el lobo
Posts: 825
Joined: 7/20/2013
From: Khon Kaen, Thailand (orig: Sacramento, CA)
Status: offline
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witp-vr
I follow a couple of blogs, Kurzweil and Robert Scoble for two. One of their big things right now is VR (virtual reality) goggles and head-sets for entertainment and many other uses.
Here is a little idea of how I think witp-vr, and life, could look in ten years or so. Sorry for the gender assumptions. Please envision appropriate changes as needed.
A Japanese player goes into his “war” room, sits in his comfortable chair with his beverage of choice near-by, puts on his VR headset and says to his computer, “War in the Pacific, pbem Terry, load last turn.”
Promptly, he is waist deep in the middle of the Pacific Ocean looking at the Japanese Islands and the Combat Replay starts.
He sees the usual opening messages, “adjust task force missions, calculate range to enemy, calculate air superiority,“ etc. They are flashing by on a little sign board hovering over the Islands.
Suddenly the ocean shifts and he is looking down at two US DDs patrolling just out-side of Seattle. He looks a little closer and says, “zoom in.” Now he is very close to the DDs, close enough to see the ship's numbers and men running around on the decks. Why are they running around? Because a little white line leading from a barley perceptible periscope protruding above the water, is heading their way.
The player sees the flash, hears and feels the boom, sees the DD starting to list. The other DD races toward his Japanese sub and starts dropping depth charges. The player puts his hand-out, palm up, and “pushes” up. He is now under water watching the depth charges exploding around the sub. He sees the flashes, he feels the impact. His sub dives, barely escaping.
The player reverses his palm action and is again above the water What is that over there? Why it's a carrier battle! He reaches out, grabs and pulls the action towards him.
He sees carriers and their escorts from both sides maneuvering into the wind, planes taking-off, air battles, dive-bombers, torpedo-bombers, hundreds of planes, fighting it out. He reaches out, touches a Japanese dive-bomber coming in at 12k feet and says, “in there.” Suddenly he is in the Val's cockpit screaming towards and Allied BB. Flack is bursting around him, enemy fighters are diving at him. Bullets rip through the cockpit, smoke fills the air, “bail, bail,” he shouts, and then he is drifting silently towards the ocean, watching all of the action around, above, and below him. “Control,” he says and he is back waist deep in the ocean, the battle still going on all around him.
“Next,” and he is looking down at Sian. A battle is raging. Artillery is firing, tanks are racing, thousands of men running around, hundreds are laying on the ground. (witp-vr is not for the faint-of-heart.) “Escape,” the battle goes into fast motion and finally a screen pops-up hovering over Sian. “Sian is captured!” “About damn time,” he mutters.
The player continues to watch the CR. Each action is a little diorama that he can zoom-in, zoom-out, twist around to view at any angle, speed-up, slow down, even pause to take a sip of his beverage of choice.
After the CR is finished and he is looking at the Japanese Islands again, he says, “Email to Terry.” witp-vr fades to the background, an email screen is hovering in front of him. “Subject, turn two-hundred twenty-seven. Message, Commander Bravo, comma, return. Nice try Rio, on that flanking maneuver at Sian, you, capitalize, srb, period. Asterisk, laughing, asterisk, return. Your Bud, return capitalize, Emperor El Lobo, return, return. Attach combat replay.” He looks to make sure the message is correct, “Send.”
Time to get to work. “War in the pacific, Burma,” he says. He is instantly waist deep in the middle of the Bay of Bengal looking at a very detailed map of Burma. He grabs the land and gives it a twist so that he is in the Andaman Sea next to Tavoy. “Zoom Rangoon.” The map zooms into a 3D map of Rangoon, era 1940s, with the Base Information Screen hovering over-head. He has to pull the Information screen a little closer to him as CAP keeps getting in the way. “Troops.” The Base Screen changes to the Ground Unit Information Screen. He reaches out an touches the 3rd FF Const Unit, Engineer Unit, listed on the screen. Its Unit Information Screen pops-up. “Strat to Megwe.” The appropriate changes are made on the screen and he waves it away.
He wants to see what air power he has in Burma so he says, “Show me all Oscar units.” Google type icons in different colors appear, hovering over various bases with the number of units and planes. “Aha, this unit is finally up-graded,” he says and reaches out, grabs the icon in Bangkok and moves it to Rangoon. The icon remains at Rangoon but changes color. Rats, need more aviation support, he thinks to himself. (Some things never change.)
He repeats these processes over and over until he finally has the turn finalized. After one final check, he commands, “End Orders.” The Save Screen opens and slot number ten is blinking. “Confirm,” he says, and the turn is saved in slot number ten and the Opening Menu is hovering in front of him. “Close.”
“Send the turn to Terry.” He sees nothing as the computer takes care of these mundane tasks automatically.
Head-set still on, he says, “Music please, something relaxing, I've had a rough day at the war.” One of his favorite songs starts playing in the background and as he is sipping his beverage of choice, he is looking at a forest meadow with a waterfall at the end and the stream gently flowing past his feet. He is thinking of doing a little trout fishing but something else catches his attention. A door opening. He looks to the side and a big smile crosses his face. “Well hello,” he utters, as in walks Tokyo Rose wearing …...
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