Life In A Cyber Age

Cyberspace :
A study of its future evolution, applications and implications



1.0 Introduction

'Cyberspace':  The brain child of a computer illiterate science fiction writer.

'Cyberspace':  A new technological frontier, bursting with hidden possibilities, and the promise of forbidden fruits.  Imbuing its users with God like powers : To know anything and be anything or anywhere instantly, to create new life, or destroy it.

'Cyberspace':  A word increasingly on the lips of computer scientists around the world.  A word uttered excitedly from the dizzy heights of the Pentagon in the USA, to virtual reality conferences in England, to architects at the university of Texas and to computer game writers everywhere.

'Cyberspace':  The newest and possibly the most exciting application computers have ever and will ever be used for, and possibly the definitive application for the technology of virtual reality.  This dissertation seeks to explain firstly what cyberspace is, how it might evolve, the issues involved, its applications and implications.

But what is cyberspace?  Cyberspace is not an easy thing to define, as there are probably almost as many definitions, as there are people who can define it.  However, we do have a starting point.  In 1984 a science fiction writer named William Gibson wrote a book called 'Neureomancer', in which he coined the word cyberspace, and defined it thus:

'Cyberspace.  A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators in every nation.  A graphical representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system.  Unthinkable complexity.  Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data.  Like city lights receding.'

Gibson wrote about a future where the greatest resource is information.    Cyberspace was Gibson's answer to this, a omnipotent almost God like structure in which all information, and thus all answers could be found.  

For someone new to the concept of cyberspace, Gibson's definition is probably less than readable.  To visualise it, imagine looking at a 3 dimensional graphical representation of the room you are in on a computer screen, as if you had drawn the room using CAD software.  The computer screen acts like a window or a porthole through which you can see the room.  This room does not exist, it is 'virtual', it only exists in your mind, and on the screen of the computer.  It is a non place, a synthetic place, a cyberspace.

Now imagine that by using a connection between the computer and your brain, you are no longer just looking at the room through a computer screen, but actually inhabit it!  To draw an analogy it is the difference between looking at a fish tank, and actually putting on some scuba gear and diving in.  Imagine that you are not the only person in this room, others are there, and outside this room there is a virtual building, and outside that there is a virtual world, and swirling around you in this world are countless geometric architectural shapes of varying size, shape, colour, textures and sound, each representing a separate piece of knowable information.  This virtual world is cyberspace, created like the single virtual room by an almost infinite number of computers connected together in a enormous world spanning network.  This was William Gibson's dream, a dream of the future scientists couldn't wait to build, couldn't wait to live in, and couldn't wait to sell.

Today's dream of cyberspace is not too unlike Gibson's, except we don't expect to be neurally jacking to the Matrix  (Cyberspace) like the console cowboys' in Neureomancer for some time to come.  Part of Gibson's dream is accessible today through the technology of Virtual Reality (VR).  Infact there is little difference between VR and the cyberspace envisaged by Gibson, except that VR is the enabling technology of Gibson's cyberspace, but is not cyberspace itself.  The distinction between the two is fuzzy, but cyberspace has two additional concepts.   The network : countless computers connected together to form the Net  (Cyberspace).  Information : the contents of cyberspace is the realm of all information represented by perceivable virtual objects, the abstractions of computer data.  Since the many users or cybernauts also appear as physical objects in cyberspace, they too are information.

The Net today is not too unlike Gibson's fictional cyberspace of the future.  In the jungle sprawl and ever growing network of computers a cyberspace exists in which people send E-mail messages, download shareware, and move around sizeable chunks of data on just about subject under the sun.  Services like Internet, Compuserve, and JANET fit into the concept of cyberspace except without the graphical frills.  The notions of network and information remain intact.

NOTES FOR THE REST OF THE DISSERTATION :

2.0 Evolution
History
	BBS
	Habitat
Now :
	VR	
	Internet + Compuserve
	Who is doing development + How far they have got
	Enabling technologies

Future :
	Design issues e.g. movement, representation of data, rules?
	What will cyberspace look/feel like?

3.0 Applications


4.0 Implications

What this might mean to us all.
Leisure.
Work.
Especially and first of all its affect on the computer industry and IT.
Make predictions (See thread).
