[From DigInfo TV, where the story includes a 2:51 minute video; more information is available at the researchers’ web site]

[Image: ‘Invoked Computing’ at home]

Invoked Computing – Device-free Ubiquitous Augmented Reality

18 November 2011

A research group at the University of Tokyo are creating a new paradigm in Human Computer Interaction. Dubbed ‘Invoked Computing’ the idea is to turn everyday objects into computer interfaces and communication devices.

“For example, if you make a gesture, the computer should be able to recognize this as “I want to use the telephone”. So with an iPhone for example, you have everything in a small device and you have to learn how to use it, here we want to do the opposite, the computer will have to learn what you want to do.”

“If you want to use a laptop, you just make a gesture it will recognize this, project the screen, the keyboard and everything, you won’t have to carry a device, no battery or everything, everything is ubiquitous, ubiquitous augmented reality.”… read more. “Invoked computing – Device-free ubiquitous augmented reality”

[From SmartPlanet]

World class robot art includes a telepresent ocean

By Christie Nicholson | November 2, 2011

We are often followed by cameras as we go about our daily routines, getting cash, buying milk, throwing underwear into laundromat dryers, yet most of us routinely forget this fact. Want to get a more intense feeling of what it’s like to be tracked? Now through to December 18 you have your opportunity to let robots get closer to you at an art installation, Desire of Codes, at the InterCommunication Center in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district.

The artist Mikami Seiko set up walls covered with small robotic arms, some include sensors and cameras that follow your every move. The composite image they capture, apparently along with images from other surveillance cameras around the globe, is then projected on another wall within the space.… read more. “Artist Mikami Seiko’s tele-present water and wind”

[From The Wall Street Journal; a related article is available in THE Journal]

[Image: Students at Monarch High School in Louisville, Colo., watch lessons in 3-D.]

Coming Soon To Schools: Dissecting Frogs in 3-D

By Michelle Kung
September 7, 2011

When Maurio Medley, an eighth-grade math teacher at Ocoee Middle School in central Florida, wants to teach his students how to find the volume of a cylinder, he doesn’t turn to a textbook or chalkboard. Instead, he turns on a 3-D-enabled projector to rotate a virtual Euclidian solid.

Schools are trying to keep up with the multiplex, keen to find ways to engage students in an age of 3-D movies and gadgets that make traditional classroom materials look dated. And the technology and equipment makers are eager to create a new market for their 3-D products.

Mr. Medley, 30 years old, compares the experience to going on a “3-D field trip” without students leaving the classroom.… read more. “New in schools: Learning via 3D”

[From The National Post]

[Image: The “street lab” recreates the environment outside the hospital. Tyler Anderson / National Post.]

Virtual danger: Toronto lab recreates the world — and may revolutionize research

Tom Blackwell Nov 16, 2011

It looks like a typical, comfortably furnished one-bedroom condominium, with a few notable exceptions — the apartment has no ceiling, it is surrounded by a catwalk that lets scientists peer down at the occupants and the entire thing is situated in a downtown hospital.

“Home lab,” as researchers at Toronto Rehabilitation Institute have dubbed their open-top apartment, is part of an impressive $36-million complex whose units stretch the definition of the word laboratory.

Opening officially Wednesday, the iDAPT facilities use elaborate simulations of everything from an icy Canadian winter to an urban streetscape to devise new ways of preventing or coping with injury and illness.… read more. “Virtual danger: Toronto lab recreates the world – and may revolutionize research”

[From iTnews]

Bell Labs builds telepresence ‘robots’

Nethead could reach market in two years.

By Liz Tay on Nov 7, 2011  

Videoconferencing ‘robots’ in development at Alcatel-Lucent’s research arm, Bell Labs, could give remote workers a more physical presence in office meetings within two years.

Researchers are working on a low-cost camera and screen that swivels on a set of robotic shoulders, and sits at a meeting table with physical attendees.

Each so-called ‘Nethead’ represents a remote participant, who appears by video on the screen, and can control the direction the robot faces by naturally turning his or her head.… read more. “Bell Labs builds telepresence ‘robots’”