Virtual Reality The Revolutionary Technology of Computer-Generated Artificial Worlds-And How It Promises to Transform Society

Imagine being able to "walk" into your computer and interact with any program you create. It sounds like science fiction, but it's science fact. Surgeons now rehearse operations on computer-generated "virtual" patients, and architects "walk through" virtual buildings while the actual structures are still in blueprints. InVirtual Reality, Howard Rheingold takes us to the front lines of this revolutionary new technology that creates computer-generated worlds complete with the sensations of touch and motion, and explores its impact on everything from entertainment to particle physics.

Howard Rheingold Howard Rheingold is author of Tools for Thought, Excursions to the Far Side of the Mind, They Have a Word For It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words and Phrases; coauthor of Higher Creativity and The Cognitive Connection; and editor of Whole Earth Review. He is multimedia columnist for Publish magazine and has been consultant to the US Congress Office of Technology Assessment. He has written for the New York Times, Esquire, Psychology Today, Playboy, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Omni.