Thursday, June 28, 2012

Understanding New Media: Chapters 47-49

Chapter 47 involves virtual reality and simulations. VR is described as "any medium that imitates another medium"and "an environment hat is simulated by a computer". VR technology fulfills these definitions through the use os special stereoscopic googles and speakers in order to encompass all the users senses to create the illusion of a realistic environment. This is a powerful aspect of VR because when you are immersed in the program, you are not simply an observer but a participant. This interactive nature of VR has led to the creation of RPG games and VR reality platforms.
Chapter 48 describes robots as a "hybrid technology consisting of a computer and a electromechanical mechanism that can automatically perform tasks. The creation of robots, bots, and agents have made many tasks much easier and safer for humans. The use of robots has played a huge role in space exploration as well.
Similar to robots is the creation of Artificial Intelligence and Expert systems. Weak AI is defined as the use of computers to perform automated tasks that need human intelligence. On the other hand, there is strong AI which is an area of research working on ways to make computers intelligent beyond human capacity. This is difficult or impossible to achieve given that AI are only extensions of our own intelligence. A human cannot create something that is beyond them.

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