From: ac@cbvox.att.com
Subject: Re: TECH: State-of-the-Art (my post on)
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1993 12:55:09 CDT



Actually I've often wondered about how we would produce tactile
feedback that could accurately place the human(s) involved into
another "reality" blurring the line between "reality" and "virtual
"reality."

To accurately monitor the many movements of the human body would
require an accurate surveilance of an enormous combination of joint
and spatial movements. While I have no doubt the horsepower will be
there, the means to gather the data remains a complex problem. Noting
the problems with the human to machine connection, the machine to man
connection seems to me to be outside the relm of computer science, or
the ngineering feilds normally associated with the computer industry.

Ultimately the need to assimilate the knowledge of a variety of
fields.  Psychology will provide us with information pertaining to
perception, and cognitive processess. Nueroscience can provide the
information needed to make the all important connection between a man
made computer and the vast nuero-brain structure of humans. In effect
we are lacking the needed bridge to network two vastly different
computers.

I've recently come across research that is being conducted in
brain-interface technology. Let me explain, early experiments have
shown that harnessess to harness the emitence of human brain activity
using electrodes placed on the scalp have resulted in an individual
moving a cursor around a screen by thought, and having the computer
pick up when the subject is looking at "it". If this technology mature
it will privide the bridge from man to machine.

I welcome any comments on how it might be possible for us to bridge
machine to man bridge, in order to provide a complete immersive
system.

Alex Castro
Cornell U
ac11@crux2.cit.cornell.edu

Bell Labs
mail ac@cbvox.att.com