Different Uses of Virtual Reality
Virtual reality (VR) is the use of a computer to create an artificial environment that appears and feels like a real environment and allows users to explore a space and manipulate the environment. In its simplest form, a VR application displays what appears to be a three-dimensional view of a place or object, such as a landscape, building, molecule, or red blood cell, which users can explore. For example, architects can use VR software to show clients how a building will look after a construction or remodeling project.
In more advanced forms, VR software requires that users wear specialized headgear, body suits, and gloves to enhance the experience of the artificial environment (Vance and Reed 34-58). The headgear displays the artificial environment in front of the users eyes.i[A] The body suit and the gloves sense motion and direction, allowing a user to move through, pick up, or hold items displayed in the virtual environment. Experts predict that sooner or later the body suits will provide tactile feedback so users can experience the touch and feel of the virtual world.
Many gamers, such as flight simulators, use virtual reality. In these games, special visors allow users to see the computer-generated environment. As the user walks around the game’s electronic landscape, sensors in the surrounding game machine record movements and change the view of the landscape accordingly.
Companies increasingly are using VR for more practical commercial applications, as well. Automobile dealers, for example, use virtual showrooms in which customers can view the exterior and interior of available vehicles. Airplane manufacturers use virtual prototypes to test new models and shorten product design time. Many firms use personal computer-based VR applications for employee training (Shelly Cashman Series® Microsoft Word 2000 Project 2). As computing power and the use of the Web increases, practical applications of VR continue to emerge in education, business, and entertainment.ii[B]iii[C]
Works Cited
Holloway, April I. “The Future of Virtual Reality Applications.” Computers for Today, Tomorrow, and Beyond Sep. 2001: 46-52.
Shelly Cashman Series® Microsoft Word 2000 Project 2. Course Technology. 3 Sep. 2000. http://wwwscsite.com/wd2000/pr2/wc3.htm.
Vance, Dale W., and Karen P.
Howard Zinn: On History by Howard Zinn (2011) is a collection of previously published essays ranging from Freedom Schools in the 1960s, issues in scholarship, to the American Empire. Even though the essays were written over several decades there is a constant theme throughout the work—the activist scholar. Zinn feels that scholars should not be passive citizens concerned with their research alone, but active citizens that use their research to change society. Zinn, unlike other historians, is not afraid to place what he views as right and wrong into his scholarly work. In fact he sees nothing unethical about inserting his opinion or politics into his writing. The society of higher education teaches historians to be objective by removing the person from the reading—removing opinion from writing. Zinn feels that this is a fruitless enterprise, for in the end opinion and politics will enter writing. In Howard Zinn: On History the case is made that for a different kind of historian. Zinn challenges the traditional notion of an historian a more passive scholar that endlessly tries to remove himself, or herself, from their research. Zinn sees this as an impossibility and instead argues for a more active scholar. This is the central theme that runs through Zinn’s book, a theme that should run through scholarship itself.
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass gives a first person perspective on the life of a slave laborer in both the rural south and the city. Frederick Douglass gave himself an education against horrible odds, and was able to read and think forever about the evils of slavery and good reasons for its abolishment. The primary reason for his disgust with slavery was its effect of dehumanizing not only the slaves, but their masters too. His main goal: to abolish slavery.
Wagner, Richard. “Outlines of the Artwork of the Future,” in Multimedia from Wagner to Virtual Reality, eds. R. Packer and K. Jordan. W.W. Norton, 2001.
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe”( Douglass). This famous quote epitomizes the philosophies of Frederick Douglass, in which he wanted everyone to be treated with dignity; if everyone was not treated with equality, no one person or property would be safe harm. His experience as a house slave, field slave and ship builder gave him the knowledge to develop into a persuasive speaker and abolitionist. In his narrative, he makes key arguments to white abolitionist and Christians on why slavery should be abolished. The key arguments that Frederick Douglass tries to vindicate are that slavery denies slaves of their identity, slavery is also detrimental for the slave owner, and slavery is ungodly.
Frederick Douglass is known for being an outstanding orator, but he is mostly acknowledged for being an incredible abolitionist. His work to demolish slavery has been greatly known, detailing his life experience as a slave and expressing his theory on slavery. In “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,” he demonstrates the way religion and its literature, the bible, had a negative influence and effect on slavery as well as the development of white Christianity.
Frederick Douglass was a slave. When he was younger, he did not know how to read or write, but learned these skills by using his wit and cunning to gather teachers. In the beginning, when he was a slave, he hated not having freedom. He “[O]ften myself regretting my own existence… but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt but that I should have killed myself” (Douglass, 103). He loathed being a slave. He then heard a word. The word he had heard was “abolition”. He did not know what this word meant, but he knew well that “any one speaks of slavery… [He] could hear something about the abolitionists” (Douglass, 103). He then set out to find what the abolition meant.
Our nation seems as if it is in a constant battle between freedom and safety. Freedom and security are two integral parts that keep our nation running smoothly, yet they are often seen conflicting with one another. “Tragedies such as Pearl Harbor, 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombings may invoke feelings of patriotism and a call for unity, but the nation also becomes divided, and vulnerable populations become targets,” (Wootton 1). “After each attack a different group or population would become targets. “The attack on Pearl Harbor notoriously lead to Japanese Americans being imprisoned in internment camps, the attacks on 9/11 sparked hate crimes against those who appeared to be Muslim or Middle Eastern,” (Wootton 1). Often times people wind up taking sides, whether it be for personal freedoms or for national security, and as a nation trying to recover from these disasters we should be leaning on each other for support. Due to these past events the government has launched a series of antiterrorist measures – from ethnic profiling to going through your personal e-mail (Begley 1). Although there are times when personal freedoms are sacrificed for the safety of others, under certain circumstances the government could be doing more harm than good.
The term Virtual Reality (VR) is used by many different people with many meanings. There are some people to whom VR is a specific collection of technologies, that is a Head Mounted Display, Glove Input Device and Audio. Some other people stretch the term to include conventional books, movies or pure fantasy and imagination. However, for purposes of this research, we restrict VR to computer mediated systems. We would define Virtual Reality as a way for humans to visualize, manipulate and interact with computers and extremely complex data.
"The Case For Animal Rights" written by Tom Regan, promotes the equal treatment of humans and non-humans. I agree with Regan's view, as he suggests that humans and animals alike, share the experience of life, and thus share equal, inherent value.
Although still in its, infancy, virtual reality will have a substantial effect on our future way of life. Virtual reality already has made astounding progress in the world of commercial design, and it is predicted to have a tremendous impact on everyday life as well. Virtual reality, when more available, will have various uses ranging from recreation to basic communication. The applications of virtual reality into different fields of occupations and research will have both positive and negative effects on our society.
The biocentric worldview, which is life centered, focuses on the importance of all living things and considers all living things to have intrinsic value. I will be using Peter Singer’s ideas as the main focus explaining that animals share equal moral status with human beings and that therefore is unethical for people to kill and eat them. In “All Animals are Equal” by Peter Singer recognizes that there are differences between humans and other species. As he ...
Many studies have been conducted on the use of virtual reality in education and training. In education, new technology is used to enhance the learning process. Mobile has become one of the technology offers educators a way to communicate with students using the appropriate application for learning. Virtual reality has reached a sufficient level of development for it to be considered in innovative applications such as education, training and research in higher education. With the creation of virtual reality has been used in education, it allows students to learn, to explore and develop
Virtual Reality is a new form of interactive media that is here to stay. A time may come when people might get tired of it but the chances of that happening are really low as the content that can be offered in VR systems is almost limitless.
Cavalieri , Paola. The Animal Question: Why Nonhuman Animals Deserve Human Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Print.
The advancements of technology over the last 20 years have been incredible to observe. Now, Virtual Reality (VR) has given us a new way to observe this technological revolution. Virtual reality is usually thought of as an artificial, computer-generated simulation or a recreation of a real life environment or situation that immerses a user by experiencing the simulated reality firsthand, primarily by stimulating their vision and hearing through Head Mounted Displays (HMD). (1) However, there is a new inverse reflection of VR known as Augmented Realty (AR). AR is a technology that layers computer-generated enhancements over an existing reality; making it more meaningful through the ability to interact with it. (1) Interestingly, Both VR and AR can be combined to create a mixed reality through the use of HMD’s or three dimensional (3D) glasses. Two examples of such devices that make this technology possible are Microsoft’s HoloLens and the ZSpace 300.