Part of Blog 2: Summary of Heim

In Michael Heim's article "VR 101", his focus is about is over use of virtual reality and what it truely is in its technical sense. Many things are virtual such as cell phones, internet chat rooms, and e-mail all have become apart of a "universal vocabulary". Yet Heim says that the strict definition of virtual reality pulls together the meanings of the word in this "universal vocabulary". "VR" as he calls it is first a technology before a confusing idea. Since the "universial vocabulary" of VR is apart of our culture, a broad definition of it is dominant in our society based on the experiences of our society.

Heim says VR in a strict sense "creates an experience made possible by fast computers". The three characteristics of VR Heim mentioned were immersion, interactivity, and information intensity. Immersion isolates one's senses to make a person feel as if he/she were in another place. Interactivity is where a computer can change a scene's viewpoint as fast as a person can change their perspective. Finally information intensity is the sense that a virtual world can create an artifical existence with intellegence. Heim says this also spawns the idea of telepresence, which is a technology that make a person feel present in another place by using his/her senses. For example the telephone is a weaker sense of telepresence because it involves only two people and sound. A stronger example would be a conversation over the internet with a camera and a microphone because it involves more people, sound, and sight.

Other things Heim includes about VR are Helmets, which are head-mounted devices that allow a person to look anywhere in the virtual world. An alternative to the helmet is the CAVE where a person is in a room with surround sound and a screen all around to emulate an environment. Networks and simulators give a better feeling of presence as well as interaction. Heim gives many examples of clarifying what a true sense of VR is as opposed to what society's version is.