A key link in that bridge would be more realistic images. Computer-created motion graphics such as those used in Lord of the Rings may soon be in games, simulations, and other virtual reality environments on PCs and laptops, thanks to a new rendering algorithm that is being placed in the public domain for all to use. It will result, for example, in surgical simulations that look more like real procedures.

These and other technologies at hand are being used to create lifelike, intelligent, full-size, interactive replicas or “avatars” of not just the bodies but also the minds of actual living persons. Such avatars will likely soon inhabit Second Life and other virtual worlds where a patient might dispatch her intelligent avatar to consult with, and be examined by, the avatar of a world-famous physician on Second Life. There need be no waiting in a virtual waiting room since the physician’s avatar could be cloned on demand – there would always be one doctor avatar per patient avatar. A patient could even sign his avatar up to participate in virtual clinical trials that could be run in seconds instead of the years it takes for real trials. If the avatar were to die in a trial of an experimental drug or procedure, it could simply be resurrected by restoring a backup.

It all sounds impossibly far out, just as the notion of the Web, and even the cell phone, sounded to most people 20 years ago.

A basic cell phone with a big red emergency button enabling elders to summon medical help any time, anywhere is available today. It may be significant in heralding the beginning of the mass use of the cell phone in healthcare. We can expect that trend to grow as sensors and artificial intelligence become linked or built into cell phones to send messages to caregivers and reminders to patients automatically.

One such sensor device is a newly introduced 12-lead EKG that can be worn by a patient at home or while traveling and transmit readings back to a doctor anywhere in the world via cell phone.

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Here is how Zygmunt Lozinski, described by BBC News writer Spencer Kelly as “IBM’s master inventor” and apparently involved in IBM’s private “play area” on virtual world Second Life , sees the future in which the cell phone becomes the bridge between the virtual and real worlds:

“You have a group of people who use virtual environments like Second Life, and they interact within those environments using tools like instant messaging and chat. But what would happen if you could connect people and objects in a virtual world to real world communication networks? To your mobile phone, to phones at home?

“So for example, you can make your avatar ring a bell, like in a hotel lobby, and that would send a message to the owner of that area, to their mobile phone, to say ‘there’s somebody who’s interested in talking to you’. Because obviously you can’t spend your entire life in a virtual shop hanging around waiting for someone to stop by and buy something.

“You can then see a photo of the avatar who’s calling you. You can then record a video with your mobile, and send that back so your potential customer can see that video being played to them on a video wall in the virtual world.”

In effect, says Kelly, IBM’s model removes the need for people to exist within a virtual world. Lozinski again: “If you’re traveling you may not always have good enough connectivity to interact with people in a virtual world, even if you need to. People can communicate irrespective of whether they’re in the virtual or real worlds. People used to talk about service anytime, anywhere — it shouldn’t matter if that’s a real or a virtual anywhere.”

Ray Tracing

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A technique called “ray-tracing” is used to produce the “virtual reality” special effects images for movies such as Lord of the Rings. Ray-tracing has required massive computing power, but scientists at Germany’s University of Saarland have developed algorithms that could do ray-tracing on a modern PC or laptop with multi-core chips and high-end graphics cards, giving much more realistic images for games and medical simulations.

The algorithms are available as open-source to anyone to use.

Virtual People

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“Imagine,” says a University of Illinois press release, “having a discussion with Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein on the nature of the universe, where their 3-D, life-sized representations looked you in the eye, examined your body language, considered voice nuances and phraseology of your questions, then answered you in a way that is so real you would swear the images were alive.”

To make such discussions “commonplace,” the National Science Foundation has awarded US$500,000 to researchers at the universities of Illinois (at Chicago) and Central Florida to bring computer games, animation, and artificial intelligence together.

UIC will build a motion-capture studio to digitize the image and movement of real people who will go on to live a virtual eternity in virtual reality. Their knowledge will be captured in databases, their voices analyzed to create synthesized but natural-sounding “virtual” voices. Their mannerisms will be studied and used in creating their 3-D “avatars” (virtual reality representations), which will recognize and respond in a natural human way to different voices and the various ways questions are phrased.

The first subject will be a senior NSF program manager with a wealth of institutional knowledge. A researcher will shadow him for several months, making video and voice recordings. His “presence” will be digitally reconstructed and interviews used to glean his institutional insights, which will be stored in the information database. When completed, NSF personnel will be able to consult with his avatar as if they were consulting with him directly. As more powerful computers become available, the realism of such avatars will improve.

The researchers see a commercial market for preserving virtual people whose critical or unique knowledge is vital to operations of corporations and other institutions.

Virtual Worlds

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The market for massively multiplayer online games (MAMOGs) in the West is now worth more than US$1 billion and growing, according to Screen Digest . For a sense of how massive is “massively,” consider that one game alone — World of Warcraft — has eight million players worldwide. These growing numbers are expected to bring big media companies into the game, “seeking to bring their non-gaming brands into the 3D online environment, . . . build online communities, increase brand awareness and gain access to key consumers that can be monetised to offset falling offline advertising revenue,” as Screen Digest puts it. The roll-out of ever-greater bandwidth and faster computers and game consoles will accelerate growth.

The range of MAMOGs has already begun to diversify with new genres and types of games, including:

• Virtual world building games, such as Second Life 
• Virtual pet rearing games, such as Neo pets 

   

• More casual MAMO puzzle games 

   

• Sports games in which players buy items and build character 

Cell Phones and Healthcare

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An Austrian firm has developed a cell phone with a built-in emergency button for people who do not want or cannot use cameras, music players, and the plethora of other options appearing on cell phones. Instead, it has a loud loudspeaker, a big screen optimized for older eyes, and big buttons.

The “Life” phone, as it is called, can be programmed with up to five emergency numbers. As BBC News reporter Mark Ward describes it: “On the rear of the phone is a big red button that can be pressed in the event of an emergency and which will call one of the stored emergency numbers to summon aid. Text messages that should be sent in the event of an emergency can also be created and stored on the handset.”

Cell Phone Heart Monitor

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The CardioSen’C is a 12-lead portable EKG that can transmit data on a patient’s heart activity to physicians by cell phone. Patients attach 12 electrodes to their chest and upper body and strap a battery-powered unit on the front of their chest. The latter digitizes the readings from the EKG sensors and transmits them via cell phone simultaneously to a “dedicated medical control center” and to the patient’s cardiologist, who can talk to the patient while viewing the data. Patients can even travel abroad yet be connected to their hometown doctor.

The device is being marketed first in Israel, where it was developed, then in Europe and eventually in the US, where it is expected to cost several hundred dollars.

Mobile EKG machines that transmit data by phone to physicians are already available in the US, but they have only two or three leads, the Israeli company claims. 12-lead EKGs can diagnose many more types of cardiac events.