Remember Virtual Reality games in the early 90s? If you ever played them, you felt amazingly nauseated, and pretty much feeling like the last thing you’d ever want to do is leave your inferior meat sack behind and muck up inside this triangular, low depth, low colour, low resolution, Tron looking piece of crap world.

The graphics were awful, the gameplay was limited, the physics modeling was non existent, the control devices were perhaps the least intuitive things ever, and Lawn Mower Man scared the shit out of everyone for years to come.

… So why didn’t they keep developing this stuff until it worked decently?

Actually you probably don’t know, but they have been. It’s been done by stealth and it’s basically all video games, much like it ever was… but it’s been a bit more subtle than that.

Played Half Life 2? The physics engine in that is pretty damn good. Played 2nd Life? It’s a persistent world with more people in it than New Zealand, where people live out their lives, have adventures & social lives, and some even manage to earn a living while they’re in there… just like New Zealand. Played any Japanese RPG on the Play Station 3? Those graphics are pretty damn good for real time generated simulations. And these are not the only examples.

Fact of the matter is that virtual reality has snuck up on us.

So I’m sure you’re all well aware of the various games that are out there. Let’s face it, with all the media attention, it’s impossible to be unaware of at least World of Warcraft and 2nd Life, although you may not be aware that they were nowhere near the first of these games. That dubious honour belongs to a 1996 Korean title called Nexus: Kingdom of Winds, but the games weren’t made “popular” until 1999 with the release of Everquest, often called “Evercrack”… possibly where the derivative “World of Warcrack” comes from.

Why is this history lesson important? Because people, for the first time, were able to play these games not just to escape their mundane lives, but to actually live their lives through the game. I’m not talking about some sad git pretending to be a half-cow priest full time, but sad gits actually able to make a living through these games by selling in-world items to other players for real world currency, access the “outside” internet through some clever hacks that allowed them to order food (Pizzahut online) and necessities, and basically never have to leave their chairs with the exception of taking acrap or getting another Mountain Dew. For the first time, it was actually possible to not have to live in the real world.

“But it’s not total immersion!” I imagine you crying out, because I often think that people reading these things nearly a week after I actually write them can carry on a conversation with me without the aid of some kind of tachyon beam technology (perhaps something for another post).

Well, sorry, but you’re wrong again.

The only reason why these games aren’t total immersion yet is because you’re poor and can’t be arsed doing decent research.

There are actually several VR headsets, and natural haptic feedback devices already on the market at fairly reasonable prices. Certainly the sort of price range that is well within the reach of an avid gamer that regularly upgrades their computer to be able to run these sort of simulations at the maximum quality.

VR helmets have made leaps and bounds recently as well.

Not only is the price now comparable to that of a high-end monitor, but the nauseating 3D issues appear to have been solved. As it turns out, 25fps is the minimum for simulating motion, but if you want people not throwing up and getting a real sense of the 3rd dminesion while looking through their giant nerd boxes, you need around 120fps… per eye. If these hulking monstrosities pictured don’t sit well with your sense of style, you could always be one Jordie LaForge looking motherfucker and just get the iTheater glasses. The 3D isn’tas good, but you can wear them on public transport without looking like too much ofa freak, and the current ones plug right into an iPhone… so you can watch your World of Whorecraft episodes without being disturbed.

But what of touch? No point playing a game with your sight and hearing fully immersed if it’s going to be shattered by not being able to feel a damn thing because you’re holding onto a mouse and keyboard.

Three words: Haptic Feedback Accessories.

Haptic feedback gloves have been around for years, and were actually developed to help tele-operators get a decent feel for the job that they were doing. Some gloves merely provide resistance so that it feels like you’re holding an object. Others are actually designed to mimic textures in real time. Many are compatible with 3D design programs, and some even work for various games that allow manipulation via in game Hands.

Black & White is one such game, where your god hand can actually be used to pick up in game objects, crush superstitious villagers to death, or pimp slap your avatar… all witha satisfying sense of resistence to each. With the right set of gloves, you can feel the resistance of a gun grip in your hand, and have your wrists jerked back by the recoil as you fire it.

This of course leaves the issue of being able to actually touch anything and feel it. There are a few gloves on the market that actually simulate the feel of various materials. Nano-fibres recreate themselves underneath your palm and fingertips to give the feeling of certain forms of textures, and heat. These are currently not on the domestic market, nor nearly ready o be consumer level technology yet, but give it another game console generation or two, and you might just feel the leather thong criss crossed on your swords pommel as you wildly flail at your enemies, and then feel the blood flow between your fingers as you crush that annoying fairy in the latest installment of Legend of Zelda.

Hell, you can even get a vest that allows you to feel that you’re being shot or hit in game… and it comes in pink for girls.

Perhaps, in the end, we will find ourselves living regular mundane lives in the fantasy worlds we have created for ourselves because it is simply more bearable to do so without all the aches and pains of our real world selves. Not physical of course, but rather mental. After all the pain of falling out with other people is not so much in a virtual world. New others can be found with ease, and the quibbling little trials of our analogue reality simply won’t trouble us there. After all, the grass never needs mowing in your 2nd life… or does it?

We’ve already covered cyborgs and robots in our previous discussions, but it seems a lot of people simply aren’t comfortable with the idea of replacing parts of themselves, or entire humans, in order to get laborious jobs done. Frankly, I think you’re screaming wussies, but that could just be me.

So if you’re not prepared to be replaced by robotic labour, and you’re not content with hacking off one of your own arms to get a cybernetic upgrade, what are you going to do?

The answer lies in augmented exo-suits.

The suit most people are probably familiar with is the classic heavy load power lifter that Ripley hops into in Aliens. Cyberpunk fiction, and robot filled anime in particular, is choc full of them. Works of Masamune Shirow, such as Appleseed, come to mind.

These sorts of heavy labour and, dare I say it, combat suits are actually not very far from becoming a very practical reality.

There are two major firms involved in this race:

1) The American based Sarcos, manufacturers of the XOS (pronounced “Eck-soss” as in Exoskeleton) suit, which is being billed as the real life Iron Man. Together with a nice fat grant from DARPA, this is assuredly going to end up being for military applications after they’ve made it larger, more armoured, and with tactical mount points… oh yeah, and figured out a way to give it more than 30 minutes of operational effectiveness if the battery isn’t breached.

2)  The Japanese based (I shit you not) Cyberdine Corporation. No, they really did give themselves the same name as the company that brought about Skynet in the Terminator series. To make matters worse, their suit is called HAL 5. Add some AI into it, and we’re amazingly fucked.

Interestingly enough, the HAL suit has been in development for less time, has been designed for more medical and restorative means than the XOS, but is ready to go into commercial production next year. Perhaps more interestingly is that it looks better and currently provides better armour and battery life than the American product, which could probably use a bullet proof corset underneath it. Whether this has something to do with the Japanese insistence that form be a part of function, or they’re just trying to make sure that it looks like a friendly piece of techno-oriented fashion, as opposed to some sociopathic death bot, who knows.

Fact of the matter is that both of these are going to revolutionise the building industry. No longer will fat, lazy brickies be able to say that they can’t possibly lift those four bricks. No longer will carpenters claim that they haev bad knees or backs and can’t kneel down to fire off nail guns into the boards. Strain injuries will be a thing of the past.

Instead, the new claims will be getting too much tomato sauce into the joints, and that the missus forgot to plug the suit in overnight.

So, let’s get on to the questions that no one else is asking:

1. Will young punks figure out a way to make this a cool form of transportation that senior citizens demand be removed from their lawn?
2. Will people start playing sports in these? And if so, how far away will a 3 point shot have to be when there’s an ability to lift and shift 400kg?
3. How are hoons going to start hot rodding their exo suits?
4. 

   Couldn't resist

   What kind of response can we expect from law enforcement agencies when these start getting used in crimes? Is it ok to assume that these are deadly weapons, like steel capped boots, and therefore shoot someone in the face? And can you use explosive ordinance if their exosuit has a faceplate?

5. Will they bother making models aimed specifically at women, like the Holden Barina? If so, will they have breasts on the chest plates, or armour pleated plated skirts?

According to SciFi, robots come in three flavours: Adorably cute ones with a full gamut of emotion and expressions (i.e. No.5, Short Circuit), homicidal death droids that are intent on nothing short of the eradication of the human species (i.e. T-models, Terminator), or the in between robots, that are actually rather useful and do a variety of tasks such as providing comic relief (i.e. Kryten, Red Dwarf). In cyberpunk fiction, they’re usually the last of the three… neither good nor evil, with the exception of what they’ve been programmed to do. More often than not, they’re programmed for specific tasks, and with a minimal level of sentience.

Again, people laugh at the idea of robots, but they are already amazingly common place without people even being aware of it. Perhaps not as complex as those envisioned by Asimov, but all around us none the less. Smart cars, semi-intelligent assembly line machines, and even rudimentary A.I. driven units that have the cognitive processing abilities of insects and lower order mammals.

But cyberpunk fiction does not stop with robots being humanoid. Often, we see them in use as pets, such as the owl in Blade Runner, because live animals are something of a rarity in a technologically oriented future. Technological determinism alone states that it will become harder and harder to keep real animals, and we’re already doing a decent job at replacing them.

Nintendogs, for the Nintendo DS console, is one of the highest selling games. It has a number of spinoffs for other pets as well. There are documented cases of people neglecting their real dogs for their permanently cuter, less messy, more “human” virtual pets. There are also physical robotic replacements for a number of pets, such as Sony’s AIBO electronic dog (admittedly not that bright, but they get ebtter with each generation) or robotic fish… and they can be custom ordered into bodies not currently possible under biological sciences.

Of course, the Japanese make a much cuter one.

But getting back to where it matters, people.

Numerous companies are rather advanced in both animatronic and AI capabilities of robotics, with groups like MIT and Honda leading the way with the MDS and ASIMO. However, it’s often smaller “garage” labs that are making the more amazing breakthroughs in areas that really matter, such as robots capable of body language. Obviously, Japan leads the way in this area, but it’s often the hobby enthusiasts that come up with Android Synthetica, recreation people, such as the Actroid or even Project Aiko by lone inventor Le Trung.

Fact of the matter is that Robots are able to replace a lot of what we do already. As the development and production costs come down, the dystopian future vision of masses of unemployed anti-robot demonstrations and violence (Barrier Riots envisioned by Asimov), before a utopian golden age of labour free days seems quite real… But these are grand social visions and don’t touch on the every day work-a-life of the common joe.

1. If you get retrenched because your job was taken by a robot, and then the robot gets retrenched due to a newer model coming out, do you become good drinking buddies?
2. What do you get robot employees for moral boosting purposes?
3. If robots are programmed with artificial intelligence based upon our own, does that mean they’ll be lazy arseholes that only want to put in the absolute bare minimum of work?
4. Lots of sad sad individuals fall in love with their cars. With all that love and care going in to a robot, what happens when you can finally stick your genitals somewhere they’re not going to get 3rd degree burns, or make it hard to shift gears?

Another week of the terrifying world of tomorrow.

For years now, people have thought about cyborgs, cybernetic organisms, as something that’s only in the realm of Science Fiction… Techno-festishistic or techno-deterministic fantasies born out by people that wish they could be more than human.

But basic human cyborgs are already about the place, whether people realise it or not. We have people with dialysis machines cleaning their blood, cameras for eyes, microphones for ears, and small fishtank pumps for hearts that can keep the body alive even after it’s technically dead because it keeps on going and going and going… OI!

People don’t consider this stuff cybernetic enhancement of the human body. Rather, they consider it rectifying issues that exist. But why aren’t we using this technology to enhance ourselves? There seems to be some ethical reason why we don’t enhance our bodies to be superior than the original when replacing damaged parts, but no one seems able to tell me what it is. It’s ok for an amputee to be able to run faster than a regularly bodied athlete by having spring loaded legs… But it’s not OK to cut off healthy legs to enhance them in this way. Ironically, this guy is disqualified from competing in the regular Olympics.

So why can’t regular people have spring loaded legs as an option? Why can’t we insert recording features into our eyes,  or the ability to filter out pitches and background noise into people’s hearing aids? Replacement eyes with night shot mode or zoom would surely be used for the benefit of everyone.

It’s like we purposefully want our cripples to remain crippled and not be able to surpass those of us that are “healthy” and “able bodied”. I think it’s about giving us someone to feel sorry for. No one wants to have a conversation that went “Oh, did you hear about how Jim lost an arm? Yea, the lucky bastards going to get a replacement that can crush granite!”… well, that just wouldn’t do now, would it.

But here’s the thing, we’re getting closer and closer to creating tech that is far superior to our flimsy meat bags, and we should be ready to take advantage of it before something bizarre happens. Already monkeys are controlling robot arms through direct interface, feeding themselves bits of fruit. How long until monkey deathbots become part of the military arsenal? And what happens when they get pissed off because someone brought them bananas instead of mangoes?

Better yet, how long until this stuff is appropriate for human use? There are plenty of people that lose limbs every year due to accidents, and they’re left with horrible deformities due to this. Yet we know that prosthetics in movies are pretty damn good, and that robotic replacement arms look ok, and that monkey’s can control arms with their thoughts so surely this shit is ready for people too. Well, it is to some extent (Click pictured human prosthetic arm for video)

But these are flimsy substitutes, substantially weaker than the real life counterparts. Part of the issue lies with people not really feeling the weight of their own arms, thanks to the muscle and ligaments holding them in place. Another part has to do with the amount of weight these things can be before seriously weighing a person down. There are also some serious issues in power to weight ratios of the devices, although assisted hydraulics should theoretically be much more powerful than the average human being (that doesn’t spend large amounts of time at the gym) in terms of this. Masamune Shirow actually covers all of this in one of the sidenotes in the original Ghost in the Shell books.

But surely if we’re going to lose out on power to weight, we could be making these arms out of ultra-light newer materials, such as carbon composites, to the point that being an amputee actually becomes fashionable. No, really. Think about all those people that wear vambraces and gauntlets out to a club *cough* If amputees could swap their arms over to already look good, then why not? It’d certainly give all the cyber-fetishists something to drool over.

This of course leaves a few questions:

1. Would you be responsible for your actions if someone hacked into your system and starting making you do things, like a cyber-Tourette’s syndrome?
2. Fine motor control is still beyond the grasp at both a technical level, cost level for the average amputee, and even physical rehab level. Even with a sexy arm, either realistic or techno-fetishistic, how are you going to be sensual with other people or even yourself?
3. Is it cheating if you take of the hand and replace it with a masturbatory device such as a powered pocket pussy or dildo?
4. Speaking of, people can get prosthetic penises. Lesbians use cheaper alternatives all the time, but transsexuals get the real deal. Would it be cheating to have combination of the two that allowed you to swap out and change so it remained appropriate to the situation at hand? i.e. could you get a 20 inch monster with a small pump inside it so that you could basically scare the crap out of potential high level business partners when going to the urinal in a break at a meeting? Would women consider having small pressure pumps or valve chambers  installed to become better lovers?

Ultimately, prosthesis could replace an entire body, provided people plug themselves in before going to sleep every night. We’re going to end up with a society that’s reminiscent of Battle Angel Alita, or so I hope with no small degree of fervor.

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