GIMME MY HOLODECK ALREADY! (rant/discussion)

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First of all, what this topic is about for those of you not familiar with Star Trek, is Virtual Reality. Really sophisticated VR simulation that you wouldn't be able to tell the difference from reality if you managed to wake up inside a simulation. I think while technology improves quickly, its not as fast as I personally would really like. I REALLY want to use a holodeck, but by the time we have something even remotely close, I will be too old to appreciate it anymore! I mean people change. Maybe I won't care about that so much when I'm in my 50s.

But when will we ever get sophisticated VR when any form of VR isn't really available yet for purchase or use, as far as I'm aware? Look at videogame consoles now coming out. What the heck is so great about them besides sharper than ever graphics, more polygons, better lighting and physics? We still play them ON A TV with a CONTROLLER. Now we may move the controller around apparantely - but guess what? That's a JOYSTICK pretty much, we had that forever. Meanwhile they also remove the force feedback to do this. Not that the force feedback was ever really impressive in the first place.

The first thing they should do is bring the VR helmets to users at home. Not only should the visuals not look like a flat screen and it should have peripheral vision, BUT, it should pop out at you in a non-flat way as well. Incorporate the surround sound we already have, some physical movement ideas, improve the force feedback, and we will have primitive VR.

What do you think? Do you think they are keeping this technology away from us on purpose? Or is it feasible yet? I think we are capable of more than whats available and coming out, to be honest.

What is the potential of VR? You have to see Star Trek Voyager or The Next Generation holodeck episiodes to get an idea of how sweet it is..... Ofcourse, for drama and action sake, things go wrong with the technology too, showing you how technology always has imperfections, just like the humans who designed it. But basically, it is not just about playing a game in a realistic way. In a holodeck, YOU MAKE IT WHAT YOU WANT. You create the characters, the set, the events, you can set certain limits on, etc. You can go away on holiday anywhere you want and feel exactly the same as being there. You could go wild with your imagination and LIVE in your perfect fantasies - for instance, getting to be with the person you greatly love but can never realistically have. The AI would have to be REALLY sophisticated and you would pretty much have to already know their personality, goals and such inside out to recreate them correctly, or... you can make them exactly how you want.

The other benefits ofcourse - surgeons getting to test procedures and perfect them without risking any real life patient, and other such examples.

Personally, I am pissed off that I will never get to experience anything like this for a long time, perhaps ever. they are taking too long with it. They should work on this instead of making sure Ipods and Cellphones do everything imaginable while being the size of a chicken McNugget!

Do you think they are keeping it back on purpose? Maybe they are afraid that many people will become addicted and live inside their VR device, and places could seemingly become almost ghost towns.

My actual theory is that, its not meant to be somehow. It would be TOO awesome... Life isn't supposed to be that awesome, it isn't supposed to be perfect and totally under our control. Life is full of surprises and challenges and hardships, and if you could just live in your fantasy the whole time, it wouldn't BE life anymore. It would be heaven, making it totally pointless for you to be alive here. Maybe it is actually part of the devine plan of life that we purposely can't go overboard with crazy technology like you see in the sci fi movies.

Well, I really want it though!! ! Everyone should be entitled to make their own choices of how they wish to escape and indulge once in a while. It's not always healthy, especially if you get addicted, but that doesn't stop drugs and alcohol and fast food from existing, so why shouldn't VR? and it absolutely has alot of benefits too.

DARN YOU Star Trek for making me yearn for something I can't have! Ofcourse my own imagination probably would have thought it up anyway.

Any thoughts?

Wow, that is really close to the thoughts I have been having. About ten years ago, I was really excited about our near future, what with the promises of AI, nanotechnology, uploading, and whatnot. I thought that in ten years the world would be radically different. However, seeing as I am still sitting in front of a monitor cube just like I did then (it's bigger now, but has more pixels), I realize my hopes were far too unrealistic. In a way, the world has changed less in the last 50 years than in the 50 years before that. A person from the year 1900 placed in the world of 1950 would be far more surprised (cars, electricity, tap water, telephones), than a 1950 guy dropped in the year 2006. Sure, we have cell phones that can take pictures. We have the internet. But you can get used to things like that quite quickely.

Technological progress IS slowing down. I used to buy a new computer every three years or so, each one multiple times more powerful than the one before. But the computer I am writing this on is four years old now, and it is still okay for most current computer games. Progress in hardware seems to have slowed down, perhaps even asymptotically approaching a ceiling. I am beginning to think it might be prudent to plan your life like the future will be very similar to the present. Sure, there will be slightly improved versions of X and it will be easier to do Y. From time to time a new invention will even excite you for a few days. But all in all, you will be better off if you made your long-term plans for a slowly changing world, or even one that doesn't change at all.

I am sure we will have virtual reality, augmented reality, a cure for Asperger's, and even the holodeck one day. However, chances are this will not happen in my lifetime, and even if it does, I might no longer be financially or mentally capable of participating in the forefront of technology. My current master plan is this: Find out how to become happy. Do this by researching what is currently known about Asperger's syndrome, what of it specifically applies to you and how you can compensate with the help of psychological or technological means. Do not rely on breakthroughs in neuropsychology or computers to help you. If there actually is progress in any of the relevant fields, treat it as a pleasant surprise, but don't get used to it.

Okay, I admit that this plan is good for deciding how to act, but not for choosing what to hope for. It itself does not give me motivation enough to keep me going, especially during times of depression. What does give me motivation though are glimpses of what the future holds for us. I am a visual type, and sometimes I see a scene in a movie or computer game with a certain kind of lighting, perspective, composition, or something that makes me think 'wow, if the real world looked like that, I would feel so much more involved'. I had strongest experience of this kind by far in the cinema park Futuroscope in France. One of the cinemas showed a computer generated film for watching with polarized 3D glasses. I don't know why, but the world in the film looked much more real than the real world. It was far easier for me to perceive the spacial structure of the scene than in reality. What I find even more astounding was that I could relate really well emotionally to the actors, a feeling that went away immediately when I closed one eye, thus switching from 3D to 2D.

Whenever I am really depressed I can lighten myself up by remembering that film in Futuroscope and telling myself "One day I will understand why that film had such an effect on me. Technology will advance to a point where it can alter my perception of the real world such that I can understand it better and emotionally attach to it."

VR would be very hard to create. Right now, The best they can isn't very good. We need better touch sensors and such. The easiest way I see VR happening is having the brain directly interface with a computer, going inside a computer generated.

As for technology, it's slowing down because we are at the point where we are waiting for the next big invention. Then it will evolve at an amazing speed.

there are always technology booms during times of war and then a couple years later someone figures out how it (it=random death making device) could not only be used for good,but for awesome! just wait and pray for conflict

lol