I was into Cyberspace and Virtual Reality back in the late Eighties and early Nineties. William Gibson Cyberpunk books described the future of interacting with computers how I thought it should be.
In 1995 William Gibson's Johnny Mnemonic got released as movie starring Keanu Reeves. The Cyberspace UI was ok depicted in the movie, of course your own imagination is always better. After working in the 3D and Virtual Reality field I totally got frustrated with it as the interaction possibilities in 3D just plain sucked.
The display of HMDs and the rendering quality of the 3D worlds was not the problem. It was the lack of means to interact as naturally as possible in the 3D world to actually be efficient.
This week at the E3 2009 Microsoft unveiled Project Natal that promises controller free interaction and Sony unveiled an awesomely accurate motion controller. If you are now combining these two with an HMD you are all set. You could totally emerge into a virtual world and interact with full body in a completely natural way. You just need a sort of protected area so you do not hurt yourself in the real world.
Cyberspace here we come!