Anyway, "Virtual Reality", seriously, what's the hold up?. I was reading this *article about "Augmented Reality" where the basic concept is a blend of what you see through your eyes and what a computer could add to that view via a camera on your mobile phone. This tech is due out next year as ANOTHER awesome app for iPhones and others. Yes, once I get an iPhone I will be Steve Jobs' bitch too.

Quick vid on the technology:

One positive example of its uses is being able to find your lost child in a large crowd just by panning the camera and the "transmitter" - (another phone, or whatever) - they are holding will make them pop up on your screen just like how I do on the screen of my enemies as "Chopper Gunner" on MW2 because I don't have "Cold Blooded" after "Prestiging".

Another positive example is the ease in which you can stalk chicks!. I jest, of course.

A little over twenty years ago when I was 15, - (yes that thought caused a moment of depression) - a fella and his missus came to a local shopping centre with a "Virtual Reality" set up that brought on pangs of anticipation and excitement almost as good as getting my Amiga 500 around the same time. That's 500 kilobytes of ram. My old man shouted for the 1 meg upgrade to "super speed" it. That image at the top was bigger before I down sized it than the hard drive of that computer...

Anyway, that experience of donning the headset and bouncing around the ring that stopped me from falling to my real life death of the balcony that was next to this thing was something that stuck with me. The future was just around the corner, and I had just had a taste of something I felt was spectacular. Really, all it was was a couple of levels of platforms and a dodgy gun that levitated in front of you and you basically moved like you were on rails. This "miracle" was like a computer in my head however, and it could only get better.

Twenty one years later I'm still waiting - and don't talk to me about military flight sims. MEH.

I don't consider myself a genius, so damn close I scare myself, but not quite. So how come I can come with integrating Augmented Reality with what is lacking in Virtual Reality and come up with something practical and spectacular. The single biggest thing that faults VR to its core is the fact that you're telling your mind that there is this whole other world worth exploring but you are physically restrained in actually walking it. In the end this defeats the purpose of the tech itself. You may as well be sitting in a comfy chair and using a couple of analog sticks and hitting pause to answer the phone and inhale pizza. The only way VR will work is if you have an actual to scale empty room/building/environment that a computer can fill the headset with generated environments or they come up with a pad/shoes/platform that flawlessly tricks your body into believing the visual lie.

Probably my biggest confession to date is that I enjoy playing the Wii with the missus. I actually do enjoy the physical exertion and do like the idea of physically participating in a game. The Wii is GREAT for party fun when friends are over - (really) - where something like the Xbox is a one person, two tops, experience where everyone else is sidelined.

Give me your credit card and I'll come up with an Augmented Reality Modern Warfare version of paintball with an allusion to actual combat with the sound effects in your headset and make us millions. There will be ACTUAL physical Team Death Match where you and your mates have to get off your ever expanding arses and lob VR flash bangs down hallways and "breach" VR doors with VR charges. Lan, wireless, hyper speed net connections ... how about we make use of it all?.

C'mon developers, keep up. It's a dream, I know, but really give me something to get excited about, give me your funding and step aside, or someone give me a foot in the door at *DARPA. In the end *Project Natal and *Sony's Effort are merely glorified Wii's that are no real fun or function over what is in existence already. Instead of playing as The Batman, let me be THE Batman. Seriously.

* = a link.