[From Japan Times] [Image: Virtual venue: Takeshi Natsuno, managing director at Dwango, explains the features of Nico Nico Douga’s new Nicofarre venue. ALEXIS WUILLAUME PHOTO] Website Nico Nico Douga goes live … house By MARK JARNES Special to The Japan Times Thursday, July 14, 2011 Online video-sharing website Nico Nico Douga has become a popular place for young Japanese to check out new music. Now imagine stepping inside the site to experience those tunes live. That’s the feeling you get when you enter Tokyo’s newest live venue, Nicofarre. “We wanted to create an interactive musical experience where reality and virtual…

[From The Philadelphia Inquirer] War games, not debates, are what this race needs July 17, 2011 Jim Geraghty Brace yourself: Seven Republican presidential debates are scheduled in the next four months, and even more may be added. After two or three, the questions and answers are going to sound depressingly similar and predictable. Ah, yes, you’ll cut taxes and spending. You’ll respond decisively to foreign threats. Yawn. With primary debates including so little debate and so much rehearsed recitation of stale sound bites, it’s time to shake things up. What could give primary voters a clearer perspective of a candidate’s…

[From TechFlash] [Image: The avatar for Dr. Brian Ross welcomes participants to an online training session using Xbox chat technology (Stephen Brashear photos/PSBJ)] GAMING TECHNOLOGY How Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Kinect help surgeons in the OR by Brad Broberg on Saturday, July 16, 2011 The sight of a surgeon playing “Grand Theft Auto” in the operating room might raise eyebrows, but it’s one example of how consumer technology is being repurposed to advance the practice of medicine. Rising medical costs — bloated by expensive, complicated machines — are wrecking the nation’s economic health, while off-the-shelf consumer gadgets keep getting cheaper…

[From The University of California, San Diego News Center] [Image: Brain response as measured by fMRI to videos of a robot, android and human] Your Brain on Androids July 14, 2011 By Inga Kiderra Ever get the heebie-jeebies at a wax museum? Feel uneasy with an anthropomorphic robot? What about playing a video game or watching an animated movie, where the human characters are pretty realistic but just not quite right and maybe a bit creepy? If yes, then you’ve probably been a visitor to what’s called the “uncanny valley.” The phenomenon has been described anecdotally for years, but how…

[From AFP via France 24; for more information see the museum’s Facebook page here] Pamplona museum offers virtual bull runs (AFP) – July 14, 2011 PAMPLONA, Spain — Revellers at Spain’s San Fermin festival lacking the nerve to run through the streets chased by a herd of thunderous bulls can now opt for a virtual bull-run. Visitors to Pamplona’s Museo del Encierro run on a treadmill while wearing virtual reality goggles that let them see computer-generated images of what it is like to race ahead of pounding hooves. “This is the only simulator in the world of a San Fermin…

[From The Australian] Thrills, spills and smells of 4-D films promise a white-knuckle ride John Harlow From: The Australian July 11, 2011 Just as audiences go sour on 3-D movies, fed up with high ticket prices, murky images and uncomfortable glasses, Hollywood blockbusters are being converted into 4-D. The fourth dimension is often said to be time, which drags during a poor 3-D movie. But in South Korea 4-D refers to a new chain of cinemas that synchronise blockbuster movies with the physical effects usually found in theme park rides. A Korean company called CJ 4D Plex has built cinemas…