Going beyond the keyboard and mouse - RL 3D user Interfaces - Golum - where are you??

Ok, so we have this amazing world Second Life. We all use a keyboard and a mouse to navigate. Question is, what other options are possible?

I am an educator in RL, and just got a second job teaching in the mornings - my own classroom, and 800 eager minds to teach.

a projection display TV, a computer, Korea's MEGA bandwidth...and second life! The possibilities are endless!

So I got a thinkin, since I obviously can't interact with SL WHILE i am at my RL job... how am I going to deal with the withdrawl? ---- but then again, would I have to? Maybe, just maybe I can integrate SL with my RL job - via a fancy wiring technique

maybe I do a live Hollywood - lord of the rings - Golum creation studio type thing - and rig 3d sensors to my arms and legs, attach a wireless headset, and a camera, and fiddle with the open source code to connect with my SL character, and ... and .... walk around my RL classroom and have my SL characters shuffle and dance! - ya! thats it!

Ok buddy, you are saying right now - have another rum and coke, and keep dreaming dreamer...

heh



But think about it for a moment, if the SL (now with an open source client) can translate our mouse and keyboard gestures into x,y, and z coordinates and move our avatars around in SL – there surely must but SOMEONE out there who is trying to replace this with something more real…



Nintendo’s got a spatial 3D sensors in their Wii technology – so something must be on someone’s shelf somewhere…



Well, anyhow, enough of the crazy talk - if you know of any Virtual Reality technology that can be integrated with SL at present – or is soon arriving – please let us know, or share your ideas



Bye for now



Cheers Fire

oh ya, and what about those smart whiteboards? they are only x,y! Therefore, can't we interface those somehow? Ie: if I use my smart pen on my smart whiteboard to draw a smiley face, can't we map those very same coordinates to a particle effects emmiter to draw that same smiley face in SL? While my avatar wears a suit infront of my virtual class? - pfff my god... imagine! I could be at my home, with my RL smart pen, teaching, on a whiteboard to residents in sl - it's gotta be possible. all venture capitalists who wanna throw money at this one, please PLEASE be my guest! heh- (I cant actually take full credit for this idea, Deanna Lancaster told me about the smart whiteboards)

this should be possible..

have you ever seen those virtual reality gloves and headgear?
I worked with many different kinds of virtual reality products.. and some of them just translate the movement you make with the glove into keyboard commands.. or mouse commands.. depends on how you set it up!
it would even be possible to use a cameras in a room to control your avatar in SL (in the same room size..) but this is limited to the room.. you don't want to knock your head against the wall, don't you ?

but if we could use little senders attached to the feet and arms and a small display in front of the eye... we just need a receiver that translates the movements you make, to commands ..
little example:

you walk forward and the sender on your feet sends this message to the receiver who recognized that you moved FORWARD, it then translates this to " user presses W on his keyboard "

Get it? it's easy..

but of course, best way would be to modify SL code so no translation is needed.. it it interacts DIRECTLY with SL..
and since I'm no programmer, I don't know how to do that

but it should be possible..

hope I cleared some stuff up,
so far,

Glenn

PS: have a look at this site: http://www.vrealities.com/