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The Visionary Position : The Inside Story of the Digital Dreamers Who Are Making Virtual Reality aReality |
List Price: $27.50
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Reviews |
Description:
"For as long as engineers have dreamed of building faster and more powerful computers," writes Fred Moody in his opening to The Visionary Position, "some among them have dreamed of displaying computer-stored and -generated information in three dimensions, with users walking through information landscapes the way they walk down grocery-store aisles and city streets." Chief among these farsighted engineers--and the primary focus of this well-written history of the still-nascent VR industry--is Dr. Thomas A. Furness III, an electrical engineer who began researching such technology in a secret Air Force-base laboratory nearly a quarter-century before the term virtual reality was ever uttered. Intending to "turn his new interface into a powerful weapon of moral and social change," Furness left the military in 1989 and took his work to the University of Washington, where he ultimately created the Human Interface Laboratory to further its goals. Moody provides us with a fascinating window on all of the ensuing action as various academics, programmers, and financiers come together and fall apart over the ongoing development and potential commercialization of virtual-reality products. --Howard Rothman
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