From: William Bricken <william@hitl.washington.edu>
Subject: Comments on Rheingold book, VIRTUAL REALITY
Date: Mon, 9 Dec 91 17:10:56 GMT-0800


Comments on VIRTUAL REALITY by Howard Rheingold

	Dr. William Bricken
	
	
Howard Rheingold's VIRTUAL REALITY is the recount by an excellent  
journalist of his exploration of the people, places, and things of  
VR.  It describes the major centers of VR research worldwide and the  
pioneers of the technology.  The book makes good reading, presenting  
a somewhat comprehensive overview, clear and essentially correct  
technical explanations, and an engaging style.  The narrative focuses  
first on Mr. Rheingold's experiences, sounding rather like a  
personalized travelogue with an knowledgable guide.  It focuses  
second on the people who were active during the definitional stages  
of VR since Ivan Sutherland's SketchPad in the early sixties.  Third,  
we are treated to a non-technical tour of VR research and  
development.  


The expected US sites are well covered:  UNC, NASA Ames, MIT, VPL,  
Autodesk.  There are rich accounts of work in Japan and Europe.   
There is the expected background mention of Sutherland, Engelbart,  
Kay, Krueger, Furness.  Mr. Rheingold describes each pioneer with  
emaculate fairness, avoiding the cross-currents of a rapidly  
expanding field, while enforcing the dictate of popular journalism to  
personalize rather than conceptualize.  He brings back from his  
travels clear descriptions of the non-confidential aspects of VR  
projects.

A single book cannot and should not address all audiences.  Mr.  
Rheingold is without doubt serving a mass audience.  Here is what  
VIRTUAL REALITY is not.

This book is not a technical introduction to issues in VR.   It is  
written by a visiting journalist, not by a contributer to the field.   
It is formed from interview, observation, and impression, not from  
technical experience.  Consequently, VIRTUAL REALITY bears the  
limitations of mass journalism.  Of the details in the book that I  
know personally, there are several minor errors.   Readers should be  
aware that it is mythos, not fact, driving the anecdotes.  In  
remaining fair, descriptive, and popular, Mr. Rheingold has written a  
relatively dry book, one lacking controversy, wit, philosophy, and  
challenge.

Mr. Rheingold makes no attempt to form a taxonomy of VR through the  
selection and arrangement of topics.  Neither does he offer a  
definition of VR.  He does suggest two foundations of VR technology:   
immersion and navigation.  But he makes no attempt to discuss these  
concepts or to relate them to research activities.  Navigation is too  
narrow to serve as a foundation, immersion is hotly debated as  
central to the field.  


Most journalists, including Mr. Rheingold, focus excessively on the  
interface hardware of VR systems.  This is equivalent to talking only  
about the knives and forks during a magnificant French dinner.   
Software is difficult to form stories around;  how languages and  
programming define virtual worlds is simply less visible than that  
box of chips in the corner.  In VIRTUAL REALITY, we find no  
discussion of the software roots of VR in CAD, visual programming,  
AI, simulation, artificial life, real-time operating systems, and  
cybernetic control.  We find little discussion of the physiological  
or cognitive constraints on VR system design.  I personally missed a  
treatment of the philosophical ramifications of concepts such as  
immersion.  Mr. Rheingold does not provide us with a deep discussion  
of social, psychological, scientific, or ethical implications of VR.   


The selection of content is somewhat skewed toward the Silicon Valley  
version of high technology innovation, toward the culture and the  
cliques that are familiar to the author.  But VR comes from a broad  
cloth, its multidisciplinary nature makes legitimate roots obscure.   
For example, Mort Heilig is the subject of an early chapter.  Mr.  
Heilig invented Sensorama, an arcade experience from the early  
sixties which presented multisensory stimulation to an observer of a  
film.  Mr. Heilig is a legitimate pioneer, but Sensorama is  
non-interactive, it is at best a partial root of VR.  Were we to  
focus on interactivity, we would find different VR pioneers in the  
flight simulation community.  The largest immersive simulation system  
to date, SIMNET, gets little attention in the book.  Should we step  
slightly away from a visual emphasis toward text, the MUD and the  
hypermedia communities would provide pioneers.  Aside from the low  
bandwidth of a text interface, the modelling and display software of  
the MUD community might serve well as a foundation for virtual world  
technology.  The cover of VIRTUAL REALITY suggests it will tell us  
how VR "promises and threatens to transform business and society".   
Business activity at IBM, Digital, Boeing, etc., however, is simply  
not included.

In summary, VIRTUAL REALITY serves as an excellent first popular book  
about VR.  It maps much of the domain, appeals to a non-technical  
audience, and remains easy to read.


Reviewed by William Bricken
william@hitl.washington.edu