Blog: Can a Virtual Hot Shower Help Shorten Your Real One?
From the Water in the West Western Water Forum blog:
“Imagine that you are taking a long hot shower. While washing, you look out the window, where you see a woman, facing you, with a pile of coal. She is slowly and dejectedly eating from this coal pile, one black nugget at a time. Occasionally, she gags. Your stomach churns. Welcome to ‘immersive virtual reality.’ …
“This woman is your avatar in a virtual reality simulation at the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab, which aims to create experiences using cohesive sights, sounds, and sensations that can be carried back into the real world for environmental gains, long after the virtual reality goggles come off. …
“The hot shower simulation, for instance, makes it viscerally clear that hot water comes with an energy cost. It takes roughly the amount of energy contained in one piece of coal to provide you with 15 seconds of your hot shower. As the hot water flows, your avatar continues to eat coal.”
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