ImmersiVision

Now that our newly elected local politicians have promised to restore our economy, let’s hope Mayor Melamed will unite the new council and start making progress; however the people who are just as likely to kickstart the economy are unknown to us (unknown right now, but perhaps not for very much longer); they are the entrepreneurs toiling away in tiny little hidden offices, with no lawn signs or shop signs, or any other evidence of their existence. .

Rob Eberhard, a Whistler businessman and president of ImmersiVision, is one of these creative individuals. Rob has masterminded a product that will astonish anybody who hasn’t seen it; we could be talking about the next killer application, or killer app. To understand what a killer app is, think back to the early 80’s when we saw the first killer app, the word processor; the next was the spreadsheet. In the mid 90’s we witnessed what could probably be considered the ultimate killer app – The internet.

To understand the ImmersiVision killer app, imagine a Swedish citizen planning a ski vacation in North America. She jumps on her computer and browses all the websites of all the big resorts. They all have very detailed websites; the information is all there, but once our Swedish citizen arrives at her carefully researched destination, she may find that the resort was not as she’d envisioned it.

ImmersiVision hopes to change all that. At first glance our Swedish citizen thinks she has found just another website. The start page shows a photograph of the village. Nothing new here, but our Swede moves her mouse and discovers that she can swing the view around and see a 360 degree panoramic view from her vantage point. Another click of her mouse and she begins to actually move through the village, in any direction she wants. This is interesting, she thinks, and now she has completely forgotten about the other sites she was researching. As she progresses through the village, she discovers that she can actually enter some of the buildings and look inside. All the scenes are real photographs, no artistic renderings. She is also impressed that she can choose her own language for her virtual tour.

There’s a nice hotel, she thinks, and she clicks her way into the lobby. Again, she can stop and swing the perspective around 360 degrees. She finds that she can actually go into the rooms and take a look at the amenities, all the while swinging her view from side to side, even look at the ceiling if she wants to. Great! This one has a ceiling fan! (Swedes love their ceiling fans). She notices that to the right of the photo is a menu, and she is offered the chance to book this room, right now. The booking is made, she is sent an email to confirm.

You can certainly see the possibilities. Rob’s vision is much bigger than I have space to describe in this column, but the ability to virtual shop in the retail stores is certainly part of Rob’s plans. This is not a pie in the sky application – it exists today. At present a downloadable player is required for the Virtual Tour, but the web version (which will run in Quicktime within your browser) will be released in the next month. Rob showed me a demo of this software, and I believe this product has the potential to get our visitor numbers back to where they should be. Anyone who finds this site in his search for a resort holiday will look no further.

A number of hotels and retail locations in Whistler are fully on board with Rob’s vision, and both Whistler/Blackcomb and Tourism Whistler are just two of the many supporting parties sharing in the development of Whistler Content for the Immersive player. Rob is preparing to release Version 1 of Immersivion in the next few months. For more information and a demo CD, contact Rob at ImmersiVision Interactive Technologies Inc. 604-938-1477

Computers Have Come A Log Way

In this age of rising gas prices and inflation, it is easy to get bitter about the cost of living. But when it comes to technology and computers, everything is getting better, faster and cheaper. Allow me to illustrate…

When I was a young technician working for Epson Canada in 1988, my father decided to trade in his Underwood typerwriter for a computer. As a writer, he had heard about the benefits of a word processor, and decided that he was ready. He was the first in our family to own a computer.

As a staffer for Epson, I was able to get a staff discount for him. The PC I delivered to him had the following specs: 8Mhz processor, 64k of RAM, 10 Mbyte Hard-disk, 14” amber monochrome monitor, and an Epson dot matrix printer. The operating system was DOS 3.3; things like soundcards, USB ports, built-in LAN ports, even mice hadn’t been conceived of yet. Color printers cost thousands, and so did Laser printers. Color monitors were only for the rich. Nobody had even heard of the Internet.

The total cost, with discount, was around $2800. I should mention that we decided to copy the software, because we couldn’t afford it. With WordPerfect 5.1 it would have cost an additional $300, but I was able to pirate a copy of MultiMate for him, and that got him off to a nice start. After a few weeks, my mother got interested in Multimate’s database function, and was soon using it to print mailing labels for members of their local Power Squadron chapter. She got so hooked my Dad couldn’t get near his computer, so Mum had to go and buy her own. But I digress…

It is worth mentioning here that the average cereal-box electronic toy has more power than did my father’s first computer. Today, you can buy a bottom-of-the-barrel computer that has a processor 300 times faster, has 400 times more RAM, and has a hard-disk 8000 (eight thousand) times larger, bundled with a big crisp color monitor, all kinds of software and a free color printer, all for about $500. For $800 you can buy a well-equipped wireless enabled laptop weighing 5 pounds. If you were to spend today what my father spent in 1988, you’d have the very best.

Gordon E. Moore, co-founder of Intel, predicted that the speed and power of the CPU would double every 2 years, and this came to be known as Moore’s Law. He probably could not have known that the prices would fall in direct proportion. This phenomenal pricing is probably thanks to Bill Gates’ vision of having a computer in every home by the end of the 1900’s; by now must of us have 2 or 3, and have thrown away at least another 2 or 3 as the older ones became obsolete. And with the new capabilities of modern operating systems, a system that is 5 years old is worthless because it doesn’t have the power to run the new OS’s.

My Dad’s first computer is (unfortunately) probably deep in a landfill somewhere by now, and I believe he is on his fourth computer. He is definitely ready for an upgrade, as he is now a blog author, and he needs his ‘net. I think my mother is on her sixth computer now. High speed internet? You must be joking, they’ve had that for 5 years. Dad’s in his 80’s now and Mum’s closing the gap.

Next week we’ll talk about the astonishing proliferation of free software that is available from the internet, so stay tuned.