Futures
Technology seems to be growing faster than our society can keep up with. With the advent of high speed internet the level at which our world is intertwined grows faster and faster each and every day. And with this interconnectivity our lives seem to be molded around the media in which we interact on a day to day basis. Interactive environments seem to be a growing trend and leaps in virtual reality have the power to change the way our society views social interaction. Online video games allow us to compete against players all around the globe. Competitive Sports are a multibillion dollar industry. In the future will we “professional gamers” be treated like professional athletes and will the games they play be broadcasted much like the sporting events in this day and age?
First, as broadband Internet networks that enable high-speed data transfer
become more and more widespread, online gaming will become a standard feature
of video game consoles. Already, games in which people can compete with other
players online, like Halo 2 on Xbox Live, are popular. Also, taking advantage
of the Internet connectivity of these consoles, it will become possible to surf
the Internet and use e-mail on them. Moreover, the further refinement of individual
components will lead to smaller casings.
Finally, video game consoles are expected to become smaller and much more multifunctional.
The boundary between games consoles and other electronics products is already
becoming blurred, with some game consoles already capable of playing DVDs and
CDs and some home electronic devices allowing users to play games on them.
Active Worlds, the webs most powerful Virtual Reality experience, lets you visit and chat in incredible 3D worlds that are built by other users. Think you have what it takes to build your own world, or Virtual Reality game? Active Worlds is the place for you, where in minutes you can create fascinating 3D worlds that others can visit and chat in. The Active Worlds Universe is a community of hundreds of thousands of users that chat and build 3D virtual reality environments in millions of square kilometers of virtual territory. Environments such as these are immersed inside the Internet, interacting with it virtually in three dimensions. In the future we may all wear personal headsets that allow us to walk through scenes we now see in two dimensions on our computer monitors. Today video games are almost perfect in terms of their processing capabilities. What, then, what will happen to video games from now on?
As our world meshes together our technology follows suit.
Multifunctional devises seem to be just over the horizon. Think about it, what
if you could have a device that functioned as a VR headset/video phone/Personal
computer/gaming device/television remote/car keys/audio player? That seems like
an odd combination, but with innovative movers and shakers our world can be
a much more convenient place to live in.