Virtual Reality Books

Not much of a writer, but i've been using this book for awhile now, and it has been source of inspiration for few of my school projects. These guys are truly innovative.

The work of Lars Spuybroek has been and still is found to be very controversial within the architectural discourse. Especially the buidlings he designs seem to evoke a lot of discussion and are often tagged as 'silly, formless chunks of mass'.
Please don't let yourself be distracted by the somewhat awkward designs, but learn a lot from his methods! They are very interessting and can help you in your morhphogenetic process.

Lars pops on his intergalactic avant-garde cape, clenches, groans and plops out a collection of the most cringe-worthy blobs this side of hollywood.

First year architecture student: **swoon** "Will we ever see him again?"

Why yes, on every second-hand bookshop shelf in the galaxy...

this is the best book i have ever saw. i'm a student for architecture and it helped me with my studies. i showed the book to my college prophesors and they agree with me, that is a fantastic book that all should see it and learn from it. their are wonerfull ideas in it.

Mr. Galitz's reasons for using design standards and the detailed consequences of poor design are backed up by reasearch. He gives specific recommendations for standards such as typefaces, point size, label and caption styles, etc. He explains and uses a good shorthand throughout the book for items as "signal" versus "noise." This is handy to quickly distinguish between things that are good/favorable/communicative/useful compared to things that are interfering/obstructive/not useful. This is an excellent book for anyone wanting to understand the "why" of good screen design and then learn the "what."

As a practising information designer I found this to be an excellent source of information, especially for students. This book takes people back to basics, something that a lot of modern IT "professionals" overlook.

It has good information that is still relevant for XP and Vista, but is mostly geared towards older versions of Windows.

The dragon soars above the trees. The sun reflects of the multitude of scales covering the huge beasts back. It's great wings stretch as they beat against the air propelling the creature forward.....

This Tom Clancy created book is an easy read and is entertaining.

This series of books is aimed at the younger reader and takes you into the lives of a group of kids that are part of the "Net Force Explorers". The Explorers are a program created by Net Force, the agency charged with fighting crime on the internet.

Follow the groups latest adventure as they try to figure out what's going on with one of the hottest games on the internet.

This is an action packed story that kept me hooked until I was finished. Buy this book today, you won't be disappointed.

All the Net Force Explorers are excited to visit the annual computer gamers' convention in Los Angeles. One of the top new computer game designers, young Peter Griffeth, is about to give a preview of his newest creation. But monsters from his game attack Matt Hunt and Maj Greene in virtual reality, then they are almost kidnapped in real life! Something is going on and it's up to the Net Force Explorers to figure out what. But their mysterious foes are turning out to be dangerous and violent, people who will do anything to achieve their evil goals. Will the NFEs be able to solve the mystery before it's 'game over'?

I'm a BIG fan of the Net Force Explorers series! The NFE series are a great Young Adult fiction series, especially those with a love for computers and the Internet. Since the Net presented in the books have no boundaries, you will never know what to expect next. But there IS one thing you can come to expect: stories that have plenty of twists and turns, having the whole plot well balanced with mystery, excitement, and adventure. And sometimes, there's a good romance! The Net Force Explorers include Matt Hunter, Megan O'Malley, Leif Anderson, Andy Moore, Mark Gridley, David Gray, Maj Greene, Caitlin Murray, and P.J. Farris. Occasionally other characters are introduced though they show up rarely.

One of the reasons I find this book to be one of the best is that the action and excitement start from basicaly page one of the book. A page turner, "Gameprey" has in my opinion the most action put in any of the Net Force Explorers Series. Another point in "Gameprey"'s favor is that ALL of the NFEs are in this book! From my favorite characters Leif, the smartest NFE Mark, to the jokester Andy, everyone's involved in this mystery. Another interesting aspect in the book is that we're given the viewpoints of the bad guys, too though Maj Greene is the main character.

The series is for Young Adults and I strongly recommend only older kids since at times the computer and Net 'talk' is a bit confusing and hard for younger kids to understand. I can highly recommend the whole series!

One little thing, though VERY small. There's a typo on page 125, around the upper middle half of the page. The word 'by' is used instead of the correct form, 'buy'. Just a little nitpickers trivia.

As usual, Clancy's teen novels deliever a good plot, awesome technology, and familiar, believeable characters. Things happened a bit fast at the end, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. WONDERFUL book, a must-read, whether you're new to the Net Force series, or an old fan.

For those who enjoy the challenge of reading high theory but are put off by the dry, abstract, pretentious ramblings that more often than not constitute theoretical writing, Zizek is the theorist for you. Is there another theorist alive who can on one page explicate the finer points of Lacan, Hegel and Kant, while on the next page tie it all in with the three most popular female pubic hair styles, homosexual ; and subtle distinctions among toilet designs in Germany, France, and the United States? Perhaps. But Zizek makes these seemingly awkward transitions and uncommon examples quite smoothly; the outrageous examples aren't forced, nor are they merely for "shock" value. In short, they work to clarify the difficult concepts he is discussing. Although Zizek is not what I'd call an easy read - not by a long shot - he certainly knows how to make a challenge a bit less stressful and - gasp! - fun. END

Zizek's claim to fame is his rapacious wit, keen insights, and his profound, hilarious and shocking use of anecdotes. Here, Zizek focuses on the relation between fantasy and desire, and the latter he sees as rooted fully in the former. Fantasy, he argues, is the foundation for political and social action. As a Marxist, he makes an interesting some interesting arguments along a line that is seemingly contradictory to his ideological convictions employing Lacan heavily but also drawing upon and offering some interesting interpretations of Hegel. He ends the book with insights on how the digitization of our universe--overly fantasized--as alienated us from our corporeality. This he views negatively as a plague--finally suggesting that the task of critical theory is the inverse of the traditional one starting with concrete social reality and then moving to abstract notions. Rather, the pseudo-concrete and virtual which now structure our lives must be debunked. His writing is erratic but intrepid and certainly worth the effort.

hard but joyfull studyng- my best boo

Everything I have seen from Rob Bastiaansen has been
excellent. This Vmware book is no exception.

H Clark

VMware is the most common commercially available virtual machine code. This book is a quick guide to how to install and use it. You should be pleased to know that the host operating system can be Microsoft or linux. However, you are restricted to an Intel CPU. A basic difference between VMware and emulation is due to this. There is no emulation of another CPU.

The book suggests several possible usages for VMware, based on customer experiences. Perhaps simply to standardise an environment for your users, if the applications they will run can do so with the performance loss involving in a virtual machine. You do need to be clear on this.

Another reason for using VMware, that does not seem to be mentioned, is if you are running a honeypot or an intrusion detection system, and want an extra level of protection.

Good for new VMWare users, especially if using Workstation 4.5. Good tips for new users using VMWare version 5.0. Covers Netware and Windows clustering, including using iSCSI. Also covers version GSX and ESX. If using GSX or ESX versions exclusively instead of Workstation ...... you may want to search further.

This is the best book I have seen so far on design of voice user interfaces with a lot of sound examples and pratical advices.

This is probably the most useful book about UI design for speech applications I've seen, very sensible and straight forward, with the right amount of attention given to a good range of topics.

I hate the term 'VUI' because it sounds silly when you say it. Apart from that, this book's a great source for UI workers.

This book describes a methodology and gives pieces of advice for developing speech applications. The focus is on telephony applications. The book is based on the experience of the authors in developing such applications at Nuance.

The book is organized into four parts:
1. Introduction
2. Requirement gathering
3. Detailed design
4. Development and Tuning
Each part starts with a description of the general principles guiding the development of a speech application. They end with an "applied" example showing how these principles are used in a real application.

The introduction provides an overview of speech technology and an overview of the methodology (requirements, detailed design, development/tuning) used to develop a speech application. This methodology is used as a guide for the rest of the book.

The requirement gathering part covers meeting with the company that wants to deploy the speech application and getting information from them. The same kind of information as for other software projects is required: business case, target customers, environment integration, scope of the system, etc. Two interesting additions to the usual process are:
1. Specifying the persona. How should the system be perceived (serious, funny, etc.)? This will impact the prompts, the selection of the voice actor, and the design of the dialog flow.
2. Specifying the type of interaction: system directed or user directed. The former relies on grammars. The latter relies on SLM and robust parsing. This has a huge influence on design and realization.

The detailed design phase is concerned with designing the dialog flow, the prompts and the grammars. The authors put an emphasis in developing systems that (1) sound good and (2) are efficient. Sounding good means developing prompts that abide to spoken language rules (by opposition to written language) and paying attention to prosody. The sections on prompt design and prosody are very informative. Efficiency is ensured by making the dialog flow nicely. Techniques include thinking in terms of user scenarios, providing shortcuts to common tasks, educating users about efficient ways of using the system. Efficiency is also improved by helping users to recover from errors efficiently. Techniques here include quick confirmation strategies, providing help prompts, and providing access to main menu/operator.

The development and tuning part focuses mainly on tuning grammars and working with the voice actor. Tuning the grammar is done to ensure appropriate coverage while maintaining good recognition accuracy. Tuning must be based on real data since it is difficult to predict how people will use the system. Working with the voice actor is an important part of the system development. The authors give pieces of advice on how to have successful recording sessions.

The book has a nice balance of general principles and pieces of advice that can be directly applied. Compared to Kotelly's book, it has a more in-depth coverage of the topics. Compared to Balentine's book it provides a broader view of the development process as well as more detailed explanations of the principles behind the recommendations. On the minus side, the book is solely based on the experience of the authors. Although this experience is extensive, it seems that parts of the book are somewhat biased (e.g., SLM vs. grammar-based speech recognition, high focus on personas). It is not always clear when the numbers given in the books are based on real experience and when they are invented by the authors for the mock application. Some of the pieces of advice may also be difficult to directly apply in practice, since they depend on using vendor tools.

In my opinion this book should be required reading for developers of telephony applications and providers of platforms for speech application development.

This publication deals with the human factors and signal processing aspects of audio in 3-D systems. It is divided into six chapters:
1. Virtual Auditory Space: Context, Acoustics, and Psychoacoustics
2. Overview of Spatial Hearing Part 1: Azimuth and Elevation Perception
3. Overview of Spatial Hearing Part 2: Sound Source Distance and Environmental Context
4. Implementing 3-D Sound Systems, Sources, and Signal Processing
5. Virtual Acoustic Applications
6. Resources
Chapters one through four are the most useful as they present details of psychoacoustics, physical acoustics, and signal processing with plenty of instructive diagrams and equations when necessary. Chapters 5 and 6 on applications and resources are the least useful since they focus on these subjects from the perspective of 1994, which might as well be a century ago given the progress made in computing platforms. This publication is still useful since most texts in print on audio today focus on Windows-centric plug-in solutions for games where there are little technical details about the physics of the situation because the targeted reader is a high school or college student writing game programs in their basements. If you think this rather academic tome is for you, it is now available free on the web. Since Amazon tends to throw out reviews with web addresses in them, suffice it to say if you type in "3-D sound for virtual reality and multimedia" in quotations as I show it here into Google, the first web address you see should be the on-line version of this book.
The reader should already be familiar with digital signal processing in order to get the most out of this publication. If you are planning on doing the "big picture" design of a 3-D audio application, this old publication is essential reading.

I'm pretty sure that it is also the only book presently available. It IS fairly well written, and if you are writing a sound engine for a game, or a similar application, I would strongly recommend this book. On the other hand, parts of it are extremely technical, so if you do not know if you can follow it, you may wish to keep looking.

Developments in the area of "virtual reality" pose real and immediate questions for Catholic theologians and philosophers. These questions stem both from the nature of virtual reality itself as well as from the Weltanschauung that virtual reality thinking can foster. For Catholic theologians reared in the realistic metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas, contemporary developments in "virtual reality" pose questions about what is real. How "real" is a "world" created by a computer, a head-mounted display unit and a forced-feedback device? What happens when that technology is increasingly used on people?
Virtual reality can, of course, provide very real benefits to people. Sr. Mary Prokes, no Luddite, does not deny this. A world-renowned cardiologist, for example, can now make his expertise available at distant locations by "performing surgery" remotely. But every paradise has its price, and for every world-renowned specialist performing long distance surgery, there is a popular cultural coarsening of attitudes that reduces patients to so much blood, bone, tissue and muscle on which one makes repairs. The erosion of the holistic vision of the person is especially evident in biotechnology, often practically prone to thinking of people in reductive, utilitarian terms: the victory of California Proposition 71, for example, means that stem cells there will now be treated as so much raw material for genetic engineering.
Sr. Prokes warns against certain attitudes that virtual reality technology can foster. These attitudes can be essentially summed up as dualism, a ghost that has haunted Occidental civilization for millennia and left a particular imprint on post-Cartesian Western man. The danger to Christianity is obvious: a religion that professes that God came down from heaven "and was made man" is in tension with a mindset inclined to think of reality in disincarnate terms. Not that we're likely to see a new Docetist heresy, akin to the one that plagued Patristic era Christianity. Today, rather, the sword is pointed straight back at man. If "Jesus Christ fully reveals man to himself"-to quote Vatican II-and man thinks of himself as merely a being in a body, then such a dualistic self-conception is bound to have adverse impact on how people understand such truths of the faith as the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. The implications of such a self-understanding for conjugal morality are likewise radical: we already see what happens when artificial means of reproduction regard a phallus and a pipette as merely alternate delivery vehicles for producing a child that is genetically one's own.
The author's previous books (Towards a Theology of the Body and Mutuality: The Human Image of Trinitarian Love) appear to have sensitized her to the anti-incarnational biases the contemporary world sometimes harbors. This is how the author sums up the way virtual reality as a mindset can feed off some other debilitating aspects of the "postmodern" worldview:

In a sense, many things which were formerly "unthinkable" in ordinary human experience have become familiar, routine: "Smart Bombs," surgery performed at a distance via televised imagery; and audible messages transmitted from men . . . on . . . the moon. Within the time frame of a few decades, such phenomenal occurrences . . . can easily foster a conviction that technology can enable the crossing of any boundary-physical, hormonal, or mental. "Relativity" has become a term that not only applies to Einstein's theory but also describes the qualities of indefiniteness, reversibility, boundaryless and unpredictability that pervade contemporary human experience. In fact, these qualities are sought with various degrees of avidity, particularly in the affluent societies of the Western world. . . . There is particular attraction, then, in what is "virtual"-in what can be fashioned, refashioned, experienced simultaneously in a variety of ways, or exterminated at will (pp. 117-18).

Sr. Prokes' comments on the impact of and urgent questions posed by virtual reality for theological understanding are on the mark. The depth of her treatment of virtual reality from a technical viewpoint is much weaker. That's unfortunate, because most laymen would profit from a deeper and more systematic introduction to the state of virtual reality technology today. It's also not surprising, though, since Sr. Prokes admits she is a theologian, not a technician. Computers-especially when it comes to cutting edge applications-have a proclivity to intimidate all but the truly initiated (a term I use deliberately, given Sr. Prokes' observations about affinities between some modern thinking and ancient Gnosticism). Perhaps team authorship could improve books where theologians "interface" with today's science or technology. In any event, Sr. Prokes provides us a real service in bringing the theological implications of "virtual reality" into discussion. She calls these phenomena a "sign of the times," and insists that the Church cannot defer its own theological assessment of these developments. At the same time, the Church must tread deftly, lest its opponents castigate it as hopelessly anachronistic and seeking to retard scientific "progress." A worthwhile book for putting these issues on the radar screen, but a field open to much more serious theological and philosophical investigation.

Live at least once a week with minimal technology. Turn off the lights and power! Face reality!

In this book faith and reason interface, justice and peace embrace, as similar profound concerns are raised by former Vice President (and actual, not virtual, President-elect 2000?) Al Gore in his latest book of
political philosophy, The Assault on Reason.

It all reminds me of that old futuristic science fiction movie Blade Runner and the novel it was based on: "Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?" Do we? I can remember closing my eyes to sleep and still seeing
more and more of those inexorable Space Invader shapes descending for me to kill, kill, kill!

What a generation has our technology and disintegration of family and of community and of congregation created? How often do we interface with
other sentient carbon based life forms, except to destroy and dehumanize and build walls rather than realizing the unity of our souls and hearts and minds? How much have we learned to see others as mere blips
of a screen rather than the sacred Thou described by Rabbi Martin Buber?

Mother Mary Timothy Prokes, Franciscan Sister of the Eucharist poses the urgent questions of how our technology cuts us off from our awareness of the subtle and spiritual Eucharist dimension which unites us, how technology dehumanizes our perception of others to such a point that we can aim "smart bombs" without flinching, without considering nor feeling in our own hearts the devastating consequences of our own sins against God and humanity, and thus cut off from that true repentence which leads us out of sin to conersion and forgiveness and salvation and
redemption. Thus our inhuman technologies free us to practice genocide for resources and ideologies and never to hear the screams of their children nor see them bleed to early and agonized death. We cannot
repent those sins we refuse to see.

A generation raised by the electronic babysitters cannot feel a human touch as welcoming and familiar, but as alien and creepy. Babies who are not held are left incapable of compassion. A generation raised by war simulation games, including but certainly not limited to Grand Theft Auto and Laura Croft, cannot find the presence of the Other as something sacred but something to be destroyed and annihilated by any means
necessary, without regard, without a care, quickly to kill or be killed. We learn not compassion and the sacredness of Love; we learn not honoring the Other but their total humiliation and subjugation, the silence of the open graves. The Golden Rule has been replaced by the law of the jungle, of the battlefield, but we believe our victims to be but pixels on a
screen, not people like ourselves, their gruesome and painful annihilation points to be earned in a video space invaders game, while we believe in our own righteous immortality, that when injured or wiped out,
we can reboot and restart the game fully revived and renewed and reloaded and rearmed, in a perverse and sinister and deadly mockery of the Resurrection.

Yet we too are mortal. As the great United States President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, said in one of his final speeches, in Ireland, quoting William Shakespeare: " . . .and we are all mortal."

Mother Mary Timothy raises the question whether the Bard of Avon, who plumbed and reported the depths of the heart of the human soul in all of its aspects, from Romeo to Hamlet, to Richard, to Lear, to MacBeth,
from the adversary of Titus Andronicus through Juliet and Orphelia to the daughters of Lear and of the Tempest, would Shakespeare any longer recognize us as the human species, who have grown so cold and callous
and apart and divided through our technology and the virtual reality which consumes and separates us into our cubicles, tied to deafening earphones and blinding video goggles? Or is it all just a result of
overcrowding and shrinking resources? How much may we blame our technology and how may we escape it, compelled by Christ's Incarnational mystery to become human once more, to take on once more this vulnerable
all too human flesh, to love our neighbor as ourself, and to follow the fundamental Christian commandment to love our enemies and do good to those who hate and harm us, and hope and pray they notice it and
appreciate it, blinded and blase as are we all with their own all-consuming technologies.

Is the Consecration of the Holy Eucharist valid when viewed over satellite TV from the chapel of EWTN? May we attend an all night Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament over cable television, or an internet altar webcam? Must we not receive the Sacrament within our own bodies, and not be visual and aural senses alone? Mother Timothy recalls the great hymn of Saint Thomas regarding the failings of our senses at the
transubstantiation. Does not our technology relay only that which is illuminated in a television camera and recorded on a studio microphone? How then can we claim to have experienced truly the Real Presence? How can
we even claim to have joined hand in holy hand at the Kiss of Peace, and prayed breath with breath the Lord's Prayer commanded by our Lord? Can we deceive our Lord by saying we were following his Commandment to pray alone in our room, while watching television? Can truly we pray the Rosary with Mother Angelica's DVD, or shall we breathe easier with the living and real presence of a prayer community and physical, actual family, failing, fumbling beads, distracted by other anxieties and concerns, struggling together to pray for God's eternal peace with fuller mindfulness? Does praying the Rosary alone to a DVD actually amount
to little more than perusing alone a Playboy video? Jesus says where two or more are gathered in love in his name, he is there. Where then does that leave a virtual rosary? The family that prays together stays
together. Do we now have a virtual family to share our griefs and sorrows, our joys and hopes, to uplift and help us?

Can our technology communicate Love? Peace? Joy? Are we so arrogant as to assume our technology is this subtle and powerful? They once belived the Tower of Babel to be mighty fine as well, the greatest thing going, and it led to the destruction and division of an entire civilization. Let us not go down that path, but hear the real human cries in the street of our
poor, our widows, our orphans, and the cries of the victims of our sins of war and economics, our sins against God and God's creation.

Our monitors of glass and semiconductors can transmit informational wonders but not the holy spirit of love and compassion. We cannot join in prayer in community. A great preacher once declared you can pray anywhere
in the house except one place: in front of the television. As we can see but not be seen, as we can hear but not be heard, we cannot join within the union of celebration. Since we cannot communicate we are ex-communicated. Our technology with all of its wonders and latest bells and whistles cannot replace praying elbow to elbow in community, a comunity which knows and feels and loves you so well as to know you to the heart at every moment and how you really are right then in prayer. Our technology does not allow the unity of prayer in community, but merely transmits the dim flickering ghosts of ritual and rites as emptily performed for television. Television limits us to empty ritual, not to the Living Spirit. And so its addicts insist upon the minutiae of ritual as seen on tv instead of breathing and loving and sharing the living Holy Spirit which dwells amongst us with all of its divine gifts.

Our technology blinds us and leaves us less human created in the image and likeness of God. Mother Timothy calls us back to the one true Light and to the Life and the Way. This is probably the best written and most urgent of all of her several important works of Theology, including the landmark and widely used Toward a Theology of the Body, and this work bears an revealing and contextualizing and very supportive introduction by The eminent Archbishop John P. Foley, President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications in Rome.

Each Catholic concerned for their children's moral and spiritual well being and upbringing must read this book. Every policymaker and educator needs read this book. Please sutdy it carefully and prayerfully and
consider the full implications of how our technology weakens and blinds us and leaves us deaf to God's call and the cries of our brothers and sisters.

This book reveals why Into Great Silence (Two-Disc Set) is so urgently sought out in those urban centers already seeing it. Even though through the technology of the cinema we seek a portal back into the true silence of God's real presence which is all around and within us. We seek the power to open our eyes once more to see what is real, to open our ears to hear what is real, the sound of that baby's breath, and not simply a virtual and thus discardable human handiwork.

Let us once more keep the Sabbath Holy by declaring Sunday a technology free day, a real day of rest, with our family and friends and no technology. Turn off any electronic device. Turn aff the lights. Turn off the electricity. Burn no gasoline. Make Sunday a techno-free day and thus make Into Great Silence a reality within your own home. Dare to face in love and in joy that reality all around you and within you. Hear your own self breathe, and lose the delusions of technology and all of its false images, false idols, American or otherwise, and false gods. Face the truth, free of technology, at least one day a week. Thus may truth and justice kiss, peace and truth embrace, and your living reality interface with your theology.

Having read this book and completed the tutorials, it has enabled me to take my first step into the world of 3D modelling. The author's style is entertaining and practical at the same time, which makes it quite accessible and relatively easy to digest. However, I feel that in some areas, the content was simply too brief and 'rushed'. As a result, I feel that it is a bit too expensive for what it has to offer. I could have got a Truespace 'bible' for the same price!

This book is great, it has everything for the beginner wanting to start in the 3D modelling world. It explains all the tools and gives you tasks to complete with screen shots of how it should look, and most of all Really enjoyable.

The print is large, the pages of soft, and it's a great way to quickly learn about the most commonly used aspects of the Motif widget set. It's quick reading and the book lays out the information very systematically. However, before reading this book I thoroughly went through the first hundred pages of The Definitive Guides to the X Window System: Volume Four - X Toolkit Intrinsics Programming Manual Motif Edition. This book goes through each concept thoroughly (and agonisingly). However, it did give me a very solid foundation to build on. You should already have a basic understanding of GUI development and X before reading this book.

If you already know how to compile and link in a UNIX environment, this book will be an excellent place to start to learn Motif and CDE. If not, you may find some things a little confusing. The author assumes you already know some of the basics and so doesn't waste your time with review, but instead plunges right into the topic. I found this book helpful, but only after learning how to compile and link in UNIX.