry into the merging of psychology and technology, Dr. Fink is a leading mental health expert in the use of virtual applications in clinical practice. Cyberseduction: Reality in the Age of Psychotechnology places the ideas of cyberspace and virtual reality into the historical context of human perception and experience across the ages.
From a biological perspective, Dr. Fink explains how and why people are seduced by many virtual realities, both simple and complex, and compares our respective experiences of reality and virtuality, showing how humanity has adapted and evolved. As humanity seeks to further meld itself with machines, the line between illusion and reality is increasingly blurred.
Dr. Fink discusses her groundbreaking theory of manufactured reality by using specific types of virtualities: religion, sex, the media, and other aspects of daily living. She also considers the effects of new computer software and the internet, where anonymous individuals can become and experience almost anything they choose.
Cyberseduction is a fascinating exploration of the psychology of digital culture.

This book examines the ethics of virtual reality (VR) technologies. New forms of virtual reality are emerging in society, not just from low-cost gaming headsets, or augmented reality apps on phones, but from simulated "deep fake" images and videos on social media. This book subjects the new VR technological landscape to ethical scrutiny: assessing the benefits, risks and regulatory practices that shape it. Though often associated with gaming, education and therapy, VR can also be used for moral enhancement. Journalists, artists, philanthropic and non-governmental organisations are using VR films, games and installations to stimulate user empathy to marginalised peoples through a combination of immersion, embodiment and persuasion. This book critically assesses the use of VR for empathy arousal and pro-social behaviour change, culminating in the development of a VR "ethical tool" - a device to facilitate reflective ethical judgement. Drawing upon the pragmatist philosophy of John Dewey, virtual reality is reshaped as "dramatic rehearsal". This book explains how a combination of immersive environment-building, moral imagination, choice architecture and reflective engagement can stimulate a future-focused and empathic ethics for users of the technology.

The design of various virtual environments should be based on the needs of a diverse population of users around the globe. Interface design should be user centric and should strive for making the user's interaction as simple, meaningful, and efficient as possible. User Interface Design for Virtual Environments: Challenges and Advances focuses on challenges that designers face in creating interfaces for users of various virtual environments. Chapters included in this book address various critical issues that have implications for user interface design from a number of different viewpoints. This book is written for professionals who want to improve their understanding of challenges associated with user interface design issues for globally-dispersed users in various virtual environments.

In recent years, there has been much interest in the "virtual"--teams, organizations and communities--in management, research and practice. As technology and social practices change we have more opportunity toexperience different forms of virtuality, and in the process our understanding and conception of virtuality changes.

Virtual Interaction: Interaction in Virtual Inhabited 3D Worlds answers the basic research questions involved in the development of user-friendly interfaces, such as:
* How does one navigate in and with a virtual inhabited three-dimensional world?
* How can the virtual world and the interface be part of the same world?
* How can the use of these interfaces be supported by implicit narrative structures?
* How can the autonomous agents function as assistants to the end-user?
* How can the current--what you see is what you get--be replaced by What you want is what you get:?
Containing the edited research papers resulting from an ambitious, cross-disciplinary research project, this volume examines the core activity of interfaces: interaction. It takes the reader all the way from general theories and conceptualizations of interaction aspects of virtual inhabited 3D worlds, through theories of and methods for the design of autonomous agents, ending in specific design methodology considerations and suggestions for management in the multimedia industry.