[From The Telegraph; more information is available from the BBC] [Image: BBC R&D have been developing acoustics that can trick the listener into believing they are really at events such as concerts with sound coming from every direction – even above and below. Photo: Getty.] BBC is developing 3D radio Engineers at the BBC are developing new technology to broadcast radio and television programmes with three-dimensional sound. By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent 10 Jun 2012 Three-dimensional television may only just have arrived, but engineers at the BBC are already working on the next step – 3D radio. Researchers at the…

[From The University of Central Florida] [Image: A “cool girl” greets a student in the school hallway. Photo courtesy of Virtually Better, Inc.)] Avatars May Help Children With Social Anxiety Researchers looking for 8- to 12-year-olds to participate in study By Chad Binette June 12, 2012 A principal standing in the hallway says, “You are one of my favorite students!” In class, a smart girl says, “You are the nicest person in our class!” Many children would smile and eagerly return those compliments, but some with social anxiety may be too terrified to respond. Researchers at the University of Central…

[From CNET’s Crave blog, where the post includes another image and a 1:09 minute video] [Image: A visitor to Dan Chen’s “Last Moment Hospital” interacts with the Last Moment Robot. Credit: Dan Chen] Last Moment Robot: ‘End of life detected’ Imagine drawing your final breath in the sole company of a talking machine: “I am here to comfort you. You are not alone, you are with me.” by Leslie Katz June 5, 2012 As a woman lies on a mattress on the floor, a small white machine attached to her outstretched right arm offers the following words: I am the…

[From The Orange County Register, where the story includes many additional images] Imagineers plan Cars Land with virtual reality By Ian Hamilton / The Orange County Register Updated: June 16, 2012 Almost 60 miles from Disneyland in Anaheim, I’m standing in the middle of Cars Land, the 12-acre addition to the Disneyland Resort in California Adventure that is the largest expansion to the resort in its history except for California Adventure. In front of me, blue skies and wispy white clouds float behind the vaguely automobile-inspired mountains of Radiator Springs, the town from Pixar’s “Cars” film. I can’t see them,…

[From DVICE; another story on this follows below] Immersive iPad app puts you in the middle of any video By Adario Strange June 14, 2012 In years past we have been dazzled by the experience of virtual reality, and in recent years augmented reality has offered the promise of digitally enhanced meatspace. But a new twist offers an immersive experience that might be called sublimated reality. Condition One has created an embeddable immersive video player that allows you to experience previously recorded video as though you are there as the video is happening. In some ways it brings to mind…

[From BLDG BLOG] O.P. Tree Posted Sunday, June 03, 2012 The “O.P. Tree” was an Observation Post Tree deployed during World War I. Its “goal,” as author Hanna Rose Shell explains in Hide and Seek, her newly published history of the relationship between camouflage and photography, “was to craft a mimetic representation of a tree—and not just any tree, but a particular tree at a specific site” on the European battlefield. The design, fabrication, and, perhaps most interestingly, installation of this artificial plant form had a fascinating and somewhat Truman Show-esque quality:…