Another day, another step closer to "Sci-fi Today". Fascinated by an item on the BBC on bionic eyes, I dived in a little deeper into the whole range of technologies that we might have within our reach rather sooner than later. Stumbling across this wonderful message board that seems to track technology related news I arrived back on the website of the wonderful Ray Kurzweil. If you have a moment to spare to be awed, click on and understand the realities of tomorrow.

Haptic simulation of virtual textiles

" ...It is easy to choose colors and sizes of clothes on many websites, but it's impossible to touch the material. So, European scientists are using a virtual reality technology, haptic simulation, to reproduce the sense of touch when interacting with virtual textiles. In 'Getting a feel for the fabric -- virtually,' IST Results describes the HAPTEX project (HAPtic sensing of virtual TEXtiles) which will end in November 2007 and is funded by the European Union with 1.66 million euros..." 

 After the "Virtual try-on" or "Virtual fit" challenge here come the "Virtual touch" ! And what's next ... virtual smell and virtual taste?

 About the virutal-try-on , My Virtual Model  proposes interesting solutions for the apparel shops online.

Wouldn't it be terrific if the holo-deck from Star Trek would actually exist? It seems that it already does. Sure, we've read what kind of advanced simulations the US army is running. But how about being able to access something akin to Star Trek ourselves?

Something called the VirtuSphere might bring us closer to that.

Pack on some VR goggles and enjoy the show. Conveyer belts within the sphere rotate with your every movement and make the VR in front of your eyes update accordingly, giving you the illusion that you are walking through real space.

Throw in radical new interface devices such as the one Sony showed of for its upcoming console (see for yourself) and baby you have me playing.

And the new game consoles are already changing much more than the videogame landscape. They are becoming the new home-theater entertainement centers. Plus with Xbox Live! and the rumored Playstation online service there are $$$ to cash in.

I wonder when some of them - such as zslide - are going to have their breakthrough. Would love to be part of it; there's just so much you could do in improving user experience when using the power todays (and tomorrows) consoles have available.

news @ nature.com - Computer users move themselves with the mind - Electrode cap allows users to think themselves along a virtual street.

"Computer scientists have created a hat that can read your thoughts. It allows you to stroll down a virtual street. All you have to do is think about walking.

Called a brain-computer interface, the device detects activity in certain brain areas linked to movement, and uses the signals to mimic that movement in a virtual world. The technology could one day help paralysed patients to move robotic arms, or help sufferers of motor neuron disease to type out words on a virtual keyboard.

"Just thinking about movement activates the same neurons as actually moving," explains Gert Pfurtscheller of Graz University of Technology in Austria, who has been working on the device for around four years. By picking up on these bursts of nerve activity, the computer can decide whether you are thinking about moving your hands or feet, and react accordingly."

Let's create a new label here: "technopathic"!

Slowly starting to come out of the project that occupied me for the last year, I am going to start posting entries to our blog again. The theme will be 'living in a sci-fi world'.

There are an astonishing number of discoveries and things we already take for granted in our daily lifes that were unthinkable only a ten years ago. Only sci-fi authors went beyond the boundaries of everyones imaginations. However we now live in the world they created.

The posts will first and foremost be simply links away from our sites. Some issues I might take up and argue with myself about. We'll see how it evolves (or not if I jump right into the next big project).

Face transplants. Ever thought that he/ she looked better than you? Well, how about...