The first thing we need to do is to have a closer look at what technologies are becoming available to us now. Then we will move on to the more social and aesthetic ideas on a digital reality.
The Display Technology
Three is really only one contender. The Occulus Rift. Here is a video of it in action.
Because of the lifelike interaction with the game, you turn your head to look around and when you tilt your head the world remains stable. If he was to encounter a computer within that world, he would see it as he sees a computer in this world, as a three dimensional box with a two dimensional screen.
There is one sticking point though. He is controlling his game experience with a controller. This means that he is tying his hands down to being at one point. Hands are our natural way of interacting with the world, so when you are tying up your hands, that means the natural feel introduced by the visual technology is taken away.
The Tactile technology
For this one I think the best alternative I've seen is leapmotion. Here is how that works.
Leapmotion is a small box that tracks all fingers. It's shown itself to work with games, but so far only to mimic a gun. It is has sensitivity to within a milimeter, which is how good you have to get if you want to fool the brain into thinking you are picking something up.
The idea is that by marrying leapmotion and the occulus, one would be able to see a digital reproduction of ones hand in the virtual reality, with which one could interact with the world in a normal way.
What is the potential for such technology?
The first, and most obvious potential for such technology, is gaming. To look around in beautiful landscapes, such as in Crysis, or Journey. These games are digital sculptures which we would love to have a close look at. But games could go even further by exploiting the potential inherent in the fact that you are expecting to meet this game world as you would a real world. That you could pick up any object, or interact with digital people more like you would a real one. Think for example on games like Heavy Rain, where you form emotional bonds with the characters through everyday interactions. Those could really be enhanced by playing to the illusion of a virtual reality.
Current game technology does not really support online seamless world that mimic the real world. But such technology is on the way. The newly announced Destiny from Bungie may show some promise. You can travel from planet from planet, all without a loading screen. They are meant to follow this game up for ten years, and they are giving a central role to the characters you will be playing. The combination of a first person game, a seamless experience and the mixed social/combate elements, may make this game attractive as a social platform for occulus rift users. The best thing, would be if you could stretch out your hand to great other players. Thinking about this, it reminds me a lot of OASIS from "Ready Player One", where the character dons haptic gloves and a vizor to go into a persistent world mixed between magic and technology.While gaming is going to be interesting, it is not the most interesting outcome of this technology. How is it going to change the way we work? Here is an example of from Heavy Rain - is this the way to go?
Would you really like to work in a digital environment Not having to have a screen on your desk could free up some workspace, and make that table more versatile. At the same time, being able to shape 3D sculptures right in front of you with your hands might be incredibly tempting.
I would love to be able to create my own 3D landscape - a personal retreat. Hopefully this will come true with occulus support of the unreal engine - since in the next unreal engine, more options will be available to non-programmers through the kismet system.
When working is digital, why shouldn't your world be? Why shouldn't school be? Another interesting feature from Ernest Cline's novel is the free schools that are set up inside what used to be a game world. A whole planet is dedicated to school. History teachers bring up renderings of battles, geography teachers can spin the world in their hands, and any tool available in the real world van be mimicked in this virtual one. It's amazing.
Social Interaction
I truly don't think there's any substitute for a face to face type interaction. It's not that we can't have meaningful conversations in digital space, I obviously think we can, and it isn't as if I don't think digital realms can ad anything to our normal mode, because I do; but there is one unique feature of normal mode we don't want to escape: We are our bodies. We are visceral. We are the life-force, we are the feeling beings. We see, touch, feel the heat of others, and as they stand near our body tingles with excitement. It is beautiful and engaging. We are to each other ends in ourselves - and any digital platform would just remove us from reaching each others as ends.
But there is one place we can never reach - inside each others minds. And it is here I think the social potential of such technology is most relevant. Just as we are our bodies, we are our minds. Only more so. You can see your body, but how do you see what you see? You don't. You just see. The seamlessness, the sounds, the perception of objects and directions - that is just your mind making sense of your surroundings. There is only one artform which have really sought to imitate this mode of beings - and that is the programmable 3D world. In this way, 3D dimensional real, wether discrete, as in a virtual reality, or overlapping, as in an augmented reality, can help bring about a fantasised reality in a way otherwise inaccessible to us. In the way that cell phones augmented the voice, so an augmented reality can augment the object.
We all do this all the time - when we talk to people we sit by a laptop, and as a song comes up in the discussion we put it on, or a painter get's his catalogue shown - some youtube video is generally shown - or a political fact checked. The promise of a shared digital space is to integrate these things into the world in a more relevant way.
