From: Michael Almquist Subject: CONF: 2nd Industry Symposium on Virtual Worlds Technology, **REVIEW** Date: Fri, 27 Nov 92 10:40:13 -0800 Ok, this review is long over due and to the masses, I apologize. Been busy with this and that - the usual. In addition, I knew most of this stuff, although its exciting its my home. I also apologize for the bias - the things/thoughts contained below are ONLY the things that made it to my notes. Making it to my notes means that it is interesting and it made me sit up in my chair and listen more intensely. Anyways, on with another fine review (fingers crossed) via SQUISH! Don't believe the hype. Seattle throughout the 2nd Industry Symposium was quite pleasant and Mt. Rainer could be seen most of the week. Seattleits would like everyone to believe this curtain of black descends. Anyways, the symposium started bright and early in the morning with a warm speech by Tom Furness, HITL director, supercockpit fame, grandfather/father of VR (?). Following Tom was the Deputy Mayor of Seattle (Bob Watt), the Dean of the UofWA College of Engineering (Dr. J. Ray Bowen), and finally the Executive Director of the Washington Technology Center (Dr. Robert Center - WTC is the home of HITL and other cutting edge Seattle/UofWA groups). Basically the messages were good cheer and spend money while here (: First up was Mike Maples, Executive VP Worldwide Products Group, Microsoft Corp. According to Mr. Maples, there has been too much hype, too soon, VR is such a BROAD word/topic (hard to pin down), and there are currently no applications/not enough. Yes, stating the obvious however I'd like to argue about the hype - VR is now taking on substance - we *ARE NOT* taking the same road as AI. I've been ranting about this for quite sometime. To reiterate, you give an AI group $100 million you *WILL NOT* get a sentient/intelligent being, give a VR group $100 million and you *WILL* get something quite spectacular with *TODAYs* technology. Anyways, to continue. Mr. Maples hit the nail squarely on the head with the statement that we should be "making the computer, people literate and not the people, computer literate" - sounds like the you can lead a horse to water but ... To further this the "DWIM" concept was discuss - "D"o "W"hat "I" "M"ean says the computer. We (consumers) want a less intrusive environment. Mr. Maples then diverged onto Microsoft and its stance for the near future. Microsoft is concentration effort via their consumer division to get richer toys, etc. His talk didn't much cover VR - most of the slides discussed entertainment, mass consumption, etc. Further raising the Microsoft banner he talked about the Kids Camp; a summer like camp filled with kids in order to figure out how to better market products aimed at kids. Also according to Microsoft, they are doing *2D* windows, "You will not see 3D interface from Microsoft", said Mr. Maples. Microsoft currently has "NO" VR people (although they are actively supporting HITL), they have approximately 250 people throughout Microsoft working on human interface/factors/etc and, 4000 people in product development (approximately 60-70% being human interface oriented people). My most favorable quote from Mr. Maples was, "these are some `random thoughts' so I'm allowed to babble". HALLELUJAH! Fellow babblers UNITE! Somehow I missed Dr. Joel Orr, Chairman of Orr & Associates, Inc. My notes are fuzzy as to why this happened. All that I do know is that he is a CADD/CAM consultant and writer, specializing in engineering automation and computer technologies. I am however looking forward to catching him at the EFDPMA #3 VR conference in DC, Dec. 1-2. As the afternoon session started, Dr. Robert Kahn, President, Corporation for National Research Initiatives spoke. An amusing sidenote, throughout the symposium there was considerable trouble with the overhead projector, slides, etc. Someone in the audience yelled out when the overhead projector wasn't working, "How many PhD's does it take to switch on a lightbulb?" Tom Furness rushed the stage and got it working and responded "One" to more laughter and applauds. Dr. Kahn is (or should be) best known for his work with/building the Internet. He stated some startling facts such as: - there is a 10 to 15% growth in JUST the NSFnet - the Internet is growing almost out of control - gigabit networks will be available to middle users soon - kilobit networks are good for docs/text - megabit networks are good for large docs and graphical images - gigabit networks are good for movies, simulation, multi-media, multiple views - there are approximately 10 million Internet users -> 100 million by the end of *THIS* decade A project of great interest to him is NREN which he hopes will soon become a piece of the Internet - NREN is the experimental fiber super fast subnets currently in testing around the US. Why do we have this desire for MORE? According to Dr. Kahn, this will help the development of communications infrastructure, high speed back plane, meta computers, and act as a catalyst for creativity and innovation. A few NREN segments: Nectar (upgrade to 2.4 gigabit/sec), Aurora (upgrade to 2.4 gigabit/sec back plane), Casa (concurrent computation - atmosphere & ocean joint modeling venture). He talked about an example service that is now available on the Internet - MOSIS - and how he hopes many more will grow. MOSIS is a group on the Internet that if sent chip specs they will burn you a custom chip. Pretty neat huh? I will remember Dr. Kahn's speech for sometime by his simple quote, "We are beginning to run out of greek prefixes to express the speeds we are and hope to be achieving". Unfortunately Frank Ogden "Dr. Tomorrow" spoke during lunch and I was out enjoying GOOOOOOD Seattle food and none of the UofWA canned grub. Luckily for me he would talk briefly later on in the symposium. After a quick lunch and romp around Seattle back to the symposium with Dr. Sam Bogoch, President & Co-Founder of Torque Systems, Inc. According to Dr. Bogoch, Torque is a distributed software company *PERIOD*. They have implemented and continue to support the version of Linda (TUPLEX). Currently their system runs on i860s, Macs, Suns, and they are working on other ports. If you don't know what Linda is then you should run (not walk) to the nearest library and find out. MANY of the current VR groups around the world are using a Linda-like paradigm - especially VEOS/HITL. Next was Dr. Steve Charles, Surgeon, Center for Retina Vitreous Surgery. Dr. Charles is a retinal surgeon. The human eye sees 10^8. Current CRTs are 10^2. We *MUST* have at least 10^3 to make this type of VR application/surgery feasible. He brought up some VERY interesting problems one faces in teleoperation. The main point is improve dexterity: positioning, accuracy, stability, velocity, acceleration, and force. If we can control this then we can open opportunities for MANY potential surgeons that wouldn't have been surgeons under current conditions - bigger pool of talent to pull from. Some more thoughts: - one way to map teleoperation work is we don't use our hands as a hand but as an engraver - performance is hopeless - looking at green man (underwater telepresence device) showed using a screwdriver was tough and a different scheme for mapping human limited degrees of freedom to many degrees robot is needed - parallel manipulators will/should work better than serial manipulators - we humans use many fingers and hands to do complicated tasks - using voice motors appears to be the right direction One grim humorous thought was when he was discussing the possibility of using the big monster robots like the automanufactors to do surgery but quickly ruled this out cause "industrial robots - large mass - we don't want a robot that might take off a human's head accidently". Next was Peter Cornwell, CEO, Division Inc. Everyone should know who Division is - they are one of the few companies making some money in the current VR market. According to Mr. Cornwell, Division's main contribution is scalable/reusable applications - no rewrites are necessary for newer hardware. Also, currently in the works is a Division/AutoCAD deal to create a scaled down 486 version. SO, that means we have Sense8 with Intel DVI cards, VREAM with basic PC (I don't think they are currently supporting any exotic devices), and now/soon Division/AutoCAD with I'm sure a transputer/i860 board. Who knows? Will SGI revive their GL PC card that was on the market a year ago? Will Evans and Sutherland shrink their Freedom board down for a PC? Whatever the case may be, exciting times are ahead. To give some BRIEF specs and things that caught my attention: - 80 MFLOPS for collision detection - 20 MIPS, 3 MFLOPS dedicate I/O processing - approximately equivalent to 2 IRIS GTX machines - can do 42,000 Gourand shaded polygons using 40MHz i860s - uses dVS, their main thrust is a parallel processes model - IMHO THIS IS THE WAY TO GO! Look at the PixelPlanes and other parallel concepts popping up here and there. Its obvious that parallel processing is in everyones future. Sun released their SS10 with 4 CPUs, SGI has had multiple CPUs for a while now, etc etc etc. I'm sure its just a matter of time before you can get a PC with multiple 386/486 processors. Whatever happen to the neato 386/486 - i860 combo PC? Most memorable quote, "[we want to build] a X window interface to VR". Many groups are attempting to do this and there is LOTS of protos/specs currently available. Interesting thought, Evans and Sutherland use PEX/PHIGS, next best graphic monster is PixelPlane using also PEX/PHIGS, and finally, SGI using GL. Does this mean that GL may eventually be replaced?! Onward and to Ben Delaney, Publisher & Editor of CyberEdge Journal. Well, I'm delighted to say that he has surprised and impressed me. After EFDPMA #2 I stated that this was rather bogus journal but it has apparently found its niche and is an UP-TO-DATE reference for VR. He is opposed to VR hype and is attempting to stamp it out. He also went on to briefly discuss some applications: augmented disability worlds, NASA virtual wind tunnel, Virtuality, stock systems, NPSNET. I have a few issues of CyberEdge that I need to find the time to review - I'll let all of you know more soon. Mr. Delaney had two memorable quotes - one was a reiteration of Dr. Zyda about being able to fly "heavy lift bovine vehicles" . Secondly, "if you steal from 1 you are plagiarizing. if you steal from 10 you are doing research. if you steal from 100 you are an expert." Mr. Delaney is definitely an expert by this definition. Next was Dr. Masahiro Kawahata, Professor, Tokai University. To much laughter he said, "We need faster systems - others have talked about this so I'll skip it. We need better resolution - others have talked about this so we'll skip this too. We need more human factors research." I agree. Human factors and augmented/autonomous agents (similar to MIT's bent) are needed. Enough of these cheap joyride fly through VR systems. As everyone knows, Dr. Kawahata said that Japanese are very optimistic for VR getting out there - this information based on an extensive survey of Japanese. In addition, the audience started laughing when 37% of the people marked N/A for martial status - guess that means lots of people in Japan are confused if they are single or married. Wrapping up the panelists was Nelson Merrit, Chairman, Virtual Reality Inc. He stated the obvious (or at least should be) - there is MONEY in entertainment. He went on to state that 3/4 of a billion could easily be spend by broadway show(s) - and, THEY WANT IT! Also, VRI stated that the end of the year there will be medical prototype equipment available. And, obviously, toy makers want VR. He believes that mom and dad will fork out $600-700 for a system. What does this mean? Moms and dads have more money or are more kids becoming better beggars ? VRI has thrown in the gauntlet. There now exists VRI, VPL, Division, W Industries, Sense8, and WorlDesign (sorry if I missed others, these are the REAL ones that are REALLY going to make things happen) (in addition, I am aware of approximately 4-6 more but I'm not allowed to discuss them - ALTHOUGH, IT IS HAPPENING). When I get older I'll have to remember to use Mr. Merrit's quote, "Burbon improves with age they say. I agree, the older I get the better I like it." (: First workshop was on "HUMAN FACTORS". This panel was composed of Suzanne Weghorst, Woody Barfield, and Michael Deering. Suzanne Weghorst, Research Scientist, HITLab spoke first. Suzanne talked about various issues of involved in human factors research. Some thoughts and current questions she is trying to solve are: - collecting head movement data when finding sounds in 3 space (how do we do it?) - eye tracing and perceptual tracking - pointing (involves *BOTH* posture and gesture) - gesture and facial expressions go hand in hand - and the rules of getting people into VR and doing things is based on: ABILITIES/SKILLS, LIMITATION, and MOTIVATION <- big piece of the question Following Suzanne was Dr. Woody Barfield, Associate Professor, Industrial Engineering, UofWA. Woody's main thrust presented here was to answer the question: "What is the relationship between realism and rendering technics?" Hopefully Woody is aware of Michael Cohen's (I think CMU and Cornell) work in this area. Anyways, he discussed some interesting things: - what are the parameters of perspective? - how do we navigate virtual environments? (FYI, MCC has done some work on this) - actual measurements of "What is the relationship between perceived realism, performance, and rendering techniques?". This was based on emmpherical studies to help determine which methods worked in what situations. I am not aware of a paper on this from Woody's lab but will be eagerly awaiting. - and his final thought, "Should the world rotate around you or you around the world?!" AH, egocentrisium is BACK! AND, finally, there was Dr. Michael Deering, Architect-At-Large, Sun Microsystems. I've had the chance to meet Dr. Deering, talk to him, see his video tapes, etc. on numerous occasions. Hopefully most of you saw the Sun setup at SIGGRAPH 92' and his talk. Both worthwhile. I'm cheating now, this posting is getting quite huge so we'll continue with our easy method of just noting the neat-o things discussed. Dr. Deering talked about: - visually, subtle detail is lost - ESPECIALLY with the systems here today - human factor requirements cannot be determined until we get better displays therefore, Sun is using CRTs cause head mounts don't cut it resolution-wise - he played the now infamous SIGGRAPH 92' video tape - QUITE stunning still - 18-20Hz is needed to make VR really happen and be acceptable, the way to do this is via linear interpolation, higher order predictions, etc. FYI, UNC is the least laggy system I've experienced. I think IMHO this is due to the fact that they have a REALLY nice fast graphic engine (ala PixelPlane). But still, UNC has its problems if you move toooooo fast. My friend and VR neophyte (Hi Jennifer) started getting ill cause she didn't know to move slower than in the real world. Dr. Deering is doing MEAT AND POTATOES work . He is doing real work - no hype there. I will remember him for saying, when lag is introduced we get really bad problems such as "the universe is on qualuds". Humanity knew this in 1820. Thus wound up the "HUMAN FACTORS" panel. Although, one passing thought, the buzz word at this gathering was "FACE SUCKER". FACE SUCKER - n, 1. either an alien from a far off planet, 2. a HMD that sucks your face (ala VPL). Everyone agreed that FACE SUCKER HMDs are becoming quite unbearable - need them less intrusive - but this is stating the obvious. The next workshop was on "VIRTUAL INTERFACE HARDWARE". This panel was composed of Joel Kollin, Brain Karr, Arden Strasser, and Jeff Jacobsen. First up was Eric Strasser, Technical Director, Virtual Reality Inc. He was a holographer working with NASA. He is now a HMD engineer. He gave a nice overview of the HMD technology. VRI is using miniature cathod ray tubes since LCD resolution is limited and magnifying the image with optics brings out the individual pixels and thus degrades resolution. He finally showed a video tape on the telerobotics project at MIT. According to Riengold, this is some eerie stuff cause via telepresence these robots take on human qualities and motion (find a video tape on greeman - indeed, something haunting about watching a robot move as you would expect a human - and, we AREN'T talking robot motion like SRL). Following Mr. Strasser was Jeff Jacobsen, VP of Marketing and Strategic Business, Kopin Corp. I WISH I understood more of what he was saying but what I did get BLEW ME AWAY! **ALERT ALERT** This is a company to watch and invest in TODAY!!!!!!!!! Kopin has developed a method for transferring ICs to glass and other substances. Therefore, they are capable of mounting ICs onto glass thus improving resolution and removing/decreasing leakage == better image - HDTV type quality. They have developed a process to make single crystal silicon -- robust material with low error/defects. They have been working the Sarnoff research lab in NJ for a while making some non-disclosure things. Kopin has built (or is building?!) a 1280X1024 LCD system that measures 1" X 1" for Darpa. Basically, he was talking 6 months to a year you'll see 640X480 64 grayscale and eventually 1280X1024 optic systems. By 1995 they are hoping for 2560X2048 and 1280X1024 color systems. This process doesn't require backlighting and is produced on standard waffers relatively cheap by 1993-1994. Then he dropped THE BOMB! This 640X480 system should be out SOON (a matter of months) and cost $55. AND, their high res system should be available before the end of 1993 and cost $110. He concluded his speech with a simple "Thank you". The audience was stunned. We didn't know if we should jump up and down hysterical, kiss his feet, beg him to give us some samples, it was nerve racking!!!!!!!!!!! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?!? I have *ALWAYS* been of the thought that CPU and graphic systems will be available and affordable in 2 years but thought the HMDs would lack and be the big hinderance of massive scale, global VR. Weeeeeeeell, guess again. Kopin will help me and others make VR take off in 2 years. *2* years that the magic number. If you have money buried in the garden dig it up and invest it in Kopin!!! I can't rant and rave enough about how AMAZING and what kind of a break through this will be. I keep looking back to the picture with Eric Gullisen wearing a pair of terminator style sunglasses in Mondo - wishing that something like that existed. With this process there is NO reason why we can't! After being emotionally blowen away by Kopin the audience got the one-two punch from Joel Kollin, Optical Engineer, HITLab and the retinal scanner. I've played with the retinal scanner and used it. IT WORKS! Some thoughts and info: - a signal is sent from a DEC frame buffer - signal at 100MHz - acoustic-optic deflector modulates and scans the laser beam horizontally - using AO basically cause its off the shelf (readily available) - then the beams pass through lens system to translate horizontal image onto vertical scanner (galivanometer) - ie. a rotating mirror - finally all the beams converge on a lens to focus the image onto the retina - this system is safe, uses 1/10 of a microwatt - HITL is hoping to have 1000x1000 version in 3 to 6 months and in 6 months to a year a HMD version - eventual goal is 4K by 4K but eye tracking is required to make sure most of the light emitted gets into the pupil - therefore generates an image. I continue to tease Joel about saying "If things [VR,HMDs,ETC] reach critical mass, we can all eat." Again, the audience sat stunned. If you think about this system (and I guess VR in general) it is MIND BOGGLING. I was seeing an image that didn't exist anywhere but on the retina of my eye. Pretty neat huh? Finally, Brain Karr, Research Engineer, HITLab spoke. He talked about virtual sound. There was a speaker ordering problem brought to light by Brian, "the purpose of your ears is to direct your eyes". He briefly discusses the virtual sound tracking project that Suzanne had mentioned earlier. Brain is one of the MOST knowledgable people I know when it comes to virtual sound. One very interesting point that Brain made was that the ear normalizes sound therefore, we REALLY need to add echos to our worlds. Break time - after break and the VIRTUAL INTERFACE HARDWARE workshop the APPLICATIONS 1 workshop started with Tom Furness, Jim Elias, Robert Jacobson, and Bob Horn. Dr. Tom Furness, of course from the HITLab, started it off talking briefly about virtual visual displays (his TRUE love) and about the potentials for a slewable sensor platform -> ala telepresence. He also briefly discussed the pull and push theories behind the creation of the VR market -- SEE my review of the EFDPMA Conference #2 -- Alan Welexblatt, Bob Jacobson, and John Latta. Not to slight Tom but I don't have many notes about his speech cause I've heard it a million times. If you get the chance - DO SEE HIM. He is a great speaker and VERY knowledgable. Following Tom was Dr. Bob Jacobson, President, WorlDesign, and past employee at the HITLab -- it was the only logical procession. One of HITL's business goals is to spawn new companies and industries and with this in mind HITL deserves an "A" on their report card. Dr. Jacobson's goal is to integrate virtual reality systems and components to meet various customer needs. They are a VR consultancy group. They main purpose is to help set a direction of technology, create/build information design systems (Dr. Jacobson's specialty), and enhance productivity via collective problem solving and personal comfort. IMHO this is ANOTHER company to watch. WD will be instrumental in helping to build the VR market. Next was Jim Elias, Executive Director-Technology Assessment, US WEST Communications. I've met Jim on a few occasions and I think he is most likely the nicest person currently involved in the VR realm (not to say others aren't, VR *IS* filled with great people - reading books like "Hackers" perhaps this is the way with cutting edge technologies?). Mr. Elias talked about 2D multimedia and how it is currently consuming previous modes of communication (voice, text, data, image, full motion video). He also briefly talked about NEC and how they are attempting to have networked VR within 3 years. He also stated the obvious, improved interfaces will promote amazing growth! Mr. Elias then turned over the rest of the discussion to Chris Brynes. She is an employee of US WEST and a fellow research assistant at the HITLab. Chris and US WEST built a program called the Pacific Science Camp. Children involved in this program would build worlds using swivel 3D. There have been many interesting observations from this project. For instance, some children had problems with click and double click with the swivel 3D interface but within a virtual world, these children were all equal. I am looking forward to Chris's thesis and thoughts. One of the worlds the children built included, a human sacrific with a removable heart (: Wrapping things up was Bob Horn, Visiting Scholar, HITLab. Mr. Horn came from the world of information use. His desires/area of interest center on informational systems and heirachical data navigation. For those of you interested in similar aspects *MUST* read all you can from Engelbart, and Negroponte and Bolt (about their spatial dataland). I liked his simple and sweet closing comments, "I don't think we have many answers". AGAIN, *THIS* is where MORE effort must be put. HITL is doing software and the retinal scanner and UNC is doing hardware (Pixel this and Pixel that) and some software. MIT is one of the few places that I know are working on some meaty tough issues - barring Toni Emerson, myself, and scattered handfuls. Mr. Horn has a new book out "Mapping Hypertext". I didn't get the chance to look at it in any depth but looks like it might certainly be worth obtaining. Jeepers, my fingers are getting tired. I hope you all appreciate this (: Now we started to get into the "meaty" issues of VR and what HITL has been doing to accomplish/satisfy these goals: VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT OPERATING SYSTEM (VEOS) workshop with William Bricken and Geoffery Coco. For those of you that don't know, Dr. William Bricken is the principal scientist at HITL and Geoffery Coco is *THE* research assistant at HITL that put VEOS together. Although I work at the lab I was transcribing various slides to make sure that I didn't infringe upon the lab's viewpoint (ie. I say to-ma-to and they say toe-mat-o). SO, as of Oct. 1992 this *IS* HITL's official word on VEOS. Hopefully a tech. paper will be out soon on VEOS but to give you a small taste: - VEOS is at 2.0 and 2.2 will be released soon - HITL's definition/requirement, VR is "inclusion": inclusive, interactive, multisensory, high dimensionality, sense of presence - VEOS is distributed, heterogeneous resources, transparent symbolic computation, uniform database representation, uniform computational model, entity based modeling, inconsistent worlds - main structure of VEOS is the entity - symbolic systems - inconsistent worlds via uniqueness: not determined, not random, tolerance of contradiction, meaning is interactive, reference is social VEOS from a programmer perspective: - distributed computing, computational completeness, simplicity - VEOS is composed of nancy (Linda-like system), talk (communication), shell - nancy supports Linda, put, get, copy, match and substitute - entity -> communication, database, process, initialization - entity definition: natural behavior, interaction tools, algebraic specification, programming language, kernel primitives - entities have external, boundary, and internal memory - entity communication via broadcast model and coupled model - entity behavior via react and persist - X-window manager (ie. twm) is to X as FERN is to VEOS - FERN is distributed database, distributed process management, location transparency, automation and reliability There are some technical docs available and currently being written that go into further detail. If I had more time I'd babble some more about VEOS and its conceptual design but on to the next workshop (interested readers should snag the current veos source off of milton and get the document and read - now that a support mechanism has been put into place its only going to get better). The next workshop was on VIRTUAL WORLD DEVELOPMENT TOOLS with Andy MacDonald, Max Minkoff, and Colin Bricken. Andy MacDonald, Max Minkoff, and Colin Bricken are all Research Assistants at the HITLab. Andy is FERN/Mercury, Max is the whip, and Colin is the wonderful thoughts, action, and implementation. The last two sessions were basically a free for all. Andy was running the show but it was QUITE interactive. Some thoughts that caught my attention (again, sorry for the parsing - I work at the lab and eat, drink, sleep VEOS/VR/and other flights of fancy - so you are getting the distilled thoughts of Squish): - human interface: sensors, sound, graphics, MIDI, voice generation/recognition - Mercury software maintains: sensor (head, hand, buttons), sound renderer, graphic renderer - entity attributes: - general - position, orientation - visual - picture, visibility, textures - aural - sound, audibility, doppler - Mercury is the universal motivator And, to wrap it up, I will forever remember and kid Andy about his statement, "All entities should be good citizens". Finally wrapping up the wonderful symposium meeting was the APPLICATIONS 2 workshop with Marty Perlmutter, Frank Ogden, and Bernard Ulozas. Dr. Bernard Ulozas, Training Specialist, Navy Personnel R&D Center and HIT Lab Industrial Fellow discussed his and the Navy's interest in VR. He is involved with an aspect known as damage control. How can a naval vessel survive a weapon hit? Its obvious that you can't train people by firing missiles at them. You need to have survivability drills. He is hoping to use VR to train/drill individuals and also to assimilate copious amounts of data quickly to make appropriate actions. Interesting thoughts and neat video footage. Marty Perlmutter, President, Immersive Techologies, Inc. talked about possible applications and thoughts. Some of his thoughts included: - end of decade VR will be MASSIVE - portable video CDs and audio CDs recorders - will help considerably - computing power < $1000 1993 20 Mips+ - "a sewer pipe of digital information" is available - need to parse it Mr. Perlmutter had some marvelous quotes: "Telephone people look at cable people and cable people look at telephone people and wonder who is going to eat who." While playing Virtuality a scary thought came up, "I fired a grenade and blew my daughter up." This is a wacky world, Hughes and Lucas Arts are sleeping together - to quote Lawrence of Arabia, "Nothing is written." Lastly was Frank Ogden, "Dr. Tomorrow", 21st Century Media Communications. He briefly talked about the QSI - quantified signal imager. A neat, new, somewhat cheap device that allows one to record and examine brain activity. This device of course has some unlimited potential. And, some final thoughts, Tom Furness said that "Kids and VR is a grand experiment like the TV, telephone, etc. No one really knows what is going to happen or how it will shape society." And, an amusing thought, someone talked about how some hackers got into Habitat (the Japanese pseudo VR system - more like a graphical MUD) and were stealing peoples heads - HAHAHA! Oh well. My fingers are getting tired and I'm sure you are getting tired reading all this. All and all, EVERYONE had a great time and learned a lot. This was a MARVELOUS conference and I'm not just saying it cause I'm from HITL. I've been to MANY VR conferences and there have been only TWO that I feel have been worth while - this one the "2ND Industry Symposium on Virtual Worlds Technology, Seattle, WA" and "Virtual Reality, 2nd EFDPMA Conference, Washington, DC". If you EVER get the chance, DO GO TO THESE CONFERENCES IN THE FUTURE!!!!!!! Repeat DO GO TO THESE CONFERENCES IN THE FUTURE!!!!!!! Do I need to repeat it one more time? I have yet to make it to a Meckler but I hear that this is too a worthwhile convention. Anyone at Meckler wanna invite me to the next BIG BASH?! All that I have left to say is GREAT JOB TOM FURNESS! And, GREAT JOB EVERYONE AT HITL - EVERYONE WENT HOME IMPRESSED! - Mike Almquist (squish@hitl.washington.edu) Copyrighted by ME (Mike Almquist) Nov. 1992 - If you want to use portions of this just make sure that credit is put where credit is due. And as always, if you hated it blame me, if you loved it blame HITL. PS - Coming attractions: Squish's review of UNC, HITL, and other research groups around the US - whoes doing what and how is it going and how is it going to reshape the the world? PLUS, Squish's review of the *** Third EFDPMA Conference Featuring the Latest Commercial and Military Applications and Developments in VR Technology ... VIRTUAL REALITY *** This conference is Dec. 1-2 in Washington, DC. For those of you that are going to be there, looking forward to rapping and picking your brains - and if you wish to pick my brains, feel free. PPS - One last thought, from alden@hitl.washington.edu: if you know anyone who might be interested in the videotaped proceedings of the Symposium, please give me their name and address and I will include them in my "order form" mailing. Three different tape series will be made: Composite series - speakers & workshops Speakers - Maples, Furness, Orr, Kahn, Industry Panel, Ogden Workshops - all Tentative pricing $500, $250, $250 respectively Send requestions to alden@hitl.washington.edu - its worth it!