theme park virtualities

The most advanced shared virtual reality ride I have seen so far is the Spiderman ride at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure. The audience sits in an open car, wearing 3-D glasses, while the car moves jerkily amid huge screens, with heat and light effects. When I was waiting on the line for this ride, the management announced that there would be a delay due to a technical problem with the ride. To solve the problem, they said that they had to turn the lights on inside the ride building. I wished I could have been inside to enjoy seeing the workings. What I did enjoy, though, was the confusion those of us in line felt as we tried to decode whether the announcement was real or was part of the scene-setting TV and audio presentation that was supposed to fill the time we waited on line.

So far the theme park virtualities are either thrill rides or action games with minimal plots. They offer no slow, contemplative virtual experiences, perhaps because their currently available computer power cannot provide enough density of detail for a slow inspection. Moore's Law should remedy that over time.

Index
virtual examples
Place theory outline