day 78
| the real internet 5: the holodeck effect |
Figure 4. Articulated humans like this one will
Yesterday we saw what pieces are holding the
WWW in place for the coming marketplace.
the holodeck concept borrowed from the (Star
Trek) USS Enterprise. But this will not happen
until the turn of the 21st century. Still, 3D
will be the compelling reason why Cyber
Simpsons shoot their TV set and rent a
multimedia PC from their cable TV company. 3D
will replace the couch potato's couch with a
virtual reality environment whereby any
experience desired can be dialed up like a
radio talk show host.
(Virtual Reality Modeling Language). VRML is to
3D Internet TV what HTML was to 2D web pages.
It permits consumers to travel through a
simulated 3D world while sucking dinner at
their living room bar.
of VRML work. To get wired in Wired
World, a motion capture device such as
Biovision from Motion Capture Studios
(www.biovision.com) of San Francisco
scans you into a 3D reality. Click Medieval
for a Spanish village around the time of the
Inquisition, or click Moon Port for a
weightless vacation on the moon.
freely move around cyberspace. Lean forward to
go ahead, lean backward to reverse, and remain
motionless to stop. Meet other articulated
humans, visit articulated malls, watch
articulated movies, and have articulated sex,
er, relationships. But, I digress.
being laid to pick the consumer's pocket,
dethrone TV, and amass the billions of dollars
of investment needed to build the holodeck. The
first step in this quest is to simply get
plugged in.
Ca.) and PointCast (Cupertino, Ca.) have the
right idea. WebTV is simple -- it provides a
set-top box that allows anyone to surf the
Internet from a plain old TV set. It is a
turnkey product like cable TV. Open the box,
plug it in, turn it on, and give it your credit
card number. WebTV's business plan provides
Internet access as well as the toys that
connect your TV to the Internet.
product. PointCast software works like a screen
saver. Whenever your office computer is not
busy, the PointCast browser kicks in with a
stream of CNN news and advertisements.
PointCast instantly signed up a million users.
Traffic has been so heavy that corporate
Intranets are bogging down under its weight.
Ted Turner is so taken by PointCast, rumor has
it that he might even buy the company.
World as the successor to TV. If you don't
watch TV, though, no need to worry. Books will
still be books in the year 2096.
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