Virtual Reality Books

I read this book because it's one of the assignments of my Communication Planning class. Personally, I don't think this book is much related to the focus of the class- futures forecasting and planning in telecommunications. However, it gives you ideas about what future may be like and invokes questions regarding how can human deal with it from 4 aspects- reality, mind, embodiment, and posthumanity. As my background is more engineering and computer science related, I found this book a bit difficult and at the same time interesting to read because it talks about "philosophies" quite a lot. But the author Brain Cooney introduced the ideas from everyday examples, for instance, the movies The Matrix and Contact. The author many times used dialogues to convey his ideas and form provoking questions at the reflection part.

The book proposed many provoking questions, such as "Can artificial functional equivalents of human persons be treated as having our moral and political rights?" The author even helped reader's thinking when giving questions. For example, under the discussion of embodiment, the author asked "Would we want to say that the bionic components of our bodies are not parts of a living body because they are not composed of tissues that are assemblies of cells? Yet we say that cells are alive, even though their parts are not........ If not, can a being have a conscious mind and not be alive? Or, paradoxically, is there some nonbiological kind of "life"?"

This book is about technological forecasting, especially in topics about bionic body and artificial intelligence and discusses their impacts to human from philosophy aspect by the help of some well known movies and TV programs. It's very readable for non-philosophy major students. One of the questions I like most is: "If there were any prospect of interaction with the alien civilization, would that prospect alone risk a collapse of human confidence, self-respect, and even civilization? Not necessarily, but there won't be much time to plan for the eventuality if it simply takes us by surprise sometime soon". This question highlight why we need to do futures forecasting and planning- to be prepared for the possible futures.

Unless you are a philosophy major and know about technological forecasting, you will most likely find this book very interesting.

Quick Course in Microsoft Windows 98 is a very good book if one is a beginner and wants to learn the basics in "10 easy lessons". This book is a concise no-nonsense way to learn Windows 98. If one has even an elementary knowledge of Windows 98 the book is best used just as an easy to use feference for doing the evaryday tasks of Windows. The lessons are easy to follow and very non-threatening. There are good visuals and the text is large and easy to read. The language used in the book is directed to the novice. Any new terms are quickly defined. The reader is expected to know very little about the Windows environment. This ia a very good book for rthe adult who is just getting into computers. It will tell you everything you need to know in order to run Windows without any problems. The with a little more advanced knowlegde would be better served getting a higher level book.

This is a great book which I would reccomend to anyone! The Plot is firm, the Characters have depth, and the scenes are amazing. When Tim Craft and his sister Kelly are invited to go with their uncle on a secret assignment, they are exited, but excitement soon turns to terror as the siblings find themselves the last people standing after a virus takes out everyone else. Will the kids find the cure before it's too late, or will they die searching for it in virtual reality? Find out for yourself in RACE AGAINST TIME 164 pg.

This book is funny and I learned stuff too

This book goals hits basic idea: giving a review on Virtual Reality and on the theory at its basis. Starting from history, going trought science as medicine, arriving at technical stuff this is in syntesis this book. For everyone interested in "How it work?". Only one problem : sometimes is too difficoult to understand at no graduate persons dues to hi level techincal explanations in particoular in display chapter !!!!

Like every Siggraph preceedings this one present a broad range of ideas that present new ways of accomplishing graphical effects on a computer. THe more memorable ideas presented included Non-Photorelistic rendering.

This book is a great introduction to Virtual Reality technology. If you've been wondering what VR is all about, this is the book to read.

'All that is solid melts into air'... description of advanced capitalism by Marx. These words are a good description of how our media landscape transforms the meaning of anything... Arthur Kroker in his book and CD 'Spasm' give us the sound and insight into this 'meltdown' taking place all around us. Like Marshall McLuhan, Kroker asks "What haven't you noticed lately?" Kroker goes ahead and tells you, from biotechnology to music sampling, he hangs on a point of view - before it melts...

Bruce Sterling's introduction to Kroker's 'Spasm' is worth the price of admission alone, it's short, but sets the tone.

You will not always agree, but you will think, not many books or CDs that do that these days. Give Kroker a spin.

Well told allegory of the danger inherent in in any act that lacks restraint. Substitute drugs, alcohol, or any vice, for the synthajoy technology and the results would be the same. But the story is subtle enough that readers will only realize this when they get to the end of the story.

This is a compendium of papers delivered at an HCI design conference held in 1998. The papers are essentially descriptions of how the speakers addressed the issue of bridging from requirements to an HCI designl.As a review of what people are doing to try to address this issue, this is an important and useful book. As a critial comparative analysis of what are the best methods and why, it is not.