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"On-line gaming environments are completely different things... Essentially it's massive global role-playing."
- Peter Watts
 |
| Auto-Treadmills (Needle-Gym) | ||
| A simulation-exercise room floor that allows the user to walk and run on a consistently realistic surface. |
Using your feet is a great way to pick a direction - even in a virtual reality simulation space. But how can you keep walking - while staying in a limited area?
| The young, and breeding females, we let flash by without harm. But then,
trailing and already foaming with fatigue, came the old buck, its leap leaden,
unsteady, and I knew the program really was taking it easy on me today.
Long Stick howled. I sprinted from cover, swiftly taking the lead. The auto-treadmill's bumps and gullies matched whatever terrain the goggles showed me, so my feet knew how to land and thrust off again. The body suit brushed my skin with synthetic wind. Flared nostrils inhaled sweat, exhilaration, and for a time I forgot I was in a tiny room on the eightieth floor of a suburban Chitown con-apt, surrounded by fifty million neighbors. |
| Technovelgy from Natulife,
by David Brin. Published by Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1994 Additional resources -
|
Here's a description of what the floor actually consists of:
Cursing I tore off the helmet, gashing my cheek on the strap. The body suit
still formed a matrix of other-world sensations -- hot savannah wind and gritty
moccasins. But abruptly my eyes saw a tiny, off-white chamber, its coarse floor
of needles mimicking a steep hillside. Sense-conflict made me sway in confusion
as I dove for the door.
Take a look at the VirtuSphere Immersive Virtual Reality "hamster-ball" for one way to have your infinite directions in a limited spae. You might also take a look at the CirculaFloor (Smart Tile Holodeck?), which I saw demonstrated at Wired's NextFest 2005. If you maintained a slow, strolling pace, the little circula-floor tiles would rush along to give you a place to step; it was a trip.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Natulife
More Ideas
and Technology by David Brin
Tech news articles related to Natulife
Tech news articles related to works by David Brin
Auto-Treadmills (Needle-Gym)-related
news articles:
- inFORM Dynamic Shape Output Device
- VirtualGreen Putting Simulator Like Brin's Needle-Gym
- Automated Treadmill Adjusts To Your Pace
- Augmented and-or Virtual Reality Shoes From Google
| Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness? |
| Jetson Orin Nano Super 70 Just $249 |
| Automatic Bot Traffic Is 38 Percent Of HTTP Requests |
| Neuroplatform Human Brain Organoid Bioprocessor Uses Less Electricity |
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'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
'...for months Grantline bores had dug into the cliff.'
'I hope all those other cars are on automatic,' he said anxiously.
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
'...like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'
'You hate the whole idea that some bored drone pusher in a remote driving centre has got your life... in his hands.'
'My homeland is being threatened by the Replicators. Thus far all attempts to stop them have failed.'
'A robobus had just rolled up to the curb.'
'And there in the next room by the sofa sat a familiar suitcase, that of his psychiatrist Dr. Smile.'
