Working in Movement

If it's June and the weather has turned warm (actually hot), can vacation be far off? We all look forward to taking some time off to kick back and relax, hopefully in a favored location away from home. But getting away is not as easy as it used to be, with soaring gas prices and the hassle that travel seems to have become. Still, it's nice to get away.

But what if you can't get away for that dream vacation this year? Not a problem. A Phoenix-based company call Digital Tech Frontier has anticipated your needs. They have begun marketing a series of Virtual Vacations. These are actually virtual reality programs on DVDs that you can plug into your Windows PC and use with a set of VR goggles. Each of the three available "vacations" feature 360 degree vistas of their locations, and navigation through the virtual environment via pointing and clicking. Destinations available now include Hoover Dam, Mesa Verde and Machu Picchu. I wonder if these trips include the obligatory four-hour layover at a virtual O'hare airport?

Actually, the idea of a virtual reality get away does have some appeal. All those Star Trek episodes showing holodeck adventures looked so cool. I'm not sure even the most advanced virtual reality programming could produce anything close to that sort of experience. And even if it could, what kinds of story narrative would work in such an interactive environment? It turns out that's being worked on. One accessible work about interactive story narrative is Hamlet on the Holodeck.

Happy vacationing, real or virtual.