At the other end of the spectrum, news aimed at local audiences must be tailored to reach individual communities and even neighborhoods. But nowhere has the introduction of broadband technology offered a greater opportunity and challenge than in the development of immersive news. Elements of it can be seen on more ambitious Web sites, such as Quokka Sports immersion . But for the most part, this technology is still in the research box, awaiting the Broadband Genie to fully unleash it. It employs data compression techniques and surrogate images, such as avatars or 3-D representations of humans that exist on a host computer and change or animate with only a fraction of the data required by a video stream.
Immersive technology has complex databases and multiple dimensions.
It is thoroughly interactive and customizable, a virtual world that extends the real world with simulated experience. Some of this technology will not be leaving engineering labs for a decade or more. Key elements are still in the basic research phase, heavily financed by government and industries in many of the developed nations. In the United States, for example, the leading immersive lab is here at the University of Southern California. Parts of immersive technology are starting to enter the news marketplace.