The holodeck, as seen on Star Trek: The Next Generation, is certainly an appealing idea. For the uninitiated, the holodeck is a wondrous room that gives users the power to create and/or participate in a seamless virtual experience either on their own or with friends.

To really put one together, though, will require advances in digital storytelling/gaming, artificial intelligence, 3D displays, human interface design, and other technologies (including the one that will make energy tangible). You may not be able to build your own holodeck anytime soon, but advancements continue to be made in key fields. A recently available computer-display technology and a soon-to-be-released game are the latest indications of progress towards making the holodeck a reality.

3D without the glasses
You've never seen your Star Trek heroes wearing funny cardboard glasses on the holodeck. But most of the general public associates 3D with red-and-blue glasses or plastic polarised lenses. High-end multimedia and optics research institutions such as NYU, MIT, and others around the world have been experimenting with autostereoscopic technologies for ten years or more. All that's required is for the screen to serve up a different image to each eye--just as a lenticular, 3D postcard does.

With a monitor, the trick is to write images that are different line by line across the screen and send the odd and even sets of lines to the left or right eye. NYU's Ken Perlin has a dandy Java demonstration of this. Developers of commercial autostereoscopic displays have been supplying the tools to the military and to scientific researchers and engineering firms with deep pockets at prices far beyond the reach of the discretionary income of mere mortals. Their cost has been out of our reach until now, that is.

3D priced for thee and me
US-based Dimension Technologies (DTI) has been selling autostereoscopic devices to researchers, engineers, and the military for more than a decade. It recently began shipping a 15-inch flat-panel display for US$1,699. This dandy little monitor goes from 2D to 3D at the touch of a button (assuming, of course, you have something 3D to display). The monitor is shipping now, though in limited production runs. DTI is working on finding partners for larger runs of the displays.

The DTI display provides an excellent 3D view. You'll need to find a sweet spot to sit in for the full experience, but the monitors are equipped with a positioning helper. To find the right viewing position, you move your head until you cannot see the red LED on the monitor. The system allows for some lateral movement of your head and body without image decay, and DTI claims that up to six different people (three sitting and three standing) can be positioned where they could all see 3D at the same time. The company has proof of concept rear-projection prototypes developed as well.

Gaming and digital storytelling

The concept of Star Trek's holodeck is appealing because it not only provides realistic 3D environments but also lets the show's characters play games and act out stories in those settings. In her groundbreaking book Hamlet on the Holodeck, Dr. Janet Murray defined immersion as one of the key aesthetic characteristics of the interactive storytelling medium. One way to think of immersion might be as a willing suspension of disbelief--your ability to choose to ignore the fact you're sitting in a theatre, for example, or in front of a monitor and to accept the events and the characters as real. MIT's media guru Henry Jenkins has been teaching the folks at Electronic Arts (EA) about story and character. EA is about to release a game that takes a new approach to immersion. Majestic takes the game out of the computer and imbeds it in your real life.

Majestic follows you everywhere--literally, not figuratively: it puts you in the midst of a conspiracy to overthrow an autocratic government. To play it to its fullest, you give it all your contact information--phone, fax, email addresses, instant messenger, and such--so that impassioned messages from your virtual co-conspirators reach you wherever you go. To play the game, you will also have to send mail and place calls to your virtual cell members. You'll also have to search the Web for clues and participate in streaming audio and video sessions to unravel the mystery.

Should you wish to retain some control of your own life, Majestic provides some opportunities to set constraints on its pursuit of you. For example, you can put limits on the times you can be called and faxed or use a Web-based virtual voicemail box provided by the Majestic team, and so forth.

Though it was supposed to be released by now, Majestic has suffered the usual delays of game development. It should go into a second user test in the near future and will demo at the upcoming Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles.

Personally, I'm ready to buy into Majestic as soon as it's available, and I'm tempted to sign up for the full-access version. As a professor in the information age, I experience the occasional interruption of class by the ringing of students' mobile phones, and I've also caught some students playing solitaire on a laptop or a PDA during class. So it would be too cool to interrupt my own lecture to answer my mobile because my game is calling me.

Copyright © 2009 CBS Interactive, a CBS Company. All Rights Reserved.
ZDNET is a registered service mark of CBS Interactive. ZDNET Logo is a service mark of CBS Interactive.