|
|
Article: Closeness At a Distance; Can Virtual Technology Ever Achieve That Human Touch?
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- November 28, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
|
To my breakfast with Ruzena Bajcsy, a Czech-born computer
scientist, I carried her favorites: black coffee, mint cookies and
roses.
This was no ordinary assignation. I was sitting down for our
morning meal at the University of North Carolina. She was sitting
down in a room at the University of Pennsylvania.
Between us was not the usual three feet of air but a humming,
blinking array of computers, cameras and cables.
One of its developers, Jaron Lanier, says this array is a cross
between a holodeck and a transporter beam, the closest thing to "Star
Trek" now available. Beam up the coffee, please, Scotty. The gear: a
desk with a 3-D screen the size of a windshield and a starfish-
shaped ...