Virtual Reality

“Virtual reality refers to computer-generated 3D real-time environments where users interact with the simulated environment. These environments can be as visually rich as any movie, but they differ from movies because the actions users take affect the environment.”(Harrison, Haruvy,& Rutstrom, 2011)

Virtual reality worlds are best known as an environment for on line gamers, who can assume the personality of anyone while playing on line. Many of the virtual reality worlds become so real to the users that they can become totally immersed in their virtual world and start to forget about the real world. While this may create issues for some gamers who may over indulge in their virtual world, the majority of users find that the time spent in a virtual world can be as stimulating as going to a movie or reading books.

While on-line gaming has been the driving force in virtual reality, many other uses are being discovered for this type of technology. Included in that technology are educational and medicinal uses. As an educational tool, virtual reality can be used to help train individuals in many areas, such as driver training, flight training, police and military training. This training can also help to train doctors and other highly skilled professions. The uses for virtual reality in these fields are still being developed, and will be a major tool in education in future years.

Personalized Advertising

Personalized advertising is a technology that allows advertisers to target their advertising to a specific individual based on their purchase history. This allows advertisers to focus their advertising and promotions directly to individuals rather than general advertising. This new concept is particularly popular for on line shoppers. An example of how this new technology works is as follows: When a consumer visits an e-commerce site and looks at a particular item, say a new pair if Nike golf shoes, a cookie is placed in that person’s browser, linking it with the golf shoes. When that person, or someone else using the same computer visits other e-commerce sites, the advertising  system creates an ad for the same pair of Nike shoes.

While this type of advertising may create some concern and discomfort for many consumers, the reality is that it does have its advantages. The first advantage is that consumers are able to opt out. What is interesting is that “While users are given the choice to opt out, few do once they understand how the ads are selected for them, said Jean-Baptiste Rudelle, the chief executive of Criteo.”(Heft & Vega, 2010)

As people understand that this type of advertising is directly targeted to their own preferences, they see the advantage of receiving ads for only the type of items they are interested in. As this type of advertising becomes more familiar to people, It will continue to expand into new areas, which only make all type of shopping more comfortable for individuals.

Why I Love Baseball

I have always had a fascination for the sport of baseball. This fascination started for me as a young boy growing up in the 50's. It all began by playing ball with the other boys in the neighborhood. It was pretty simple then, just playing catch and hitting a ball with a bat. Initially, it was a frustrating thing for me because I happen to be left handed, and at that time everyone else was right handed. Since I didn't have my own glove, I had to borrow one from the other kids, which meant that after some struggles I found that I needed to wear the glove backwards. This worked out ok, but I eventually realized that I needed my own glove. That meant that I would have to ask my parents for a baseball glove.
Now my parents were relatively new immigrants from Sweden and no concept of what baseball was. Add that together with the fact that they, like most immigrants at the time, were dirt poor and just trying to feed and clothe 7 kids, the odds were that my getting a baseball glove were pretty slim. I was finally able to convince them that redeeming the books of Green Stamps they had acquired could get me a baseball glove. When I went to redeem the stamps for a baseball glove, I again was faced with the uniqueness of being left handed. It seemed that the only glove they had for a left handed person was a funny looking thing that was used by a first baseman. It kind of looked like a lobster claw, but even that was better than nothing, so I was now the proud owner of a baseball glove.