From: good@baviki.enet.dec.com (Michael Good)
Subject: Re: Computerized Reality: Better than VR
Date: 19 Jul 91 18:14:25 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation



I'm having difficulty distinguishing "embodied virtuality" from "virtual
reality".  The distinctions drawn in the brief snippet from Mark's article
seem to emphasize distinctions based on current technology, not the
goals of people pursuing the technology from either of these two
angles.  Despite that reservation it sounds like an interesting article 
and I look forward to seeing it in print soon.

This thread reinforces my belief that it useful to think not only
in terms of categories such as embodied virtuality and virtual reality,
but in terms of qualities of experience that we want to achieve.  
For instance, the quality of transparency that highlights the description 
of embodied virtuality has been a long-sought goal in usability work.  
Early in the Presence project we pretty much equated the quality of 
presence with the quality of transparency, but since then we've 
focused the idea of presence to include the ideas of making greater use 
of the senses and making the abstract concrete.  I expect that embodied
virtuality involves other qualities that are similarly more focused than
transparency.  Inclusion is another quality that is commonly associated 
with virtual worlds.  It is a more focused quality than presence, which is 
in turn more focused than transparency. 

I think it's powerful to move back and forth between these 
different qualities and levels of focus.  Let's not adopt a "one
size fits all" view of virtual worlds technology and lose the
power that we gain from multiple focuses.

One thing we need are more examples of implementations,
and learning about what makes human-computer systems more
or less useful and desirable in different contexts.  We'll be showing
some simple demos at SIGGRAPH that I believe our marketing folks
are calling "virtual reality", but which wouldn't meet many
proposed criteria for "virtual reality."   Nevertheless I think it
demonstrates some steps towards greater presence for some
customers.   I look forward to seeing the reactions to this at
SIGGRAPH and to trying out the other presence systems there,
looking for ways to make computer systems more usable and
enjoyable for people within this loosely-defined area of virtual
worlds. 

Michael Good
good@baviki.enet.dec.com