Virtual reality and fossils

I have been reading Snow Crash for the past few days (it's about time! It was published in 1992!).

This morning, as I was making coffee, I was pondering virtual reality, its pervasiveness in the book (everyone's on The Street), and its apparent failure thus far in the real world (consider IM and MySpace versus Second Life, HTML and Flash versus VRML, and so on). It occurred to me that one reason is the lack of utility of VR, much of which would rely on critical mass.

If virtual reality ever does take off, I think that it will be via augmented reality. Computer enhancement of the real world will, or already does, provide advantages in meetings and social situations: overlays to show useful information, audio additions, video participants in real meetings, bots, simulations of dangerous or expensive situations.

It's not a large leap from there to a scenario in which we can leave out the real world entirely, having already established a value proposition through gradual adoption: meetings in which some of the participants aren't physically there change into ones where nobody is ‘there’.

It's a process of mineralisation: gradually substituting parts of the organic real world with minerals, until a fossil replica of the original is left.

Posted at 2007-08-02 12:50:15 by Richard • Link to Virtual reality an…
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