virtual reality

Is Virtual Sex Really Cheating?

9:30AM Tori Floyd | With all the talk about sexuality in games following the Mass Effect drama, it’s interesting to see discussions centering around purposeful sex in games, such as Second Life. Author Tim Guest’s new book, Second Lives: A Journey Through Virtual Worlds, takes a close look at the alternate lives, including sexuality, lived by people in Second Life. He spent months investigating virtual worlds and the people who inhabit them, from part-time virtual escorts, to a very serious virtual hitman, and many other personalities. In a Q&A with Nerve.com’s Screen Digest, Guest reveals some of the interesting questions of morality, legality, and love that arise from the experience: More »

Out Of Body Gaming

2:40AM Mike Fahey | Ever have a dream where you are watching yourself in third person? The out of body experience is a well documented phenomenon in the science world, generally associated with trauma or near-death experiences, but now scientists in Sweden and Britain have begun inducing the sensation, and the gaming implications of the technology are intriguing indeed. Here’s how it works: Scientists fit a customer with goggles that contain video screens. Two cameras film the subject left and right, feeding the images into the corresponding eyes to create a three dimensional image behind them. The scientists then provide a stimulus…say touching a plastic rod to their chest, while at the same time performing a similar motion to the 3D image. In the UK study, Dr. Henrik Ehrsson reports that 18 of the 19 subjects said they felt as if the 3D image they were watching was the real person. More »