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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