Why on earth should women be interested in Virtual Reality? The very name conjures up images of boys sitting in dimly lit rooms with bizarre headgear and gloves on. But I believe the technology will actually be appropriated largely by women in the near future.

Not long ago everybody thought the next generation of telephone would be the videophone. Much more useful, in my opinion, is VR.

You have just got out of the shower to answer the phone. You stand there -- naked, and dripping wet -- talking on the phone, glad it does not transmit pictures. It sends a description of your gestures and expressions so that the computer at the other end is able to reflect your actions in a 3D image of your choice. The other person sees you as you would have them see you. You can have any shape, whether you are wheelchair-bound or able-bodied, regardless of your appearance, and whatever your skin colour.

Can you see?

The headgear most people associate with VR will disappear or shrink to almost nothing in the future. People simply do not like to wear large clumsy devices. You will see VR using either something like ordinary spectacles (but likely much smaller) that project the images directly into the eye; or something more like Star Trek's holodeck, where the images appear around you without requiring you to wear any equipment. The tiny headgear is almost here now. The holodeck exists only as special rooms called CAVEs (Computer Aided Virtual Environment) in a few places around the world. The walls are simply large, projection screens. (There is actually another route to VR, but I don't think people will be making direct connections to their brains for a few decades yet, unless someone can come up with a non-invasive method.)

At the moment most VR is just seen as a picture on a computer screen and viewed without any special devices. Many people do not think of this as VR, but it is, and it is the most rapidly growing form.

See me move