[A press release from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute] “Virtual Operating Room” To Sharpen Surgeons’ Smarts and Skills Engineers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Awarded $2.7 Million NIH Grant To Develop Immersive, Touch-Sensitive Virtual Reality Tools To Replicate the High-Stress Environment of an Operating Room Published December 13, 2011 Even for highly trained physicians and surgeons, there’s no teacher like experience. This is the reason engineering researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute are working to develop a virtual reality operating room. Similar to how fledgling pilots train on flight simulators before ever leaving the ground in an aircraft, the virtual operating room will allow…

[From The Gadget Helpline blog, which includes a 0:46 minute video; other coverage indicates that the game included sound effects and that Google has now blocked use of Google Maps for the game] Creative Ad Agency Turns Google Maps Into First-Person-Shooter Game An act of genius – or genuinely disturbing? Posted by Jay December 13, 2011 Creative advertising agency Pool Worldwide utilised the immersive Google Maps location and tour guide with photographic Street View and provided its worldly travellers with a M4A1 assault rifle turning it into a first-person-shooter called Google Shoot View.…

[From The New York Times] Oh, for the Good Old Days of Rude Cellphone Gabbers By Nick Wingfield Published: December 2, 2011 Is talking to a phone the same as talking on it? The sound of someone gabbing on a cellphone is part of the soundtrack of daily life, and most of us have learned when to be quiet — no talking in “quiet cars” on trains, for example. But the etiquette of talking to a phone — more precisely, to a “virtual assistant” like Apple’s Siri, in the new iPhone 4S — has not yet evolved. And eavesdroppers are…

[From the MIT Technology Review Hello World blog, where the post includes a 1:58 minute DigInfo TV video report] Elastic Electrical Cables for Robotic Skin The first-of-their-kind wires could take the hard edge off of robots. David Zax 12/06/2011 A Japanese company called Asahi Kasei has developed the world’s first elastic electrical cable — and has taken the liberty of christening it “Roboden” (here’s a link, if your Japanese is good). In a somewhat unsettling comparison, TechCrunch notes that Roboden can stretch by a factor of 1.5, “like the human skin.” The comparison (which Asahi Kasei actually makes itself) is…

[From The Iowa State University News Service] [Image: Judy Vance, right, demonstrates a virtual factory in Iowa State University’s METaL virtual reality facility. Working in the virtual factory are students, left to right, Leif Berg, Meisha Rosenberg and Ryan Pavlik. Photo by Bob Elbert.] Iowa State’s METaL lab develops multiple ways to experience virtual reality December 06, 2011 AMES, Iowa – Iowa State University doctoral students Leif Berg and Ryan Pavlik handed over a Wii Remote and a pair of 3-D glasses. A visitor to Iowa State’s newest virtual reality lab – METaL, the Multimodal Experience Testbed and Laboratory –…

[From The Daily Mail Online] [Image: Virtual reality: On the H&M site, every single model’s pose and proportions are the same. The only thing that differs, apart from the swimwear, is the skin-tone, which has been altered to match each girl’s face.] H&M under fire for using real models’ heads with computer-generated bodies to sell swimwear By Tamara Abraham Last updated 6th December 2011 With tiny waists, perfect bums and endless legs, many would agree that models’ bodies often look too flawless to be real. But in the case of H&M, it seems they actually are. The Swedish retailer was…