(Mis)Adventures In Cyberspace

By PHILIP ELMER-DEWITT DALLAS

I'm floating in the azure sky high above Seattle. Down below, amid orange skyscrapers and forest-green mountains, the city's Space Needle -- a relic of the 1962 World's Fair -- juts up like a metallic blue mushroom. A ferry is steaming across Puget Sound, while a playful killer whale spouts and dives below the vessel's bow.

I am the master of this brightly colored universe -- or at least I'm supposed to be. By pointing my index finger and cocking my thumb, I can swoop down among the skyscrapers. I can wheel by the Space Needle, close enough to hear the clatter of silverware in its restaurant. I can dive beneath the deep- blue surface of the sound, go swimming with the whale and bask in the staccato chatter of its birdlike mating call.

I can do all these things if only I can get the silly computer to respond to my commands. As this scene unfolds within the two tiny color video screens strapped to my eyes, I'm jabbing at the air with the electronic glove that is supposed to be my steering wheel. But like the dreamer in a nightmare who tries to leap out of the way of a speeding locomotive and finds his legs won't work, I'm pointing my finger and bending my thumb every which way with no visible result. Feeling more and more foolish in my futuristic headgear, I'm stranded in space above a cartoon rendering of a corner of Washington State, the victim of a computer simulation gone horribly awry.

Here at the annual SIGGRAPH computer-graphics show in Dallas, I'm having my first hands-on encounter with the technological phenomenon known variously as cyberspace, artificial reality or, in a phrase borrowed from computerese, virtual reality. It relies on the techniques of interactive computer graphics to create the illusion of navigating through exotic locations that seem as "real" as those of the real world. The scene I'm exploring was created by the University of Washington's human-interface-technology lab to run on hardware made by VPL Research, a tiny firm in Redwood City, Calif., that is at the forefront of the budding virtual-reality movement.

VPL sells all the tools needed to create the experience. The device that converts hand motions into signals the computer can understand is called the DataGlove. Optic fibers sewn onto the fingers are supposed to detect the slightest movement of the digits. A head-mounted display that looks like an oversize skin-diving mask is called the EyePhone. Built-in headphones provide stereo sound, and a pair of liquid-crystal-display screens creates stereoscopic images that give the illusion of three dimensions. Both glove and headset are equipped with electromagnetic sensors that track changes in position and orientation. For computer power, the equipment is linked by cable to a pair of Silicon Graphics IRIS workstations -- one for each eye -- capable of creating up to 30 color images a second.

VPL's system has been on the market for little more than a year, and its cost (about $225,000) puts it beyond the reach of nearly all consumers. But virtual reality has already attracted a cult following in and around California's Silicon Valley. Enthusiasts are convinced that today's EyePhones are the forerunners of systems that will transform the way Americans work and play. They have visions of workers stepping into electronic suits to "commute" to virtual offices, surgeons honing their technique on virtual patients, honeymooners frolicking on virtual Caribbean vacations, astronauts exploring virtual planets by remote control.

Though in its infancy, virtual reality has attracted an extraordinary amount of media attention. The technology has been featured on ABC News and Entertainment Tonight and in front-page stories in more than two dozen newspapers. Mattel has managed to sell some 600,000 copies of its Power Glove, a crude $90 variant on the DataGlove that is designed for use with a Nintendo video-game player, despite the existence of only a handful of games to go with the glove. Virtual reality has even worked its way into the plot line of a feature film. In the forthcoming A Man and a Woman and a Woman, two characters fall in love within a virtual-reality demonstration.

Part of the media's interest stems from the company the technology has been keeping. Nolan Bushnell, who founded Atari in the mid-'70s, eagerly foresees games in which people would not just play but actually be Ms. Pac-Man. One of the most enthusiastic proponents is Timothy Leary, the former Harvard researcher who popularized LSD in the '60s and now has visions of a whole new generation "tripping" electronically. "Everyone will be equal in cyberspace," says Leary. "Inequalities of class and race will be eliminated."

But the real center of attention is Jaron Lanier, 30, the programmer who coined the term virtual reality and co-founded VPL in 1985. A legendary eccentric in a field famous for its oddballs, he grew up in a New Mexico desert, dropped out of high school to take up music composition and eventually drifted into video games, earning a reputation as a prodigious hacker. Amiable and rotund, he sports shoulder-length dreadlocks that make him look more like a Rastafarian reggae singer than a computer scientist.

Lanier is a bit surprised by the hoopla his brainchild has generated. He concedes that expectations have flown far ahead of today's primitive technology, but he is convinced that virtual reality will someday live up to its name. He dreams of users creating their own artificial environment as fast as they can describe it. Even if these worlds are sketched roughly on the screen, he claims, the mind will fill in the missing details. "The internal experience of reality is much more a product of your central nervous system than of the actual external world," he says. "That's why virtual reality works. Provide enough visual cues ((on the screen)), and millions of years of evolution will kick into gear."

He may have something there. But it does not sit well with the people who make a living creating the ultra-realistic computer graphics widely seen in TV ads, network news shows, science-fiction movies and theme-park rides. A computer-generated backdrop for a Hollywood film may take more than two years to create; Lanier claims he can make whole virtual-reality "worlds" in less than two hours. "Jaron Lanier has created a wave of revulsion in the industry," says the president of one computer-graphics firm. "He's promising something that will never be delivered."

Floating above Seattle with my balky DataGlove, I'm inclined to agree. There is an irritating delay between the moment I tip my head to the left and the time the images move to the right. When I reach to grab an object, there is no physical sensation of hitting a solid surface. When I do make contact, my hand is as likely to pass through the object as to connect with it.

After a long struggle I finally manage to maneuver myself in the direction of the floating yellow keyhole that is my gateway to the next imaginary environment. I can visit a virtual kitchen (complete with drippy faucet and ticking clock), take a virtual picnic (featuring 3-D sound cues from buzzing gnats) or make an appearance at the Mad Hatter's tea party. But by now I've broken out in a clammy sweat, and I've become acutely aware of the people lined up behind me waiting their turn on the machine. Have they been watching me wrestling spastically with my DataGlove? Have I been making a fool of myself for what could have been only a few minutes but seemed like hours?

That's when I had my first realization of the potential power of the technology. I was sitting in a room crowded with strangers, but within the space of my virtual reality, I was totally alone. So deeply immersed was I in the illusionary world projected in front of my eyeballs that I assumed everyone else was experiencing the same panic and frustration I was. In fact, they were oblivious. Perhaps that's the secret attraction in being able to explore your own personal inner space. In the world of virtual reality, your anxiety is all your own.