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TECHNOLOGY A23
                                                                                                                 Monday 7 December 2015

Dream of being a bird? Flight simulator can bring you close 

COLLIN BINKLEY                    Carrie Fitzsimmons begins her first flight aboard Birdly, a virtual reality flying machine, at Le                               flight, Rheiner and his team
Associated Press                  Laboratoire Cambridge in Cambridge, Mass. The simulator looks like a futuristic examining table                                 tried to replicate human
CAMBRIDGE, Massachu-              where users lie on their bellies and spread their arms like wings. Using virtual reality goggles,                               dreams of flying.
setts (AP) — With a few           they get a bird’s eye view of New York City. By rotating their hands and flapping their arms, they                              “People who have dreams
flaps of his arms, Kip Fen-       navigate the skyline.                                                                                                           about flying, they can just
ton soared into the New                                                                                                                                           fly without training and
York City skyline, veering                                                                                                             (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)  they have great feelings,”
around a sea of skyscrap-                                                                                                                                         he said. “We tried to model
ers as the wind whistled in       of Manhattan and every-       ward dive. To speed up, he     sweeping view of the entire                                        this experience like those
his ears.                         thing is moving. During his   flapped his long arms over     horizon.                                                           dreams.”
Then, all too soon, the           test run, Fenton rotated      and over.                      “That was great. I loved                                           They aimed to make the
goggles came off and he           his palms upward to climb     The whole time, a nearby       it,” he said afterward. “The                                       maneuvers as intuitive as
was back in a bright white        toward the sky, the whole     fan rustled his hair, and the  turning and the diving was                                         possible.
room near Boston, no lon-         machine tilting his body up-  sound of wind whirred in       all pretty straightforward.”                                       After a couple minutes,
ger a bird but a 59-year-old      ward, and then he reversed    the headphones. When he        Because there’s no way to                                          most people pick it up nat-
software developer in blue        the motion to take a down-    turned his head, he had a      know how a bird feels in                                           urally, Rheiner said.
jeans and a green plaid                                                                                                                                           On Wednesday, the ex-
shirt. Outside a tall window,                                                                                                                                     hibit’s opening day, more
a man with a cellphone                                                                                                                                            than 100 visitors lined up
stopped to snap a photo                                                                                                                                           to spend a few minutes
of Fenton and the odd                                                                                                                                             trying the simulator. Since
contraption that had given                                                                                                                                        then, organizers have had
him the sense of flight.                                                                                                                                          to take appointments.
“I’ve always wanted to                                                                                                                                            Many give rave reviews,
fly,” said Fenton. “It’s sort of                                                                                                                                  but some found it jarring.
one of those fantasy things                                                                                                                                       Carrie Fitzsimmons, the art
where, if I could be an ani-                                                                                                                                      center’s executive direc-
mal, I would be a bird.”                                                                                                                                          tor, hopped off the simula-
The human fascination                                                                                                                                             tor when it gave her ver-
with flight is what inspired                                                                                                                                      tigo.
Max Rheiner, a Swiss artist                                                                                                                                       After more than a year,
and scholar, to invent the                                                                                                                                        the Birdly team is winding
flight simulator that Fenton                                                                                                                                      down its tour and ramping
tested on Thursday. Called                                                                                                                                        up its company, Somniacs,
Birdly, the prototype is be-                                                                                                                                      which plans to manufac-
ing exhibited through Sat-                                                                                                                                        ture and sell the simulator
urday at Le Laboratoire, a                                                                                                                                        soon. q
small art and design cen-
ter tucked in Cambridge’s         Nielsen:
sprawling technology hub.
“Birdly is actually the dream        Smartphones and the Internet are eating our TV timeb
of flying come true,” said
Rheiner, who has been             RYAN NAKASHIMA                or TV-connected device         It’s not a one-to-one trad-                                        The results confirm a trend
taking his invention around       Associated Press              like a streaming box or        eoff, though. Sometimes                                            in other Nielsen data that
the world since the sum-          LOS ANGELES (AP) — The        game console. That grew        people are using smart-                                            found viewing of traditional
mer of 2014.                      use of Internet-ready de-     26 percent in May com-         phones while watching TV,                                          TV — through a cable or
It looks like a futuristic ex-    vices like smartphones ap-    pared with a year earlier,     or using them outside the                                          satellite connection or an
amination table with wings.       pears to have seriously cut   to an average of 8.5 million   home where it wouldn’t cut                                         antenna — peaked in the
Users climb on, belly down,       into the time Americans       people per minute.             into TV time. In addition,                                         2009-10 season.
and stretch their arms out        spend watching traditional    Those devices, which all       some mobile device use is,                                         “It’s pretty clear the in-
to either side, resting their     TV, new Nielsen data show,    showed gains in usage,         well, to watch TV shows.                                           creased use of mobile de-
palms flat against tilting        potentially undermining the   more than offset declines      Nielsen’s inaugural “Com-                                          vices is having some effect
boards that act as the flight     notion that mobile devices    in traditional TV, radio and   parable Metrics” report for                                        on the system as a whole,”
feathers. After they slip on      merely serve as “second       computers. In the same         the first time presents data                                       said Glenn Enoch, Nielsen’s
a set of headphones and           screens” while people are     age group, the demo-           on average use per min-                                            senior vice president of au-
virtual reality goggles, the      plopped in front of the set.  graphic most highly cov-       ute, making it possible to                                         dience insights.
machine tilts forward to          Data provided to The As-      eted by advertisers, use of    directly compare various                                           The audience for TV view-
bring their legs farther off      sociated Press show an        those devices fell 8 percent   devices. The study counts                                          ing alone fell by 10 percent,
the ground.                       increase in the number        over the same period to a      all apps, Web surfing and                                          to 8.4 million people a min-
Suddenly, the goggles fill        of 18-to-34-year-olds who     combined 16.6 million peo-     game play but not texts or                                         ute, in the 18-to-34-year-old
up with a bird’s eye view         used a smartphone, tablet     ple per minute.                calling.                                                           category.q
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