[From the Chronicle of Higher Education’s ProfHacker blog] September 22, 2010 Would You Protect Your Computer’s Feelings? Clifford Nass Says Yes. By Jason B. Jones What if there was a book that explained how to write end comments on student papers or exams; why peer review processes often avoid, rather than facilitate, sound judgment; how to encourage meaningful group work; and why academic events feature so much ritual flattery? Clifford Nass’s The Man Who Lied to His Laptop: What Machines Teach Us About Human Relationships doesn’t restrict itself to academe—indeed, it claims to offer social rules for almost any situation—but…

[From The Philadelphia Inquirer] Oct. 1, 2010 History in 3-D Welcome to Liberty 360, a circular theater telling the American tale. By Kathryn Canavan For The Inquirer The centuries will collide in Philadelphia’s historic district this weekend when tour guides in 18th-century garb welcome visitors to the 21st century and a 3-D theater in the round. David Niles, designer of the well-received video wall at the Comcast Center, is offering a new 3-D attraction dubbed Liberty 360 that opened this week. It’s a 15-minute, sometimes-panoramic show about the iconic symbols of America. The onscreen host is tinkerer extraordinaire Benjamin Franklin…

[From SlashGear]  Namco Bandai and Nissan Team Up to Create Futuristic Yokohama City in Virtual Reality By Evan Selleck on Thu Sep 30th, 2010 Virtual Reality (VR) was all the rage several years ago. In arcades all over the world (where you could find them), there were rigs set up to showcase a digital world, where the player was fully submerged. A part of the game, and not just playing it. And while it may have quieted down over the years, it looks like Nissan and Namco Bandai have found a way to make it useful again. Both companies have…