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Resource List: 2005 Timeline: Advances in VR
 A chronicle of some of the major advances in Virtual Reality hardware and software which took place in 2005.
January: Gestures control true 3D display
Researchers from the University of Toronto create a system which allows for direct interaction by gesture with virtual objects contained in a 3d volumetric display. This system later goes on to become the Perspecta 3D dome, designed primarilly for medical imaging.
January: Icuiti releases first "Video Eyewear" hardware, the V920
The V920 was the first in a new wave of HMD-HUD 'hybrids', Since its release, a half dozen more firms have added models to the field of video-eyewear. These eye pieces are about halfway between a VR head-mounted display unit (HMD) and a AR heads-up display unit (HUD).
They are worn like glasses, and offer an immersive VR environment to the eyes, yet allow you to look round at the physical world with your peripheral vision.
January: UTD Establishes Motion Capture And Virtual Reality Laboratory
An interdisciplinary Motion Capture and Virtual Reality Laboratory for the digital recording of motion in 3-D spaces and creating virtual-reality environments was been established at The University of Texas at Dallas, dedicated to the study and relication of human movement,
January: Next Generation Surround Sound
University of York's Department of Electronics first developed a new method of creating accurate virtual sound fields ? where sound moves around a person exactly as it would in physical space - by mapping a person's head in real-time, and creates a unique spatial filter for that person in just a couple of minutes - a set of equations for deforming the sound to reach the eardrum, so it sounds like the sound is moving to the brain.
January: Emory Begins NIH Study Using Virtual Reality Therapy For Back Pain
One ofthe first serious studies looking at use of VR therapy, gets underway.
February: Human-to-Chicken Pet-Touching Through the Internet
An advance to haptic systems launches researchers from the Mixed Reality Lab of the National University of Singapore have developed a simple system to allow haptics (the sensation of touch) to finally be conveyed over the internet, for improved immersion.
February: Multi-player PacMan jumps between devices
The first computer game that lets characters leap from one mobile console to another was developed by Swedish programmers, demonstrating for the first time, successful integration of several different non-laboratory computers in the same simulation ad-hoc.
April: Virtual Property Theft ? Physical Murder
The first physical death through virtual item theft occurs. Shanghai, Legends of Mir 3 player Qiu Chengwei fatally stabbed player Zhu Caoyuan, after Caoyuan sold a dragon sabre sword on ebay for $700 shortly after Chengwei lent it to him.
April: Sony patents theoretical brain-interface
A patent was granted to Sony Entertainment for a device for transmitting sensory data directly into the human brain.
April: Sony opens Virtual Goods Marketplace
Finally grabbing the bull by the horns, Sony Online create a virtual item marketplace to allow items from EverQuest and EverQuest 2 to be freely traded between players - for a percentage of the sale price. This marksthe first mainstream acceptance of virtual item trading by a platform developer.
April: 'Minority Report' interface created for US militar
A computer interface inspired by the futuristic system portrayed in the movie Minority Report is created for US. military use.
April: VR headset spots concussion in minutes
You have been hit on the head, but are you concussed? There have always been two ways to check:
A second blow to the head, could be fatal if you are concussed, and whilst an obvious diagnosis, is hardly acceptable.
The second way, is for takes hours of testing by professionals, by which time you could be dead.
A VR system called DETECT (Display Enhanced TEsting for Concussion and mild Traumatic brain injury) was born to solve this dilemma - a VR helmet you slip on a patient's head which bombards the wearer with a series of audio/visual neuropsychological tests designed to pick up reduced reaction times and deficits in working memory, conditions that would indicate injuries to different parts of the brain.
May: Gameworlds and Blogs
Why not put blogs into games, and VR Gameworlds, as a source of dynamic content? Very good question actually. Maybe a better one would be ?Why has no-one done this yet??
Work begins on designing VR environements to incorporate blogging for the first time.
June: Perspecta 3D Spatial Display System Unveiled
The Perspecta 3D spatial display system is finally unveiled, and commercially available.
Perspecta in Pictures
Image slideshow demonstrating the Perspecta
June: Chinese gamer sentenced to life
In April, Shanghai player Qiu Chengwei fatally stabbed player Zhu Caoyuan, after Caoyuan sold a virtual sword called a dragon sabre for a lot of money on ebay.
Now the case concluded with Chengwei getting life imprisonment for 'murdering without provocation' as the Chinese authorities rule that the virtual sword was not real, so nothing was stolen.
June: Open Source 3D Human Models
The Open 3D Project begins, offering a central point for dissemination of 3D models of the human body on all formats, intending to foster innovation in avatar development.
June:
June: Changing the Streets through Virtual Reality
A true revolution descends on street planning, as before this launched, the most helpful data computational models of traffic flow could produce, consisted of a two dimensional view of the roads with little green and red dots indicating vehicles in motion under different conditions. Very computational, and very accurate, but this sort of output is not very easy for the layperson to understand.
June: Blue Brain Project - creating a simulated brain
On the sixth of June 2005, the most ambitious project to date for brain research was launched. Its mission: to recreate a human brain in simulation, neuron for neuron, connection for connection. Then, turn it on, and give it stimulai, so see what happens.
June: Violent VR programs the Brain for Violence
This issue has cropped up very often over the years - the complaints that computer mediated environments cause a predisposition in the brain for violence. Usually directed at video games, where violence is often the whole point of the game, and always defended against savagely by the gaming community, it now seems there is actually some truth to the belief.
July: 3001 AD Reveals Virtual Reality for the Home Market
At the Electronics Entertainment Expo earlier this year, entertainment firm 3001 AD unveiled their new full immersion VR interface, the Trimersion.
July: Matrix-style ?bullet-time? in Multi-User Environments
Finnish researchers have developed a way to achieve the ?bullet-time? effect of the movie The Matrix in real-time multi-participant environments. The challenge had been to achieve the slowing time effect for one participant, whilst none of the others were affected by it.
July: Simulated society may generate virtual culture
A society of virtual agents - each with a very realistic personality and the ability to not only learn, but to communicate as well is being crafted by scientists from five European research institutes who hope to gain insights into the way human societies evolve.
July: Remote-Controlled Humans
The debut of galvanic vestibular stimulation, or GVS, a system which takes control of the human balance system, allowing a human to be 'remote controlled' by playing with spatial awareness. This technology also allows full motion simulation without actual movement.
July: Counterfeit goods rock virtual world
Players of the MMO Gameworld Everquest2 noticed the bottom falling out of the market for virtual goods as the price of everyday items suddenly plummeted to zero as someone figured out how to produce these items en masse, for free.
July: VirtuSphere, 6DOF total movement system goes public
a 6DOF 'treadmill', the VirtuSphere is an interface device which allows you to
move in VR landscapes, and monitors backwards, forwards, left, right, up,
down, twisting rolling and pitching (leaning) movement by doppler radar
detectors.
September: Simulation of Mechanical Systems
Jos? Javier Gil Soto, Assistant lecturer at the Public University of Navarra, started a study on the simulation of mechanical systems. This has focussed on the creation of a new symbolic mathematical language derived from the MatLab-Maple symbolic engine, a heavy-duty calculus modelling engine. The new language 3D_Mec-MatLab allows dynamic equations for a mechanical system, breaking it down into equations that can be easily number-crunched.
The research team at the Public University of Navarra is currently working with 3D_Mec-MatLab to develop a dynamic model for a fork-lift truck that interacts with a virtual reality system. The fully simulated with every moving part fork-lift is to be modelled in such as way that the dynamic equations can be resolved at the same time as the user interacts with the truck (turn the steering wheel and it responds exactly as it should, internally and in actual movement for example).
September: Brit's bot chats way to AI medal
The annual Lobner prize for AI holding the most convincingly human-like conversation was won this year by George, direct descendant of the Jabberwacky AI chat bot from last year's contest.
October: Gamer Pays 100,000 Usd For A Virtual Resort
Film-maker and director of the movie "Hey DJ!", Jon Jacobs was the winner of this auction for virtual real estate. The auction began taking bids on the 21st of October and just three days later its buyout price was met. The final bid was the astonishing amount of $100,000 US, the largest amount ever spent in the massive multiplayer online gaming space.
October: World of Warcraft quarantined by Epidemic
At the beginning of October, Blizzard introduced patch 1.7 to the virtual environment World of Warcraft. Nothing unusual in that, you would think.However, one of the new nasties was Hakkar, the God of Blood.
Hakkar may be a deity, but he is killable ? if you are powerful, and work together with your friends as a team. However, Hakkar us a god, and gods don?t die easilly. As part of his death, Hakkar releases a single last-ditch attack, an area-attack cloud of Corrupted Blood. This is essentially a spell, which inflicts a highly infectious plague upon all who encounter it, dealing enough damage to kill most people instantly.
Only one problem, at least one person survived the initial infection, took the massive damage but did not die. Thir injuries healed but because of the infectious nature of Corrupted Blood, they became a carrier, infecting anyone who came within a few feet of them, with the disease.
November: Architecture's virtual shake-up 1: Mapping the physical, within the Virtual
With the accelerating tech curve, and building skills becoming ever more refined for virtual environments as the tech advances, at some point it was obvious that builders in virtual worlds would become architects in the physical one.
November: ESA presents research denying link between videogame and real life violence
Here we go again. Contrary to research done earlier this year, official vote is that violence is not linked to VR.
November: VR/AR to help children with cerebral palsy
Biomedical engineers at New Jersey Institute of Technology began looking at a wide variety of augmented reality and virtual reality technologies to help children with cerebral palsy improve their movements, reduce stiffness in their joints and live fuller and more independent lives.
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