[From

Berlin, March 30, 2011

The driving experience of the future, a blend of real and virtual

In the world envisioned by conceptual architect Juergen Mayer H, driving a car is a blend of digital, virtual and conventional reality.

Imagine the year is 2030 and you are driving through a virtual city named Pokeville in a free car, which you accessed from a pool.

You are showing a visitor around and, in a bid to impress the person, you have decided to ban the ugly buildings, rubbish heaps and ghettos from the tour.

No problem: Just press the touchscreen windshield and hey, presto, you have activated your personal profile.

This allows you to make the city appear to you and your group as you wish through special windows. Zap out the graffiti on the wall on the left; zoom in on the building on the right where an empty apartment is available for rent. Park the car.

“The car of the future is bigger and basically a taxi without a driver. It is no longer a vehicle for manoeuvring through traffic but is rather a sensorial experience machine. The experience is no longer one of driving but of being driven,” Juergen Mayer H says.

This brave new vision was the winning entry in the 2010 Audi Urban Future Award worth 100,000 euro (133,310 dollars). Read more on The driving experience of the future, a blend of real and virtual…

[From Fast Company’s

Condition ONE App Makes War Reporting Immersive and Scary [Video]

War correspondent Danfung Dennis wants his DSLR-powered newsgathering technology to change the visual language of video journalism

John Pavlus
Posted March 28, 2011

DSLRs can make gorgeously cinematic images out of just about anything you stick in front of them — including war, death, and destruction. (Somehow, Hollywood-style tracking shots don’t seem an appropriate way to cover post-earthquake Japan.) Award-winning war correspondent/DSLR videographer Danfung Dennis thinks the visual language of conflict photojournalism is “dying” — and with an interactive system called Condition ONE, he’s trying to reinvent it as a full-immersion, virtual-reality-esque experience. Here’s his first beta test, conducted in collaboration with photojournalist Patrick Chauvel in Libya: [the 1:49 minute video is Read more on Reinventing conflict photojournalism as a full-immersion, virtual-reality-esque experience…

[From here]

Fruit Ninja live, bring your overcoat

by Dana Franklin (RSS feed) on Mar 28th 2011

Your virtual overcoat, that is. Students in a virtual reality workshop at the FH Wedel University of Applied Sciences cloned Fruit Ninja, the best-selling game for smartphones and tablets, in 3D using the Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE). The result is a life-size, fully immersive fruit slicing experience that transforms the casual game into a serious workout where players slay seedy sprouts with their (almost) bare hands. Read more on A life-size, fully immersive Fruit Ninja game…

[From

Paranga Adding Tactile Feedback to E-Reader Devices

23 March 2011

At Interaction 2011, a research group with members from Osaka University demonstrated the Paranga, a device which recreates the sensation of turning pages when using an e-book reader.

Read more on Adding the sensation of turning pages to e-book readers…

[From The Guardian’s

3D technology has even sceptical directors embracing another dimension

From Herzog to Coppola, big names are filming stereoscopically – and the technique’s full potential is still to be revealed

Posted by Ben Walters Thursday 17 March 2011 guardian.co.uk

Six years ago, 3D cinema seemed about as likely a candidate for a revival as Odorama. Today it owns the multiplex. After swiftly dominating CG animated features, it gained toe-holds in horror, action and concert films, achieving inarguable momentum even before the success of Avatar.

Now – objectionable as it might be to refuseniks such as Walter Murch, Roger Ebert or Mark Kermode – it is the default form for major studio franchises. From Transformers 3 to Pirates 4, Green Lantern to Thor, the Harry Potter climax to the Spider-Man reboot, almost any picture aiming to dominate the box office is now filmed stereoscopically.

Big deal, you might think. Popcorn fodder will always latch on to sensational fads. But something else is going on, too. Whether through passion or contingency, increasing numbers of serious directors with critical credibility are embracing 3D for their own ends.

Take Werner Herzog, not exactly a film-maker renowned for jumping on bandwagons or following the path of least resistance. “I’ve said in public that I’m a sceptic about 3D,” he recently told me. “It will not take over everything. That’s an illusion. Not every film in 20 years’ time is going to be in 3D.” But for certain projects, he now thinks, it’s the only choice.

Next week sees the release of Cave of Forgotten Dreams, his documentary about the extraordinary paleolithic paintings at Chauvet in the south of France. 3D, Herzog felt, was the only technology able to convey the dramatic play between the images and the fluctuating surfaces on which they were painted. (It’s also great for capturing claustrophobic spaces.) He followed this instinct to deploy an unfamiliar, work-intensive technology despite having very limited access to caves with little light or room to manoeuvre. The results are spectacular. Read more on 3D technology has even sceptical directors embracing another dimension…