I don't know what this says about the mind in general but the type of mind that wants to exert itself by killing other people give me the cold shudders. Of course those problems that require a mind to figure out how to make a better world needs more sophisticated systems than crude murder. But the rewards are, at least to this mind, much greater and more challenging.

I like the technical concept, this would be the next generation Play Station. I agree with Sand that ANY gaming system should have consequences to blatant violent actions. Games like Wolfen where you supposedly shoot up the zombies is mentally destructive for those already weak in the mind department, they learn nothing about the consequences of such actions. Ethical Reasoning should be incorporated into all game play. Another problem exists where people will naturally begin living in a world of make believe more than pursuing constructive avenues in life unless sufficient complexity is incorporated into such systems. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

But as to the technical merit. If you used a Wi-Fi connection and chose a fantasy or real world environment suitable for the tools (weapons, vehicle controls, a lamp, multimeter, sex toys, ...) you have created, and you could interact with anyone on the internet, then you could slip into and out of that virtual world whenever you had time and someone would be there to interact with; maybe even advanced AI partners in the future.



Machine vision software has continued to advance in broad application. Rather than have just sensors hooked to objects like PVC pipe, one or more cameras on head gear might convert those objects and represent them in your virtual world as whatever you want; magical staff perhaps. The user would put on a head gear, real world objects would be identified by the cameras and sensors, the user would go to a fantasy world setup page and associate the real world objects with the fantasy world objects. A fantasy background could cover the real world boundaries to give the person a reference to real world boundaries. The different players would have different real world limitations and one or more concepts would need to be created to allow transparent interaction.



Some of the components requiring system engineering:

Display Glasses:

180 degree horizontal and vertical fields of view

detection and tracking of eye movements

sensing depth perception (angle of eyes with respect to one another)

a visual mechanism to pull the focus of the eye to a specific depth of field

inertial sensors or camera object correlation software to detect head and body movements

instituting a standard for software JAUS) allowing for a broad class of sensors, cameras, GPS, and any other equipment to interface with the system

Machine Vision technologies developed for object spacial recognition

A camera system to continuously capture and map the real world image into the virtual world in real time.

Safety measures designed and put in place to prevent the user from falling down stairs, walking in front of a car, stubbing their toe, .... (this can certainly be done, and a disclaimer to fill the gaps)

A method of representing objects as concisely as possible for manipulation by the computer and as would be transmitted over Wi-Fi (You can not realistically transcieve entire 3D images of your virtual world, Wi-Fi bandwidth problems. But you can transcieve critical values.)



All of this is very doable, but it is a rather expensive task for just one company to develop. Perhaps a set of companies could coordinate development of a common system and share in the profits once the system is developed.