Heim's article is interesting in that he describes types of immersion alternately by function and by the technology used to achieve them. His idea of telepresence is interesting as a limited form of immersiveness. He distinguishes between artificial and operational telepresence. The artificial variety is a kind we experience everyday, indeed right now. I am telepresent at this virtual message board and everyone else has access to it from their respective locations. Operational telepresence is something NASA engineers are steeped in. Operational telepresence requires some sort of device (robot) providing data from the real world to pass to the user in a different location. The robot in question also allows the user to remotely interact with the robots immediate surroundings.

As we progress into truer forms of immersiveness Heim discusses three forms of VR; bodysuit VR, VR rooms, and "fish tank" VR. Bodysuit VR is the one that comes to mind when I think of virtual reality. The bulky headset and bodyglove are images that have stuck with me, even as technology has somewhat outpaced them. The VR room seems to me a more promising method. A VR room provides an actual physical enviroment that frees the user of cumbersome gear. Video walls and simplified control mechanisms allow one or more people to experience virtual environments in a VR room. Heim's final topic is that of "fish tank" VR. This is a low level form of VR that we see in many computer games today. Any computer game that generates an environment the player can move around in and interact with is virtually immersive in this way. Popular online computer games such as World of Warcraft and Everquest feature this functionality and are examples of how we may experience VR daily.

An interesting example of telepresence that occured to me is live webcasts of sports games and other events. With sufficient video quality and a variety of view angles to choose from, experiences like this can become immersive and give the feeling of being at the event.

-Sam Willett