Using goggles and other devices, the researchers have simulated an effect called kinesia paradoxa, the triggering of normal walking behaviour in akinetic Parkinson’s patients by placing physical obstacles at their feet. Many people with Parkinson’s disease experience great difficulty in walking, a condition known as akinesia. For example, Suzanne Weghorst and Jerry Prohero have been developing a radical new approach to the treatment of people with movement disorders. But last year’s experiment showed how limiting today’s technology is – faces “hovered” in the meeting room, but a proposal to change their expressions to match speech patterns had to be abandoned.The range of HIT Lab projects shows VR’s vast potential. Working with the Fujitsu Research Institute, HIT Lab is trying to create virtual meetings in which participants not only see each other but also “feel” each other, by using a raft of visual, tactile and aural cues. One of his latest adventures is the GreenSpace Project, which created the virtual common.

Mr Furness developed a virtual cockpit that, through bulky headgear, created a synthetic but three-dimensional representation of the world outside the aircraft.Now he is looking at ways of taking virtual reality further. Much work, however, will have to be done to develop the technology beyond its current crude state before it gains widespread acceptance.The Human Interface Technology (HIT) Lab was set up in 1989 at the University of Washington in Seattle to transform virtual concepts into saleable products. HIT Lab was formed by Tom Furness, a researcher with the US Air Force, who created a computer system in the mid-Eighties to help fighter pilots to overcome a huge problem – being overwhelmed by information during combat. Sensors mean that when they turn their heads the view swivels, reinforcing the impression that the world is all around them.By far the most widespread application of VR is games – where the third dimension can add terrifying reality – but it is increasingly recognised as a potentially serious tool. This was a teleconference, 21st century-style.
Virtual reality is the creation of artificial “worlds” through powerful computer graphics.

Users typically view them on tiny screens in front of their eyes – each image is slightly different, giving a three-dimensional effect and tricking people into believing that they are “inside” the computerised world. This may sound like a bizarre dream, but it happened – sort of. The two sides did indeed play the game, but they never left their home cities. They met in a “virtual common” in an experiment designed to show how virtual reality can replace the physical world. At each corner of the table was a goal post, and the four people took part in a game to herd cows and sheep, bleating and mooing, into the goals.