In a socially networked future, VR theater could even allow friends in different cities to experience a show at the same time, a la multiplayer gaming, offering the collective experience that is among theater's most prized pleasures.
We really thought that it would change the world, slipping the surly bonds of older power structures and bringing about a more open, democratic, networked future.
Some years ago, when writing a book on understanding the internet, I said that our networked future was bracketed by the dystopian nightmares of two old-Etonian novelists, George Orwell and Aldous Huxley.
Of course, at a time when data privacy dominates the headlines, the question is: who owns the networked future of reading?
Perhaps the networked future of reading belongs to no one, and hence to everyone.
It's already shaping our lives and looks like determining our networked future.
If our networked future is built on such dodgy foundations, current levels of chronic online insecurity will come to look like a golden age.
For one of the ironies of history is that visions of our networked future can be bracketed by the imaginative nightmares of Huxley and his fellow Etonian George Orwell.
"Human beings are compelled to live within a lie," Havel wrote, "but they can be compelled to do so only because they are in fact capable of living in this way". Welcome to the networked future.
Co-taught by Professor Charles Nesson, Rebecca Nesson, and Gene Koo, CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion turns law and Harvard toward the creation of our future in a networked information economy.
