People say that only losers need a virtual girlfriend. Bah! How many girlfriends have you had who dressed up in furry outfits and let you smack them on the ass with a giant paddle with a heart on it? Yeah, only four for me, too. But when none of them are around, you need something to keep you, um, entertained, and that’s what Alice the virtual anime girlfriend is for.
Technically, Alice is “augmented reality” as opposed to “virtual,” the distinction being that she interacts directly with physical objects (like you). She exists inside your computer, but interacts with objects with special patterns on them as you move them around in front of your webcam:
Just so you know, Alice’s birthday is February 14th, and we’ll assume she’s a consenting adult although it’s implied that she’s a high school student. She’s about 5′3″ and weighs 106 pounds, and likes teddy bears and dancing and singing. Oh, yeah, and she’s actually from 2025 but traveled to 2008 through a space-time distortion.
Alice can be all yours for about $100 from Amazon.co.jp.
In an effort to help doctors better diagnose patients who are at the beginning stages of congestive heart failure, AstraZeneca created the Heart FXPod which is a 53-foot-long tractor trailer outfitted with 5 virtual reality stations. Each simulator uses a special chair, a set of foot pedals and a pneumatic vest that allows doctors to physically experience the early symptoms of heart failure including chest tightness, fatigue and shortness of breath.
Inside the completed Heart FXPod, seated physicians watch an interactive video featuring Hank, a CHF patient, as he tries to take a walk in the park. As Hank’s condition worsens, he has a harder time walking, and consequently, the physicians have a harder time pedaling. When Hank tires even more, the physicians start feeling the effects of CHF as their pneumatic vests tighten, constricting their breathing. They even experience Hank’s elevated heart rate by way of an audio system built into the chair that is so effective it feels as if their own hearts are racing. “It’s an interesting physiological experience,” says Raymond. “After going through the simulation, many doctors said, ‘Wow, I had no idea it was this intense this early on.’”
The article is actually a case study for the Mac mini on the Apple website, so you have to wade through a bit of ‘Apple is awesome, Windows is not’ crap, but the bottom line is that after experiencing the simulations a doctor will have a better understanding of what heart failure feels like, and will be better equipped to recognize the symptoms at the earliest stages.
The University of Tsukuba in Japan is creating a treadmill that will help with the rehabilitation of people who have had strokes or other similar illnesses. The immersive dome has a visual range of 270 degrees that will allow the person on the treadmill to feel as if they are in a different environment.
It’s too bad that this is only being developed for use in hospitals as I could see this becoming a hit in the gyms if there were a multitude of environments to choose from. I can think of running alongside marathon runners, or running against olympic athletes or even running through a futuristic society being chased by killer robots as good ideas for this technology.
Related Tags: Software, Virtual Reality
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