Immersive reality

You're in South Carolina and you're dog is in Japan.

You are connected to your computer in South Carolina.

Likewise, your dog is connected to a computer in Japan.

You "pet" your dog, and when you do that with your computer, you actually feel his fur and warmth and the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes or pants.

Really.

Digitization of touch or tactile sensation is now possible (and is even happening.) Same with smell.

This is according to Adam Clayton Powell III, a recent visitor to our university. Powell, whose picture you see with this blog post, is vice provost for globalization at the University of Southern California. He's also been director of the Integrated Media Systems Center in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.

All this means that Powell, the son of a famous civil rights activist congressman from New York, is quite knowledgeable about technology.

He said in a 2006 interview with "USC News" that great technology "is electric. It changes the course of history" and it "changes your perception of what is possible and what is human."

At Winthrop, where I teach and where he gave two presentations a few weeks ago, he spoke of Web technology "creating for users an experience indistinguishable from reality."

He talked a lot about users of powerful Web software experiencing "immersive reality."

Is it really possible that we humans can become so immersed in a digital environment that we cannot distinguish it from reality?

Mr. Powell intimates this is fast becoming the case.

I did some quick research and found that there's information on the Web about haptics, the study of the sense of touch. One source, in fact, says haptics is the future of user experience on digital devices. Another site speaks of haptics offering computer users a "richer, more enjoyable, more intense experience."

I know this: to touch and feel is intrinsic to being human. We all love to touch and feel another living thing.

And now computers might fool us into thinking we're actually having this precious human experience.

As for me, I'd prefer actually being with my dog and petting and smelling him in person, not from hundreds of miles away via a computer.

The song has it right: "Ain't nothin like the real thing, baby!..."

Turn up your sound and click on this link to enjoy that song, as sung by the Jackson Five.