nielsen@bellcore.com (Jakob Nielsen) (03/21/91)
I have received a direct mail to SIGGRAPH members from the Meckler company advertising a set of videotapes from the 1990 San Francisco Virtual Reality Conference. Since these tapes are $225 each, it would be nice if somebody who has seen them would post a review. A related question: What *are* good videos about virtual realities? The ACM has one which I have not bought yet as I thought that their tape (in the same series) on digital video was a little too low level. -- Jakob Nielsen, Bellcore MRE-2P370, 445 South St, Morristown, NJ 07962-1910 Email nielsen@bellcore.com, Tel. (201) 829-4731, Fax (201) 538-9093.
cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) (03/21/91)
Tapes covering the HIT Lab's recent Industry Symposium on Virtual Worlds
Technology (21-22 February 1991), including the spectacular video intro-
duction produced by US West Communications and nearly 10 hours of
presentations and panels, are now available. The complete set of five
tapes is priced at $500, which just about covers our costs.
For information and subscriptions, please send email to Bill Wiseman at:
bwiseman@milton.u.washington.edu
Thanks.
Bob Jacobson
Associate Director
Human Interface Tech Lab
Washington Tech Center
Seattlemg@godzilla.cgl.rmit.OZ.AU (Mike Gigante) (03/22/91)
I guess I should post my micro-review of the Meckler VR conference that
was held in SF last Dec. It was from this conference that the videotapes
was produced.
Personally, I found it very dissappointing - I shouldn't have been there
as the intended audience seemed to be middle-level managers who didn't
know much about VR. (I think - it was hard to work out exactly who was the
target audience) There were a couple of interesting talks but they were
in the minority. There was a *lot* of flakey stuff and rampant speculation
and very little opportunity for discussion. (so much so that there was *no*
question time for most talks)
It seemed that most of the important players were *not* there, tho' a few
research and commercial groups put in a brief appearence.
Most of the exhibition was "Mystics & Magic", tho' the following were in
the exhibition:
Reflection Technologies (Private Eye)
Spatial Systems (Spaceball)
Sense 8 (WorldKit and the Intel DVI board for RT texture)
Beyond Technologies/Virtual Technologies (a CAD (solid modelling
package (3Form) that has an interesting user interface and
can optionally interface to Virtual Technology's CyberGlove)
The rest of the stuff was "flakey" I think (hope I haven't forgotten anyone).
VPL were noatable for their absence from the exhibition (no attendees either).
As for the talks, well I think you walk on shaky ground if you rely on
a chairperson to select all the speakers. The chairperson was Sandra Helsel
(editor of MultiMedia Review). The speakers were fairly diverse,
but as I indicated, many important groups were not even represented (even
as attendees). Every opportunity was taken to promote the chair's publications
(multimedia review and virtual reality report) - this got on my nerves
as the meeting progressed...
The speakers were: (I have succumbed and grabbed the program now)
Myron Krueger (keynote)
Joseph Henderson (Dartmouth Medical College)
Natalie Stenger (alias Nicole), MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies
Michael Spring, Dept. Info Science, U of Pittsburgh
Michael Helm, Dept. Philosophy, Cal State Long Beach
Brenda Laurel, Telepresence
Allucquere Roseanne Stone, Dept. of Sociology, UC Santa Cruz
Randal Walker, Autodesk
Suzanne Weghorst, HIT Lab, U of Washington
Eric Gullichsen, Sense8
Tom Barret, EDS
David Traub, Center Point Communications
John Thomas, NYNEX AI Labs
Michael Benedikt, School of Architecture, UT at Austin
My personal opinion is that I would *not* buy the videotapes, nor would
I attend any more of these conferences.
If anyone would like me to be more comprehensive in my review, send me mail.
Sufficient response may motivate me to write an overview of the talks.
BTW, I believe that most of the authors had an article in the first issue
of the Virtual Reality Report. This was the closest thing to a set of
proceedings.
Mike Gigante
Advanced Computer Graphics Centre at RMIT
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
Melbourne, Australia
mg@godzilla.cgl.rmit.oz.auhlr@uunet.UU.NET (Howard Rheingold) (03/25/91)
nielsen@bellcore.com (Jakob Nielsen) writes: > [stuff deleted] >A related question: What *are* good videos about virtual realities? > [stuff deleted] An excellent and much less expensive videotape compilation of material from VPL, NASA, UNC, and elsewhere, is "Virtual Reality," $30.00 (thirty bucks) from Media Magic, P.O.Box 507, Nicasio, CA 94946. They also have talking heads tapes from the NCGA conference.
rlm@Hudson.Stanford.EDU (Robert L. Miller) (03/29/91)
I filmed and produced the Virtual Reality '90 tape set for Meckler
Publishing. I offer the readers of this group a different point of
view from Mike Gigante's posting.
I will first list the tapes--the object of this discussion--then
respond to Gigante's message. At the end, I have included a general
listing of VR tapes available on the market.
Virtual Reality '90
December 10, 11, 1990
San Francisco, CA
There are 3 tapes. Each 2 hours in length.
THEORY Keynote Address: "Shaping Cultural
Consciousness with Artificial Reality"
Myron Krueger, Ph.D.
Artificial Reality Corp. 30 min.
(audio is sub-optimal for this talk,
but coherent.)
"The Role of Drama in the Evolution
of Virtual Reality"
Brenda Laurel, Ph.D.
Telepresence Research 30 min.
"Being There, or Models for
Virtual Reality"
Michael Spring, Ph.D.
University of Pittsburgh 30 min.
"The Metaphysics of Virtual
Reality"
Michael Heim, Ph.D.
University of California, Long Beach
30 min.
THEORY "Bringing Affordable Virtual Reality
Systems to Market"
(features 10 minutes of video from GE's
state-of-the-art simulators and Sense8's
WorldTool)
Eric Gullichsen
Sense8 Corporation 30 min.
"The Virtual Body, along with Research
and Projects at the Human Interface
Technology Lab, Univ. of Washington"
Suzanne Weghorst
Human Interface Technology Lab.
University of Washington
(Edited to 15 min. at speaker's request)
Roundtable and Demonstrations 15 min.
(Demos from the Exhibit Hall, which
feature Sense8's WorldTool system and
the Virtex (Jim Kramer) glove.)
PROMISE "Educational Implications for Virtual
Reality"
David Traub, Ph.D.
Center Point Communications 30 min.
"Cyberspace: A Vision of the Year 2000"
John Thomas, Ph.D.
NYNEX 30 min.
"Cyberspace, VR and the Principle of
Commonality" (Cyberspace Design)
Michael Benedikt, Ph.D.
Univ. of Texas, Austin 30 min.
"Cooperative Work Environments--The
Virtual Heartland"
Tom Barrett
Electronic Data Systems 30 min.
In article 1192, Mike Gigante writes of the conference:
>There were a couple of interesting talks but they were in the
>minority. There was a lot of flakey stuff...
Perhaps Mike Gigante should state which of the above
are 'flakey,' as he puts it.
In these talks: Michael Benedikt suggests architectural and spatial
guidelines for a cyberspace world (in addition to issues of
visualizing data). David Traub speaks of the potential of
experiential education with VR. Walser, Gullichsen and Weghorst
present an overview of current VR technologies. Barrett talks about a
Corporate Virtual Workspace. Krueger, Laurel, Spring, Heim and
others, bring out fundamental issues of VR and society--which I hope
is a subject of interest to those of you who are creating virtual
reality technology, regardless of whether or not you buy VR
videotapes.
>The speakers were fairly diverse, but as I indicated, many important
>groups were not even represented.
Perhaps Gigante should inform us as to who the important groups are
in VR and who are not.
Prices of VR tapes in general:
Price Tape(s) Content Length
500 5 HITL Symposium ?
295 1 SIGGRAPH, HDTV & the
Quest for Virtual
Reality
(1 hr for VR I believe) 2 hr.
225 1 VR Theory, VR '90 Conf. 2 hr.
225 1 VR Practice, VR '90.. 2 hr.
225 1 VR Promise, VR '90.. 2 hr.
525 3 VR'90 Tapeset 6 hr.
30 1 "Virtual Reality" ?
(I am not familiar with
this tape. Can anyone
tell us if it is just
promotional cuts from
VPL, UNC, NASA, etc?)
Prices for the VR '90 tapes were set by Meckler Publishing, however,
forty percent of all revenue from the tapes go to support the Virtual
Reality Film Documentary (the rest is to Meckler and distributing
costs).
For further information on the VR '90 tapes contact:
Meckler Publishing,
11 Ferry Lane West
Westport, CT 06880
203 226-6967
203 454-5840 (fax)
or send me a message.
Robert Miller
Producer
THE VIRTUAL REALITY FILM DOCUMENTARY
VIRTUAL REALITY '90, THEORY, PRACTICE, PROMISErlm@Hudson.Stanford.EDU (Robert L. Miller) (03/30/91)
This should be added to the "VR Practice" video from Meckler:
"The Emerging Technology of
Cyberspace"
Randy Walser
Autodesk, Inc. 50 min. in length
Robert Miller