ABSTRACT
Speculation, and not a little hype, now centres on the extension of these messagebased electronic communities into networks supporting ‘virtual reality’ (VR) services. Here we come back to many of the ideas of home telematics, ‘information malls’ and the ‘smart home’ covered above. Virtual reality technologies combine digitised media equipment with artificial intelligence, computing and high-capacity telecommunications to provide truly interactive ‘virtual environments’ within which people can immerse them (or other) selves as electronic constructions interacting with the virtual environment (Biocca, 1992). This happens through audio and video sensors combined with gloves, suits and helmets which monitor human actions and integrate people sensorily into software environments. As these technologies become more and more sophisticated, William Mitchell (1995) predicts that ‘you will be able to immerse yourself in simulated environments instead of just looking at them through a small rectangular window. This is a crucial difference: you become an inhabitant, a participant, not merely a spectator’.
