Interactive Application:
A computer program that contains an internal state, that a user can
continuously modify while the program is running. Since you're
interacting with it, you focus on the interaction, and you are
distracted from the external world around you. Examples: Doom, Tetris,
Pac-Man, Microsoft Word.
Immersive Application:
An interactive application where the user visualizes himself as being
a 1st person entity within the application. The actual viewing
perspective may be 1st person or 3rd person, but the viewer's mental
model is always of him/herself within the application. Doom is a 1st
person immersive application. Pac-Man is a 3rd person immersive
application. Tetris is engrossing, but it's about manipulating blocks
and is not about existing within the game.
Immersive Environment:
The sum of all program states that a user's algorithmic proxy can
traverse, and the audio/visual/tactile representation of those states
to the user. By definition, all immersive applications have an
immersive environment. The immersive environment of Doom is a 3d 1st
person view of rooms containing monster antagonists,
weapons-to-be-acquired, and special energy devices. The immersive
environment of Pac-Man is an 2d aerial view of a maze containing
monster antagonists, dots-to-be-munched, and Power Pills.
Virtual World:
An immersive environment that is designed to be viewed in a 3d 1st
person pserspective. Doom is a virtual world, Pac-Man isn't.
Have fun testing and changing this taxonomy. You'll note that it is
deliberately minimal. I think that things like a multi-user virtual
world should be defined as a "Multi-User Virtual World," and not
automatically assumed in the definitions. The point is to succinctly
describe what makes a virtual world feel "real" to someone. Or at
least, what is the basic structure of such a world, even if the
aesthetics are lousy at suspending a user's disbelief. I think
that interactive 3d 1st person perspective is all there is to it.
Here is a competing taxonomy, which I find to be more or less useless,
except for trying to avoid any faux pas when speaking to academics.
Since on this list we discuss things free from technical constraint, an
academic would say that everything we discuss is about VE's, and not
about VR.
Virtual Reality:
If you accept the way that the academics use it, then it's a virtual
world that the user views with a stereo-optic device, and moves around
in via some motion-tracking device placed upon his/her body. If you
accept the way the popular media uses it, then it can mean everything
and anything, including Tetris. This would indicate that VR has no
taxonomic value whatsoever.
Virtual Environment:
In academic parlance, VR sans stereo-optic devices, motion trackers,
and other neato hardware.
Augmented Reality:
A VR that visually overlays itself onto real world objects.
Cheers,
Brandon