Positive Technology Journal

Via VRoot

(From Virtual Worldlets)

Virtual Reality is just beginning to head down the full body sensation reproduction path. We are at the very early stages of being able to recreate parts of the physical form, entirely in the virtual. This is a concept which is likely to have very a profound effect upon how we deal with the world around us.

At the moment, VR technology in reproducing virtual limbs is limited to a single limb at a time. This is done by mimicking the movements of the user's physical limb by reading the signals sent down the brainstem, translating and implementing them, as opposed to monitoring the movement of the arm and duplicating that. This is both faster than mimicking the movement observationally, and also allows the technique to work if the user has no physical arm to mimic, so long as the brain is capable of controlling one - e.g., quadriplegics, limb amputees.