Virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier lets his nappy hair down and talks frankly about art and the human condition.

Jaron Lanier coined the term "virtual reality" in the early 1980s. Computerized digital environments had been around since 1969, but it wasn't until Lanier and his pals in Palo Alto, California, entered the scene that people began to dream of virtual interaction -- with objects, information, and each other.

Lanier co-invented the first glove-based device for manipulating objects within a virtual space, and created the first avatars -- graphic representations of people in virtual landscapes. Lanier's dream was that through virtual interaction, people could fill gaps in their lives left by real-world bummers like loneliness and shyness.

In 1983, Lanier founded VPL Research, a product development company that introduced the first commercially available interface gloves, head-mounted displays, and networked virtual worlds.

What's with the hair?
In addition to his high tech accomplishments, Lanier is the world's premier dreadlocked computer scientist.

But his distinctive hairstyle offers only a hint of the creativity boiling within his brain. Not satisfied with turning the computing world on its head, Lanier is also an accomplished avant-garde musician and visual artist. He has mastered more than 100 exotic string and wind instruments from Asia with unpronounceable names like the gu zchung and the esraj.