Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds
The use of virtual worlds are becoming more and more popular in today's society. Virtual worlds are a representation of the real world, but in the form of a computer based simulation. Many of these virtual simulations can be used in a person's home for purposes of entertainment. One use in the article called "At Hearing, Real and Virtual Worlds Collide", a virtual depiction of the Rayburn House Office Building was displayed on the walls so people in real life could see the crowd that had logged on to see the event take place. Some advantages of this technology is that it can improve activities like gaming or military training purposes, medical training for diagnosis' and even psychological therapy uses. Some disadvantages could be the amount of time it takes to recreate a virtual environment. Even when recreating that environment, things like lag time, lack of acuity, and overlooking of basic laws of physics can be disadvantages. In the article "Going to the Virtual Office in Second Life" this technology was being used to create virtual business meetings. In the future, maybe this technology can be used to recreate class lectures in schools so students won't have to come to class. Virtual worlds foster creativity by creating team collaboration. Workers may be more inclined to be more outspoken and say things that they may be too nervous to say if they were in person.
The limits of virtual worlds at the moment is from a technology stand point because the creative potential is limitless. Which is what is so cool because technology is progressing so rapidly that virtual worlds are probably not too far off from being common place.
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