Dimensions

Science – what is it about the way the brain processes sensory signals that makes it possible for relatively poor simulations of reality to spark such a high degree of realistic activity? How can we use this understanding to take designed better environments? Even the very notion of the human body and our relationship to our own bodies can be transformed. This has very deep implications for the scientific study of body processing and consciousness.

Computer Science and Engineering - How can we build systems that maximise the chance that people will RAVE in them? There are fundamental challenges for the construction of new systems, and their emergence out of the laboratory into businesses and homes.

Applications - to the extent that people show such realistic responses, whole new fields of endeavour open up that can be approached in novel ways: psychotherapy, neurorehabilitation, quality of life technologies, ergonomics, mission training, industrial prototyping, future urban environments and dwelling,  and education to name but a few. When we add the capability for such virtual environments to be shared by many people, we also add a vast range of additional applications, such as remote negotiations and meetings, virtual travel, virtual conferences, socially augmented interaction and so on.

Social Impact - What will be the impact of telepresence technologies on social structure and dynamics? How can we define experiments to find out?

Philosophy - what are the implications for our notion of reality and self? Is what we have thought of as reality simply one amongst many parallel realities that we now inhabit?

Entertainment - there are profound new possibilities for entertainment - for example, a person could lead multiple parallel lives - working in the office all day answering emails in "this life", a private detective in the other "parallel life" within a shared virtual reality.