From: stuart@nynexst.com (Rory Stuart)
Subject: CONF: Report on New York VR Conference, Feb 1992
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 92 16:50:05 EST



I chaired the VIRTUAL REALITY: NEW DIRECTIONS IN HUMAN-COMPUTER
INTERACTION conference in New York City put on by Media Dimensions
February 4-5, and thought I would post some information about it.
I see someone else who attended already posted information about
exhibits, so I'll focus on the talks.  

Here was the program as it finally shaped up:

Day 1
Welcome & Introduction (by me)
Plenary Speech by Beth Wensel, NASA Ames Research Center
The Virtual Kitchen in Japan & Other Applications by George Zachary, VPL
	Research
Telepresence Surgery by Richard Satava, M.D., F.A.C.S., Colonel in U.S. Army, 
	Chief of Surgery at Silas B. Hays Army Hospital
Stereosynthesis(tm) Adapts Traditional Media for Virtual Reality Environments
	by David Geshwind, Latent Image Development Corporation
The Mandala System by Vincent J. Vincent, The Vivid Group
SRI International by Tom Piantanida
Human Interface Technology Laboratory by Mike Almquist
Virtual Worlds Research at Columbia University by Steven Feiner

Day 2
Motion Tracking: An Overview by Hugh L. Applewhite, Piltdown
Motion Tracking: Polhemus by James C. Krieg, Polhemus, Inc.
GEST: A Gesture Recognition Application by Jakub Segen, AT&T Bell Laboratories
The Private Eye by Bob LaRoche, Reflection Technology, Inc.
Eye-Tracking: ISCAN by Rikki Razdan, ISCAN Inc.
Force Feedback: An Overview by Margaret Minsky, MIT Media Lab
Videoplace/Videodesk by Myron Krueger, Artificial Reality Corporation
Non-Speech Audio: An Overview by Chris DiGiano, University of Toronto
3-D Audio in NASA AMES Systems by Beth Wensel
The Convolvotron by Scott Foster, Crystal River Engineering
Focal Point by Bo Gehring, Focal Point 3-D Audio

and a panel on "The Shape of Things to Come" with
Larry Hettinger, Logicon
John Thomas, NYNEX Science & Technology, Inc.
Wendy Kellogg, IBM T.J. Watson Research Lab
Myron Krueger, Artificial Reality Corporation

Much of the conference was moderated by Sandra Kay Helsel, Ph. D.,
and I moderated the remainder.

I'm tempted to try to summarize what was discussed at the conference,
but that would result in an excessively long posting (I have >35 pages
of my handwritten notes sitting in front of me!). However, if anyone 
has any specific questions, feel free to contact me.

The conference turned out IMABO (In MY Admittedly Biased Opinion :-))
to be a very strong one.  The speakers gave excellent presentations,
and there was good interaction/lively interchange with the audience.

Thanks to Bob Jacobson for the posting in sci.virtual-worlds and
THANK YOU ESPECIALLY to all of the speakers and participants--
who were responsible for the success of the conference--and at 
least some of whom participate in this news group. THANKS!

-Rory Stuart
NYNEX Science & Technology, Inc.
500 Westchester Ave.
White Plains, NY 10604
(914)-644-2362