Virtual Reality Invites a New Era of Learning to Higher Education

In a dark room at the University of Maryland (UMD) College Park, Amitabh Varshney is surrounded by a massive curved projector screen, giving an audience a glimpse of the futuristic technologies being developed by engineers.

Varshney is the director of the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies. This week, he led a presentation of some of the institute’s latest developments at the Augmentarium, one of the institute's centerpieces — a test facility for the development of virtual- and augmented-reality projects at the university.