Product Description
Imagine a life of virtual reality -- a childhood contained in a controlled environment, with no human contact or experiences outside of the world of computer-generated images.

Corgan has been genetically engineered by the Federation for quick reflexes, high intelligence, and physical superiority. Everything Corgan is, everything he has ever seen or done, was to prepare him for one moment: a bloodless, computer-controlled virtual war.

When Corgan meets his two fellow warriors, he begins to question the Federation. Now Corgan must decide where his loyalties lie, what he's willing to fight for, and exactly what he wants in return. His decisions will affect not only these three virtual warriors, but all the people left on earth.Amazon.com Review
Any teen who's ever been sucked into a video game or spent time in virtualworlds on the Net will be completely transfixed by this chilling,fast-paced novel. Fourteen-year-old Corgan was genetically engineered to bethe fastest player on any electronic playing field. Every second counts,too, because Corgan is preparing for the big war: a bloodless, electronicbattle to be waged against other doomed worlds. Alwaysmindful of the Council's orders, Corgan has trained his wholelife for this war, but--on the eve of the battle--he decides to break therules for the first time. Do the Council members really know what's best forthe Earth? Corgan needs to learn to think for himself, because everyone on theplanet will be affected by his decisions. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

Skip this one
Perhaps I am too old to actually appreciate this book (since it's obviously geared toward junior-high kids), but I was not particularly impressed. I liked the idea of a kid bred in a laboratory and genetically enhanced with super-fast reflexes and higher intelligence, but the author just didn't pull it off. He has had no human contact for the whole 14 years of his life, and everything he touches and eats is artificially designed. But once he meets other humans and escapes the tightly-controlled confines of his environment, he barely registers any human curiosity of the outside world. Sure, he asks general questions and he receives just as general answers in return; but you would expect an intelligent kid to question the very meaning of his own existence (among other important questions) when faced with such a situation.
In fact, it doesn't even make much sense. The whole premise revolves around war having developed to the point where it is fought on a virtual level. Each side in the war picks 3 real people to control 100 virtual soldiers. Whoever has the most virtual soldiers in the end wins whatever piece of land they were fighting over. But this makes no sense. Humans fighting a virtual war over physical (non-virtual) territory? Right. There is a reason physical wars are fought and real people die - because it doesn't actually matter how many virtual soldiers die when, in the end, you can pick up a real gun and physically shoot the opponents for victory. It's why Homeland Security hasn't picked up it's own copy of Modern Warfare.

Weak Main Character
Corgan has spent all of his fourteen years living in a box.Sure, the box can appear to be anyplace he wants.Virtual playmates and pets can be created for him.He has a virtual companion who teaches and nurtures him.But he is still in a box.

The problem, he has been told, is contamination.Ever since the Earth went through nuclear war, and ever since deadly diseases like Ebola and AIDS and hanta virus killed off all but about two billion people on Earth, everyone has had to live in sterile environments.Corgan is especially important, so he has never been exposed to any people or places that might cause him contamination.Corgan is a genius.

Corgan has a super developed sense of time.He can keep track of time down to hundredths of seconds, and he is aware without counting how much time has passed at any given moment.He also has a superior sense of touch--he can bring his hands to within a hair of something without touching it.Corgan's abilities will help his country to win the war.

In all of Earth, nowhere is left uncontaminated.Well, nowhwere until the Isles of Hiva are examined and it is found that they are without contamination.There will be a war to see which government will have control of these Isles and will be able to populate them.Corgan and two other children--Sharla, a super codebreaker, and Brig, a super strategist--will fight in this virtual war to determine possession of the Isles of Hiva.

I liked the concept of this book, and I liked the descriptions of a future in which Earth is contaminated to this degree.However, Corgan was too passive to be a good character.He should have rebelled more or at least questioned his life more.Also, his crisis of possibly losing his time-splitting abilities would have been an interesting side plot, but it is just dropped instead of examined.

Taking gaming to its fiercest and most logical conclusion
Many of my sci fi loving boys loved this book - couldn't put it down.Also, many of my "I don't like to read" boys.Girls liked it too, since there is also a strong female character.Takes X-box and other gaming to its fiercest and most logical conclusion.

How did this end up in my high school library?
I did not like virtual war.Virtual War is 6th grade material all the way. Basically this is a simple science fiction novel with a simple plot that has been done before with boring,predictable characters.The story takes place in a world that has been contaminanted by nuclear disaster. In one of the last remaining bubble cities in the world. Inside the city a boy has been raised all his life in virtual reality to train for a virtual war. Near the start of the war the boy meets a his advisers. They show him what the world is like outside his virtual paradise. So the main character begins to question what he is fighting for. I give it 2 out of 5 stars because it is too simple to be in a high school library. Maybe in a elementary school. The actual war doesn't start untill the end of the book and is only a few chapters long.So for for pretty much the whole book no real action happens. And the character doesn't even really fight. He just controls soldiers with his finger. I only recommend it to people who need a quick read for a project or something because i fineshed it in about 2 hours.

Virtual War is the Best Science Fiction Book
This is a really good book. I used to hate Science Fistion Books but for school I had to read one. One of my friends told me to read it. It is a bout a fourteen-year-old boy who lives in Wyoming in the year 2080. After Earth is infected but many diseases there is a war over an island that is not infected.Corgan and two other people Sharla, and Brig. They have to help Corgan win the war.This is one of the best books I've read. If a 12-year-old girl tried it and liked it you should too. It is fun and exciting. It gets you hooked in the second chapter. ... Read more

Product Description
"Virtual Reality, like many technologies in their infancy, was notdeveloped with a singular purpose in mind, and still lacks a fixedraison d'etre. Seizing the moment, the writers and artists in this bookhave taken a rare initiative by proposing a host of creative forms andideas for the multifunctional use of virtual environments." -- AndrewRoss, Director, American Studies Program, and Professor of ComparativeLiterature, New York University

The Banff Centre for the Arts has become synonymous for what's hot inthe electronic arts, a place where professional artists come to producenew work and develop new skills. This book brings together criticalessays along with artists' projects to explore the many issues raised bythe creation of virtual environments and to provide a glimpse intoworlds that have been much discussed but rarely seen. The book openswith eleven essays that approach the social and cultural implications ofcyberspace from the perspective of cultural studies, communications, arthistory, art criticism, English, and women's studies. These are followedby nine virtual environments (along with statements of what the artistsare trying to accomplish in both theoretical and technical terms),created over a three-year period as part of the Art and VirtualEnvironments Project at the Banff Centre. Together, writers and artistsexamine the consequences in cyberspace for race and identity,materiality and the body, landscape and narrative. Specific implicationsof the masculinist and rationalist biases of cyberspace are alsodiscussed. Preface: Douglas MacLeod. Introduction: Mary Anne Moser.Essays: N. Katherine Hayles. Cameron Bailey. Nell Tenhaaf. FrancesDyson. Allucquère Rosanne Stone. Avital Ronell. Rob Milthorp.Jeanne Randolph. Loretta Todd. Margaret Morse. Erkki Huhtamo. Artworks:Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun. Michael Scroggins and Steven Dickson. MarcosNovak. Michael Naimark. Brenda Laurel and Rachel Strickland. PerryHoberman. Ron Kuivila. Diane Gromala and Yacov Sharir. Toni Dove andMichael Mackenzie. Will Bauer and Steven Gibson. A Leonardo Book ... Read more

Product Description

Written by experts from the world’s leading institutions in the field, this is the only book to cover virtual and augmented reality in manufacturing from a manufacturing perspective, rather than a computer science angle. It details applications of state-of-the-art technologies in real industrial situations.

Product Description
Howard Rheingold has been called the First Citizen of the Internet. In this book he tours the "virtual community" of online networking. He describes a community that is as real and as much a mixed bag as any physical community -- one where people talk, argue, seek information, organize politically, fall in love, and dupe others. At the same time that he tells moving stories about people who have received online emotional support during devastating illnesses, he acknowledges a darker side to people's behavior in cyberspace. Indeed, contends Rheingold, people relate to each other online much the same as they do in physical communities.Originally published in 1993, The Virtual Community is more timely than ever. This edition contains a new chapter, in which the author revisits his ideas about online social communication now that so much more of the world's population is wired. It also contains an extended bibliography.Amazon.com Review
Cyberculture authority Howard Rheingold was the first to writeabout online communities in this style that is part-travelogue andpart-anthropological guide. This groundbreaking classic explores theentire virtual community, beginning with a selective but probing lookat the author's original online home, The Well. Rheingold relatesplenty of anecdotes that demonstrate the upsides of online life, suchas how he was able to get information on removing a tick from hischild before his doctor could respond to his phone call. But the bulkof the material relates to how individuals interact online much asthey do in a face-to-face community.

Rheingold speaks to how bothfriendships and enmities are formed online and how people cometogether to support each other through misfortune. He gives theexample of how computer-moderated communication enabled members of oneWell community to send vital medical aid to a friend hospitalizedhalfway around the world. Rheingold goes on to show how communitiescan form by various electronic communication methods, using theconferencing system of The Well as one example. He also examines howpeople interact through mailing lists, live chat, and the fantasycyberenvironments of online role-playing games. In the process, hequestions what kind of relationships can really be formed in a mediumwhere people can change their apparent identity at will.

This bookquestions whether a distinction between "virtual"communities and "real-life" communities is entirely valid.The Virtual Community argues that real relationships happen andreal communities develop when people communicate upon virtual commonground. Rheingold also shares his far-reaching knowledge of howtechnology effects our social constructs. If you are involved in anonline community, here is your cultural heritage. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Not very honest
The virtual community is, in reality, at best a bunch of people disagreeing and regularly indulging in shark-like small group attacks. The WELL, of which Howard speaks so much, hounded one of its early members - Blair - to his death by suicide, a matter described, but not really examined with much thoroughness. Yes, he touches on flaming, but does not examine a deeper pattern of common harrasment, particularly of outliers. How Howard himself participated in this type of online gang harassment activity, not understanding the man, Blair, and discounting his claims out of hand is a quite interesting story. He touches on this, and gives an account, which would be acceptable in a personal autobiography. But to leave it where he does in a book purporting to be a seminal piece on virtual community is truly remarkably remiss. Since the record is all there, or was, it could have been given serious consideration.

The conflicting interests, and the commonly irresponsible behavior of people online - viciousness, gratuitous, undeserved nastiness, intellectual dishonesty - looking for targets to vent on is not explored as it should be. This is quite common outside of the world of flaming.

This book is a gloss piece, advertising for something that doesn't really exist as he claims. Howard, while a pleasant guy personally, does not show himself a deep thinker, and may not be much of an observer either. Nor is the author ready, willing or able to take on anything that is likely to upset the herd of which he has become something of a starring member. The story of virtual community is not such a very nice one in many ways.

The underside of the story of virtual community is a story of psychological denial, denial about a great deal. It is a story of in-groups and out-groups, and a good deal more, something which requires an anhtropologists eye, and someone with more nerve.

Go ahead and read this book. But understand that the book itself is evidence of the degree of denial which pervades the "virtual community".

Wrote the book on Virtual Communities
Howard Rheingold is the most important lens through which the entire culture of the Virtual Community and Virtual Environment dynamics should and can be seen.This book, in any of its print runs or versions, is essential for anyone who wants to understand contact between people who's only connection is online via computers.

A seminal 1992 work with update tacked on
Rheingold provides a comprehensive, broad sweeping portrayal of the virtual communities landscape, particularly as it was in the early 1990s. In particular, the book provides a fascinating history of the development of virtual communities from back in the 1960s. The many stories of the development of virtual communities and of life in virtual communities provide a rich account.

The books' style is more journalistic that academic. It reads something like an extended newspaper article, with some fine writing.The book concentrates mostly on a kind of anecdotal and human accounting with a smattering of theory and stuff thrown in. Howard Rheingold eloquently lays out many of the salient issues and does an excellent job of arguing for the importance of recognizing the growth of online social groups. Also, he provides an intriguing treatment of cultural issues. The depth and breadth of his experience with the medium is clearly evident.

Generally, book is more historical than theoretical or practical. Howard admits to wanting to popularize the notion of virtual communities, which he does effectively. But, there is little that would help you set up a virtual community or really understand why they work that way. His basis is more in his experience than in theory or rigorous research.

The original book has been widely commented on, so perhaps just two comments on the 2000 version are in order. First, the book seems a little dated. The new material for this new version seems mostly added in the last two chapters, leaving the preceding 10 tinged with the state of affairs in 1992, which was pre-web and pre- a large bit of corporate development of e-business and virtual communities on the web. Of course, most of the issues are still relevant, but one has to keep the age of the material in mind. Second, the new material, although comprehensive and certainly based on Howard's considerable experience, seems a little rushed. Howard qualifies this by saying it would need another book, but this leaves the book feeling like an older book with a lengthy afterward tacked on later.

Prophet of Electronic Power to the People

Everyone seems to miss what I think is the most important the point of Howard's book.First published in 1993 and now in the expanded edition, the bottom line on this book is that the Internet has finally made it possible for individuals to own the fruits of their own labor--the power has shifted from the industrial age aggregators of labor, capital, and hard resources to the individual knowledge workers.The virtual community is the social manifestation of this new access to one another, but the real revolution is manifested in the freedom that cyberspace makes possible--as John Perry Barlow has said, the Internet interprets censorship (including corporate attempts to "own" employee knowledge) as an outage, and *routes around it*.Not only are communities possible, but so also are short-term aggregations of interest, remote bartering, on the fly hiring of world-class experts at a fraction of their "physical presence price".If Howard's first big book, Tools for Thought, was the window on what is possible at the desktop, this book is the window on what is possible in cyberspace, transcending physical, legal, cultural, and financial barriers.This is not quite the watershed that The Communist Manifesto was, but in many ways this book foreshadowed all of the netgain, infinite wealth, and other electronic frontier books coming out of the fevered brains around Boston--a guy in Mill Valley wearing hand-painted cowboy boots was there long before those carpetbaggers (smile).

New expanded edition forthcoming
This is a classic work on the development of online communities immediately before the advent of the World Wide Web. A new expanded edition with a terrific follow up chapter and expanded bibliography is due thisfall from The MIT Press. A must read! ... Read more

Product Description
In the case of virtual coaching and mentoring (or e-mentoring and ecoaching; or coaching/mentoring by wire-choose your own preferred nomenclature!) there are hundreds, perhapsthousands of programs and initiatives across the world. Yet there is comparatively little in theway of comparison of good practice or academic evaluation of what does and doesn't work.We found numerous individual case studies but a dearth of empirical research and no significantcollection of cases to illustrate the diversity of applications.Virtual Coach, Virtual Mentor provides a wide variety of perspectives on a rapidly growingphenomenon. We hope and intend that it should make a timely and significant contribution togood practice and to encouraging more practitioners and their clients and more organizationsto experiment with using electronic media to enrich coaching and mentoring. The view of ecoachingand e-mentoring is firmly one that these new media are less a replacement for traditionalface-to-face than an enhancement of learning alliances in general. We see no evidence offewer face-to-face coaching or mentoring relationships-on the contrary, they continue to become more popular and widespread.Rather, we see that virtual coaching and mentoring both enrich predominantly face-to-face relationships, by connecting partners attimes between formal meetings, and open up coaching and mentoring to new audiences and new applications. ... Read more

Product Description

Growing more quickly than we can study or come to fully understand it, social computing is much more than the next thing. Whether it is due more to technology-driven convenience or to the basic human need to find kindred connection, online communication and communities are changing the way we live.
Social Computing and Virtual Communities compiles contributions from international experts to offer the sort of multidisciplinary study that is required in any investigation of communities. Delving fully into theories and methods, application areas, and types of online social environments, this book —

• Introduces several theories regarding online social interaction
• Provides a general overview of methodologies, qualitative and quantitative, for analyzing and evaluating virtual communities
• Makes an in-depth investigation into e-learning communities and the formation of social networks of learners
• Examines healthcare communities motivated by physical pain, illness, and burdensome symptoms
• Discusses intellectual property (IP) issues, including those involving user-generated content
• Delves into the topic of online trust
• Introduces virtual communities, in which users immerse themselves in a 3D virtual environment, including MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing games)
• Presents an unusual community of older people of Chinese culture who perceive virtual communities as a place where old beliefs and traditional norms can be preserved
• Explores the rapid rise of social networking sites (SNS)

Books of this kind are uncommon. This work not only provides case studies of different domains of virtual communities and different types of social technologies but also emphasizes theoretical and methodological aspects required to research and analyze such communities.

Product Description
Virtual Machine technology applies the concept of virtualization to an entire machine, circumventing real machine compatibility constraints and hardware resource constraints to enable a higher degree of software portability and flexibility.Virtual machines are rapidly becoming an essential element in computer system design.They provide system security, flexibility, cross-platform compatibility, reliability, and resource efficiency.Designed to solve problems in combining and using major computer system components, virtual machine technologies play a key role in many disciplines, including operating systems, programming languages, and computer architecture.For example, at the process level, virtualizing technologies support dynamic program translation and platform-independent network computing.At the system level, they support multiple operating system environments on the same hardware platform and in servers.

Historically, individual virtual machine techniques have been developed within the specific disciplines that employ them (in some cases they aren't even referred to as "virtual machines"), making it difficult to see their common underlying relationships in a cohesive way. In this text, Smith and Nair take a new approach by examining virtual machines as a unified discipline. Pulling together cross-cutting technologies allows virtual machine implementations to be studied and engineered in a well-structured manner.Topics include instruction set emulation, dynamic program translation and optimization, high level virtual machines (including Java and CLI), and system virtual machines for both single-user systems and servers.

* Examines virtual machine technologies across the disciplines that use them-operating systems, programming languages and computer architecture-defining a new and unified discipline.
* Reviewed by principle researchers at Microsoft, HP, and by other industry research groups.
* Written by two authors who combine several decades of expertise in computer system research and development, both in academia and industry. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

A good book and a good transaction
Took a while to get here, but it did still arrive before the ETA, so I can't complain there. All good with the book, no problems whatsoever. A good transaction!

Great Book
I was suprised at the coverage of this book. I have found the content very interesting and enlightening. Good choice if you are interested in the powerful aspects that the various levels of virtual machines can afford.

Well-written overview of virtualization
I purchased this book to get myself grounded quickly in virtualization, specifically to gain an understanding on how virtual machines are built, and the related issues. The book covers a wide variety of topics, from emulation, to machine virtualization (e.g., VMware server), hosted virtualization (e.g., VMware Fusion), binary translation, code virtualization (e.g., Java). The issues are spelled out clearly, the relevant theorems and papers are covered, and just the right amount of code/algorithms are presented to help make points clear. There are plenty of case studies, ranging from the historic to the modern day implementations (VMs are not new technology -- machine VMs date back to the early days of computing, as discussed in the book).

This is not a book for those wanting to deploy VMs, but is a book for those who want to understand issues related to their theory and implementation.

Nice, Unified Overview of Virtualization (in all its forms)
A wonderful quote appears at the start of the book:"Hardware is hard, inflexible, produced by gnomes with sub-micron tools. Virtual machines wrap a layer of software around this hardware, and suddenly computers become flexible, malleable and start doing new tricks: running multiple operating systems, executing several instruction sets, allowing running programs to switch machines, or even rejecting unsafe code."

Many of the "new tricks" of virtualization are thoroughly explored in this book. The authors get "under the hood" of many VMs and go through the details of how they work. Also, they present the many types of virtualization in a well organized, unified framework.The book is also a good history lesson; various forms of virtualization have been around for decades, and the authors go through many case studies to show how many "modern" VM concepts are actually not as modern as you might think.

The first few chapters focus on emulators.They go into great detail about the realities of mapping register sets, memory, interrupts, etc in an emulator, as well as other nits such as how to deal with self-modifying code.Binary-to-binary translation is covered, as well ashow the translation can rewrite sections that are hard to virtualize. Dynamic binary optimizers are also covered, as well as how they can profile running code & reorder it to improve locality & speed. The HP Dynamo project is then reviewed to demonstrate the performance gains that are possible using dynamic optimization.

Virtual machines for programming languages are covered next. The typical description of the Java VM is covered here, as well as the Microsoft CLR.However, the section about Pascal P-code from the late 1970's is a nice reminder that the use of VMs for programming languages is not new.

Whole-system VMs are also covered next (e.g. VMWare, Xen...). The discussion builds on the concepts in the early chapters, and describe how memory is mapped, critical instructions are patched & rewritten, system calls are caught, etc.And of course VMWare is one of the case studies.

Finally, I thought one of the more interesting chapters is about "codesigned" VMs;these use low-level 'firmware' (not microcode) running in a minimal processor to effectively emulateanother processors instruction set (though at hardware speeds). The processor firmware performs the functions that more complex processors do in silicon, such as instruction reordering, branch prediction, etc.The recent Transmeta Crusoe processor (designed in the late 90's) is reviewed as a recent example of this technique. But another case study -- of the IBM AS/400 designed in the late 80's -- shows that the codesigned VM concept is not new, either.

Overall, this textbook is a nice overview of VMs in multiple forms (that is, for systems, for languages, for emulators, etc). It takes a high-level, computer-science perspective, so it's not product specific.I thought it went into sufficient detail so that it didn't seem tooimpractical or watered down.My only complaint is that it was a bit wordy in spots, as textbooks sometimes are. But if you're interested in the broad topic of VMs, it'll be a good addition to your library.

OK
A good first book on VMs. Starts with general foundations, then overviews both JVM and CLR. More of an overview than an indepth book though (which, for an introduction, is not bad, so I'm not complaining).

One thing I could do w/o though is a fair amount of hype about how VMs are great and so on. First, there's nothing new about them, they've been in existence for decades (it's just at the time MS believed that the future belongs to DDE); second, it can be argued that their current entry into the mainstream is due more to commercial interest and accompanying marketing hype than technical merit; third and last -- I'm tired of pretense excitement about this or that nine-days wonder's being a silver bullet, the Final Great Thing That Solves All Problems. I've seen too many of them appear in blasts of glory and be gone w/o trace within a couple of years despite all MS (or, in our case, Sun) self-serving clairvoyantry. We'll see, says I; meantime, less propaganda would be nice.

But overall, the book's OK though, a good place to start if curious. Btw, there's another one, by Iain Craig, that, I think is even better.

PS. As always, I warn the reader about the below reviewer, W.Boudville. Check his reviews page: he posts like a dozen exclusively positive reviews per day, every day, going back to the beginning of time: he cannot possibly have read one tenth of the books he's reviewed. Probably a "hired hand"; I smell a rat. ... Read more

Product Description
This is the first text to focus on virtual reality applications for design of the built environment. This guide explores the use of virtual reality at the practical level. It provides an overview of industrial applications of virtual reality and explores relevant scientific research.

Virtual Reality in the Built Environment is a guide to the practical uses of virtual design, construction, and management. Providing an overview of industrial applications for virtual reality and exploring relevant research, this book is an accessible and innovative resource for architects, designers and built environment professionals--bridging the gap between technological vision and current practice.

Author Jennifer Whyte shows how interactive, spatial, real-time technologies can radically improve modelling and communication of ideas, enable partcipation in the design process, and facilitated planning and management at the urban scale.The experience of lead users of virtual reality is used as the basis for understanding its promise and problems.Explanations of the underlying principles of this exciting interactive medium, a discussion of the cognitive, technical and organizational issues it raises, and international case studies illustrating practical applications are all included in this guide.

The author also provides a companion web site which provides online learning materials, including test-yourself questions, virtual reality models, and links to relevant sites, making it a valuable design resource and a stimulus for innovation.

* Informative guide for professionals and students conducting computer-based design work
* Accessible and innovative resource for every field of construction with a companion website for online learning
* Bridge the gap between technological fantasy and current practice with case studies from Britain, Japan, USA and Australia ... Read more

Product Description

The State of Play presents an essential first step in understanding how new digital worlds will change the future of our universe. Millions of people around the world inhabit virtual words: multiplayer online games where characters live, love, buy, trade, cheat, steal, and have every possible kind of adventure. Far more complicated and sophisticated than early video games, people now spend countless hours in virtual universes like Second Life and Star Wars Galaxies not to shoot space invaders but to create new identities, fall in love, build cities, make rules, and break them.

As digital worlds become increasingly powerful and lifelike, people will employ them for countless real-world purposes, including commerce, education, medicine, law enforcement, and military training. Inevitably, real-world law will regulate them. But should virtual worlds be fully integrated into our real-world legal system or should they be treated as separate jurisdictions with their own forms of dispute resolution? What rules should govern virtual communities? Should the law step in to protect property rights when virtual items are destroyed or stolen?

These questions, and many more, are considered in The State of Play, where legal experts, game designers, and policymakers explore the boundaries of free speech, intellectual property, and creativity in virtual worlds. The essays explore both the emergence of law in multiplayer online games and how we can use virtual worlds to study real-world social interactions and test real-world laws.

Customer Reviews (2)

Intellectual Cybersquatting
When Judge Richard Posner first called himself and other legal academics "intellectual entrepreneurs," he was at least half-kidding (in a Chicago kind of way).But in recent years the "market" for legal scholarship has become among the most cutthroat in the world.Professors seem desperate to be the first to homestead new territory in any emerging market.

The work of economists like Edward Castronova has demonstrated that virtual worlds constitute a new frontier, ripe for cutting edge scholarship.The authors in this book are staking their claim to its legal issues.But just being the first to a topic does not mean you have anything interesting to say about it.Castronova's work is interesting, but you don't need this book to understand it.The remaining essays in this book reminded me of cyber-squatted domain names."What will happen?" they all seem to ask, but they don't offer many answers or even interesting speculations.

The real problem here is that law exists to dealing with real-world consequences, while virtual worlds exist to eliminate them.Law may eventually get some traction in virtual reality, but it hasn't happened yet.If you want to be there when it does, don't read a law book - get yourself into a MMPORG.Just don't plan on keeping your job or your marriage.

Bring on the Metaverse
Great book, interesting essays about where our digital lives are going. ... Read more

Product Description

In followingLevy's world view, you may find that he interprets some or all ofthose terms in ways you're not used to, but the result is aninteresting new approach to what it means to be part of anincreasingly digital world. He examines the virtualization of severalelements our society: the corporal body, text, the economy, language,technology, contracts, intelligence, subjects, and objects. What hefinds is not a destruction of the personal so much as atransformation. Virtualization adds to, but does not replace, thereal, the possible, and the actual. By understanding whatvirtualization means and involves, Levy believes that society willgain a greater variety of options for interaction in allareas. Becoming Virtual is a serious philosophical work, densewith ideas. It demands a lot from the reader, but rewards with anintriguing new perspective on inevitable social change. --ElizabethLewis ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Top Mind, See His OtherTwo Books
Pierre Levy writes in French (or at least he did with his first three books) and stuff may be lost in translation.I have met him, he is one of the top minds in the emerging field of Collective Intelligence, and I recommend his other two books.The other reviews are great.

Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace
Cyberculture (Electronic Mediations Series)

A Must-Read
The word 'virtual' has had a fair amount of exercise in the last few decades, and it would be a pity if some were put off reading this wonderful book due to the misguided belief it may be populated with computer lingo and people with wetware engaged in simulated 'virtual' sex. Levy's understanding of the virtual extends far beyond information technology; he gives the concept a proper philosophical and even anthropological foundation, and even goes so far as to show that we have in fact always been virtual, and this is what has made us human.

Technology is probably what separates us from all other living creatures, or at least sophisticated technology, such as machines. Yes, other organisms utilise simple tools and what have you, but none of them are going to the moon in any sort of hurry. Levy's work is essentially about artifacts, be they software like language or symbols, or hardware like tools and machines. However, following on from the work of philosophers such as Deleuze and Serres, Levy is profoundly against the two common (mis)conceptions about them: that they 'dominate' us, or that they are simple tools in our hands, doing our bidding. Heidegger and his ilk were very keen on the domination idea, but that's only because they didn't really understand machines; sure, your VCR will seem to dominate you, if you can't work it, as many older people will tell you, but after a good dose of swearing and fumbling the usual result is a machine that just sits there doing nothing. Hardly despotism. Or you may have its measure, and say it's just a tool for capturing video images, for whatever purpose, and yet it changes the way you watch TV, capture memories of your kids, and the entire institutional set-up of the film industry. Quite a clever tool, that.

If you read this book (and you should), Levy will tell you that all artifacts, including less 'material' ones like language, virtualise our lives. That doesn't mean making them less real, the common usage of 'virtual'; it means problematising them, opening them up to possibilities. Making them MORE real. And this isn't naive techno-optimism, because not only are not all these possibilities not nice, but when you virtualise something you take on-board the requirements of the virtualising medium, which have to be met to keep it running, and you become entwined with the other people associated with these artifacts, such as video repair men. Technology can truly make you feel like a god, but it always needs to be fixed, and you have to undertake profound social relationships for it to happen at all (nobody builds an aircraft carrier alone in their backyard). Or take our oldest and most 'simple' artifact: language. Language, says Levy, virtualises 'real-time', by which he means our everyday interactions with other people. That's what it means to 'discuss' something, you take an immediate issue confronting two or more people, and you use language to open it up to different resolution paths which aren't immediately obvious. And again, this isn't artifact as god or slave: the language doesn't dominate you, although it has in-built constraints which you must adhere to if you want to be understood, and you can't just tell people what to do and see it happen, because not only are allowed meanings consensual or social, but also there is no direct causal link between utterance and action.

Levy explores the way we virtualise every aspect of our lives, from real-time interaction through language, to our actions through technology, and our social relations through institutions. And in each case the mechanism is the same: we create some artifact, more or less material, which allows us to shift what's at stake away from the immediate here-and-now and towards a problematic where new possibilities open up. And again Levy avoids simplistic determinism of any persuasion by emphasising that each of these artifacts simultaneously creates new social arrangements, and introduces new imperatives through the need for their upkeep. This is how the philosophy becomes anthropology, and why Levy says to be human IS to be virtual; it is our species that has taken these artifacts into our collectives, that has used the world to mediate our social lives. And the world extracts a price too, because artifacts impose requirements back upon us, if we want them to keep working, that is. The end of domination, either of artifact by human, or human by artifact.

This is Levy's most accessible book, in English, relatively free of the sometimes over-blown prose of Collective Intelligence. Like Bruno Latour, also an admirer of Serres and Deleuze, Levy allows us to see exactly how our technological, modern world is every bit as religious, barbaric, enlightened, enchanted, mystical or whatever as it has always been; you just have to understand artifacts. (It is also a tremendous asset for philosophy students who don't fully understand the scope of the Begsonian/Deleuzean 'virtual'.)

And as another reviewer has hinted, there's even theology in nuts and bolts, if you know where to look.

Virtually incomprehensible
This book is extremely heavy on the esoteric, philosophical lingo.As a virtual environment systems designer, I found it to be essentially useless.My guess is that it would be of value only to academicians and others not directly involved in the technological aspects of VE and other digital domains.Although I suspect there might have been some useful stuff here, the writing is too tangled to unravel.If you speak academese, you might fare better than I did.

Lévy gives us a new way of seeing culture.
This is one of those rare books that will re-wire many minds.Lévy givesus a new way of seeing culture.He achieves this by linking specificcultural activities, and thereby humankind, to a fundamental process thatis outside place and time - the process of virtualisation.

That thebook produces its profound cognitive effect in so few words is stunning. Part of the credit for this feat must go to the translator,Bononno.

'Becoming Virtual' in my view surpasses that otherclassic,'Understanding Computers and Cognition' by Winograd and Flores.Lévy depicts cognition and action as both social process, and processoccurring within the individual.He introduces concepts sparingly andtellingly, illustrating them with examples reaching from the dawn of thehuman era to the present day.

A book that can be read at one sitting,but will demand to be picked up again many, many times in the years ahead. ... Read more

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THE VIRTUAL MAN [The Virtual Reality 1] Jaded from an ugly divorce, and traveling to the edge of colonized space on a luxury starship, Tiana Weiss books a suite equipped with a holographic chamber. Anticipating a vacation in a virtual world limited only by her imagination, without men, Tiana finds, to her surprise, the chamber comes equipped with its own holographic attendant, resembling a Greek god straight from Mt. Olympus. Discovering the 'holograph,' for which she felt an unwanted, inexplicable, physical and emotional attraction, is actually Derek Hart, a brilliant computer programmer and escaped convict. Tiana's trip takes on the proportions and heat of a comet trying to wrench free from the gravitational pull of a collapsing star as she begins trading her anger and hurt for wanton desire. Two brilliant minds, two battered hearts, two passionate lovers battle their own hurts, struggle for physical survival and desperately seek to unravel a conspiracy that threatens the existence of 25th century earth. *** "The Virtual Man brings to life the reality that love can fully flourish and be ultimately satisfying in a committed relationship. Grounded in freedom and safety, love bears fruit in a deeply emotional, wildly passionate, and carnally fulfilling way. Meet my characters. Share their triumphs as they fight for their place in the universe, their lives, and their love." ~ Nikki Sinclaire ~ ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Perfect Blend of Romance and Science Fiction
Great book. If you love romance and sci-fi (or even if you don't like sci-fi) Ms. Sinclaire blends the 2 genres with humor and style. Delightful read. The romance is genuine, the hero and heroine REAL and the sci-fi not so far out there that I need a manual to follow it.Can't wait for book #2! The Virtual Man [The Virtual Reality 1] ... Read more

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With the emergence of the Java 3D API, the creation of high quality 3D animated graphics for Java applications and applets becomes a possibility. With numerous aspects of the business, science, medical, and educational fields implementing this technology, the need for familiarity of Java 3D amplifies.

Interactive Web-Based Virtual Reality with Java 3D provides both advanced and novice programmers with comprehensive, detailed coverage of all of the important issues in Java 3D. This essential book delivers illustrations of essential keywords, syntax, and methods to provide an easy-to-read learning experience for the reader. ... Read more

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Architecture has always been a multi-layered discipline playing a catalytic role within society: architecture as representation. Recent developments in nextgeneration computing of the beyond-the-desktop-era (autonomic, grid, ubiquitous and quantum computing) are, however, set to challenge this role. In order to stay in synch with these developments, architecture must significantly change: architecture as an enabling platform that does not prescribe any particular kinds of spatial experiences, but enables them all.In this volume, based on the principle of shared research interests with internationally renowned scientific institutions, research labs and architectural studios, the editors propose a new kind of architecture - heterarchitecture -, conceived as a quantum object in which real space (1, OFF-line) and virtual space (0, ONline) are literally superimposed, thus obeying the rules of quantum mechanics (1 and 0, OFF and ON at once) rather than classical physics. It is an architecture against architecture - at least of the traditional kind, which recognizes only either-or; either 1 or 0, either inside or outside, either enclosing or excluding. It is an invisible architecture that makes numerous parallel virtual worlds visible. It is an upside-down architecture: architecture as a pure infrastructure. Welcome to the Multiverse! ... Read more

Product Description
Born from today's evolutionary psychology and its studies of developing human behaviour and emotions is the radical new concept from psychotherapist Jeri Fink that virtual reality has been with us since humans first walked the earth and has only been heightened by today's technology. Psychologically, humans are 'wired' to crave experiences beyond our daily existence. From the cave dweller's fireside stories of slaying massive beasts and the Elizabethan experience of Shakespeare's tragedies to today's blockbuster disaster movies and, most importantly, interactive computer communication, we have always lived in a 'virtual' culture. The brilliant visionary founder of 'psychotechnology', an inquiry into the merging of psychology and technology, Dr Fink is a leading mental health expert in the use of virtual applications in clinical practice."Cyberseduction" places the ideas of cyberspace and virtual reality into the historical context of human perception and experience across the ages. From a biological perspective, Dr.Fink explains how and why people are seduced by many virtual realities, both simple and complex, and compares our respective experiences of reality and virtuality, showing how humanity has adapted and evolved.As humanity seeks to further meld itself with machines, the line between illusion and reality is increasingly blurred. Dr Fink discusses her groundbreaking theory of manufactured reality by using specific types of virtualities: religion, sex, the media, and other aspects of daily living. She also considers the effects of new computer software and the internet, where anonymous individuals can become and experience almost anything they choose. "Cyberseduction" is a fascinating exploration of the psychology of digital culture. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The seduction of "psychotechnology" explored.
This survey of the nature and perception of reality in psychology in the wake of technology addresses a new science 'psychotechnology', an inquiry into the merging of psychology and technology. Cyberseduction explores how and why people are seduced by virtual realities and explains how humanityhas evolved. ... Read more

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This book presents a variety of techniques that combine computer-generated images and other objects with real scenes, creating augmented reality. This work provides an excellent snapshot of the current state of augmented reality research and its latest applications to industry. Using computer vision, graphics, and signal processing, augmented reality makes special effects in movies and computer games economically viable. This collection of survey and research papers presents a synopsis of the work covered at the First International Workshop on Augmented Reality. ... Read more

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One of the key underlying technologies of immersive virtual reality (VR) is 3-D sound for computers. While many recent books have provided overviews of VR, this is the first introduction to 3-D sound theory and applications aimed at the commercial engineer. It will provide the reader with an understanding of the communication chain between source and listener, and of how important issues in psychoacoustics and engineering interact.
"Anyone interested in synthesizing auditory spatial experience - whether for a multimedia, virtual reality, or other related application - will find this book a valuable resource...Durand Begault is arguably one of the most knowledgeable sources of reliable information on the subject. And his book, 3D Sound for Virtual Reality and Multimedia, attests to that fact."
--MIX Magazine


* The book covers:Components of spatial auditory displays Psychoacoustics of spatial hearingWhat sounds are appropriate to spatialize Applications to human-machine interfaces (including virtual reality and multimedia} computer music, and room acousticsFuture directions Written by an author with expertise in both theory and applications, this book will provide readers with one key facet of an essential technical foundation in virtual reality.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Aging and highly technical treatise on 3-D sound
This publication deals with the human factors and signal processing aspects of audio in 3-D systems. It is divided into six chapters:
1. Virtual Auditory Space: Context, Acoustics, and Psychoacoustics
2. Overview of Spatial Hearing Part 1: Azimuth and Elevation Perception
3. Overview of Spatial Hearing Part 2: Sound Source Distance and Environmental Context
4. Implementing 3-D Sound Systems, Sources, and Signal Processing
5. Virtual Acoustic Applications
6. Resources
Chapters one through four are the most useful as they present details of psychoacoustics, physical acoustics, and signal processing with plenty of instructive diagrams and equations when necessary. Chapters 5 and 6 on applications and resources are the least useful since they focus on these subjects from the perspective of 1994, which might as well be a century ago given the progress made in computing platforms. This publication is still useful since most texts in print on audio today focus on Windows-centric plug-in solutions for games where there are little technical details about the physics of the situation because the targeted reader is a high school or college student writing game programs in their basements. If you think this rather academic tome is for you, it is now available free on the web. Since Amazon tends to throw out reviews with web addresses in them, suffice it to say if you type in "3-D sound for virtual reality and multimedia" in quotations as I show it here into Google, the first web address you see should be the on-line version of this book.
The reader should already be familiar with digital signal processing in order to get the most out of this publication. If you are planning on doing the "big picture" design of a 3-D audio application, this old publication is essential reading.

This is definitely the best book available on 3D audio
I'm pretty sure that it is also the only book presently available.It IS fairly well written, and if you are writing a sound engine for a game, or a similar application, I would strongly recommend this book.On the otherhand, parts of it are extremely technical, so if you do not know if you canfollow it, you may wish to keep looking. ... Read more

Product Description
Virtual Humans are becoming more and more popular and used in many applications such as the entertainment industry (in both film and games) and medical applications. This comprehensive book covers all areas of this growing industry including face and body motion, body modelling, hair simulation, expressive speech simulation and facial communication, interaction with 3D objects, rendering skin and clothes and the standards for Virtual Humans. 

Written by a team of current and former researchers at MIRALab, University of Geneva or VRlab, EPFL, this book is the definitive guide to the area.

• Explains the concept of avatars and autonomous virtual actors and the main techniques to create and animate them (body and face).
• Presents the concepts of behavioural animation, crowd simulation, intercommunication between virtual humans, and interaction between real humans and autonomous virtual humans
• Addresses the advanced topics of hair representation and cloth animation with applications in fashion design
• Discusses the standards for Virtual Humans, such as MPEG-4 Face Animation and MPEG-4 Body Animation.

Customer Reviews (1)

Too many chefs spoil the dish
Each chapter of the book is written by a different group of authors. Although authors themselves are respectable researchers in the field, this one more looks likea collection of papers rather than a "book". Also not all of them are good writers, so some of the chapters are extremely boring. Few concepts are just not explained to the level of detail I would have liked...in short this book gives you a "high-level" view. And at least I would not be able to implement any system explained without making my own assumptions. Of course, I should accept that I am not a master of this subject (but then isn't that the reason I am buying this book ?)
I will not recommend this book at its given price. Makes no sense to spend $175 on this ... Read more

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Hospital groups differ on interventions for tomorrowÂ’s medicine.3-D interface, volume reconstruction, virtual imagery, and stealth platform surgery guided systems all enhance conventional medicine in treatment planning, diagnostic tests and surgical interventions.Consolidating services, acquiring contracts and partnerships in medicine, DNA therapies, molding bone for reconstruction, developing tissue replacement, and cloning organs provide good outcomes in patient care.

Product Description
As one of PBS's most outstanding science programs, 'The New Explorers' has distinguished itself as a leader in educational television.Winner of many awards - including 12 Emmys, the 1993 Peabody Award, the NEA Lamp of Learning Award, and the Westinghouse American Association for the Advancement of Science Award - this landmark series has consistently brought the scientific process of discovery to young people in fresh and exciting ways. ... Read more

Product Description
Virtual schools are a result of widespread changes in knowledge about learning, in available technology and in society.Virtual schooling is growing in popularity and will continue to attract students because of the benefits it offers over traditional schooling. Stakeholders in virtual schools need information to guide their decisions. For the foreseeable future, virtual schools will continue to meet diverse student needs, and to evolve in response to further change. Development and Management of Virtual Schools: Issues and Trends brings together knowledge of virtual schools as a reference for scholars and other groups involved in virtual schools. The chapters review best practice from concept and development, through implementation and evaluation. ... Read more