Dr. Randy Pausch and the Last Lecture

Innovative virtual reality pioneer Dr. Randy Pausch of Carnegie Mellon University gave a talk on realizing your childhood dreams and enabling others to realize their dreams this past Tuesday night to a packed CMU auditorium. Pausch has terminal pancreatic cancer, and the lecture was his last. Pausch has done tremendous things for virtual reality, computer programming, and education and collaborated with institutions far and wide and groups such as Disney Imagineering and Electronic Arts. His ALICE, his program that makes learning to program simple, interactive, and fun, is being used to teach computer programming all over the world. You can read more about his Stage3 Research group, which strives to bring virtual reality to the next level, here.

Below is one of the first parts of his lecture; the complete speech is available in sections on YouTube and from CMU. The talk was powerful; captivating, enlightening, honest, and funny. In the end, Pausch reveals that one of the 'head fakes' of the lecture is that it was for his three children: though they weren't present, they are all under the age of five, and now they will be able to see their father's life lessons throughout their own lives, even if he won't be around to impart them in person. Moving, heartwrenching, and just plain good entertainment: all in a day's work for the co-founder of CMU's Entertainment Technology Center.



Read articles about Dr. Pausch and his Last Lecture in the Wall Street Journal and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. You can also read about it at MetaFilter.

VR in Pediatric Physical Therapy

The Myrtle Beach Sun News reports on the emerging role of virtual reality in pediatric rehabilitation and physical therapy. One particularly popular technology allows the patient to see themselves projected into the virtual world. In this way, children in wheelchairs can visualize themselves doing everything from scoring goals on the soccer pitch to snowboarding down a snowy slope. The article also highlights the work of Pennsyvlania company VTree, Inc. Their actions back up their mission statement of helping to provide affordable technological solutions to physically and developmentally challenged people, such as employing developmentally delayed workers, taking input from parents, therapists, and teachers of students with special needs, and partnering with corporate sponsors to provide quality, yet affordable products to populations with special needs.