One of the problems with virtual reality has always been that you had to either confine yourself to a joystick or strap into some crazy Lawnmower Man-style
harness. Hardly natural. This April, however, a team based at the Max
Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany,
unveiled the CyberWalk, an omnidirectional treadmill designed to serve
as a VR-capable movement platform.
Treadmills have been tried in VR before, of course, but early models
were unconvincing — either too small to keep goggled wanderers on the
platform or too slow, bouncy, or gap-ridden to feel the least bit real.
The CyberWalk solves these problems with a stiff, gapless, 20 x 20-foot
floor and movement and feedback systems that enable quick, fluid
changes of direction.
We know what you're thinking: Halo! But gamers must
wait. For now, access goes to spatial-cognition and perception
researchers, who will use the CyberWalk to "explore all sorts of things
we haven't been able to explore before," says William Thompson, a
University of Utah computer scientist. In addition to studying our
brains and understanding space and movement, they'll assess potential
for military and disaster-response operations and see if the device can
be used to treat medical issues such as Parkinson's. After that, and
only if you're good boys and girls, maybe you'll get to use it for Halo.