[From Gamasutra]

The Holodeck may be possible, but it’s going to need game designers

November 13, 2012 | By Mathew Kumar

Science fiction for many is mere fantasy and escapism, but Lee Sheldon—a writer and producer on Star Trek: The Next Generation and now an associate professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute—sees the fantasy of Star Trek’s Holodeck as entirely possible.

With a seed grant, he and his team are working towards creating the Emergent Reality Lab, using modern technologies to create a “first-generation Holodeck.”… read more. “ST:TNG writer/producer Lee Sheldon creating a “first-generation Holodeck””

[From Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; note that Mei Si presented her work at ISPR 2012]

Rensselaer Launches Center To Explore Intersections of Science and Humanities

Nov. 13 Launch of Center for Cognition, Communication, and Culture Features Demonstrations of Current Research

Published November 12, 2012

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute today launched the Center for Cognition, Communication, and Culture (CCC) with a series of multimedia presentations and demonstrations of research in the initial core research areas: cross-modal displays, mixed reality, and synthetic characters.

Now one of the 10 Institute-wide research centers at Rensselaer, CCC will focus on the intersections and interdependency of cognition, communication, and culture in the context of contemporary research, technology, and society. The center’s interdisciplinary research activities will draw on the arts, design, engineering, humanities, science, and social sciences.… read more. “New interdisciplinary Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Center explores cross-modal displays, mixed reality, synthetic characters”

[From CONTROL; more information is available in the press release from Invensys]

[Image: Field operators in the EYESIM environment can interact with simulated incidents like the gas leak shown here. And because both the simulated plant environment and control room are linked to the same underlying DYNSIM model, operators on both ends can be trained in effective communication.]

Immersive Simulator Boosts Operator Preparedness

SimSci-Esscor Solutions Help Train Clean-coal Plant Operators

10/22/2012

Operator training took on a new sense of realism this summer, when the U.S. Department of Energy started up its new immersive simulator at the National Energy Technology Laboratory’s (NETL) Advanced Virtual Energy Simulation Training and Research (AVESTAR) Center in Morgantown, W.Va.

Designed to simulate the operation of an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant with carbon capture, the EYESIM solution from Invensys Operations Management uses 3-D virtual reality simulation to help train power plant control room and field operators.… read more. “Immersive power plant simulator boosts operator peparedness”

[From Religious Dispatches magazine]

[Image: Apartment building on 8th Avenue between 14th and 15th Street. Credit: Gilad Lotan, @gilgul]

Escape From Manhattan: Tech, Tragedy and Storytelling in Sandy’s Wake

By Rachel Wagner
November 2, 2012

Two weeks ago, I attended the New York Comic Con, braving the crowds of thousands to get a taste of what drives so many to invest so much in costume construction, role-play, and fan devotion to popular media franchises. And, because the convention ended not long before Halloween, I decided to compose a retrospective on America’s two favorite modes of imagination-driven investment in other worlds. Then Hurricane Sandy arrived, blew New York away, and as the convention center where Comic Con had been held drained of water from the Hudson River; and as the lower half of Manhattan met Halloween in utter darkness, I found myself shuttered in without electricity in southern Connecticut, watching the world fall apart in New York City, where even today people are scrambling for gasoline to power their generators, where some have gone almost a week without fresh water or unspoiled food, and where people have lost their homes, their cars, and some even their loved ones.… read more. “Tech, tragedy and storytelling in Sandy’s wake”

[From Phys.org, where the story includes additional images and a 1:36 minute video]

Build your own home theater for full-blast entertainment with ‘Virtual Sound Ball’

November 5, 2012

Watching a 3 dimensional (3D) film at home can be just as real and fun as going to a movie theater. Professor Yang-Hann Kim and Research Professor Jung-Woo Choi from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, KAIST, have succeeded in building an audio rendering system that will considerably improve the current 3D audio effects technology.

3D audio effects can be produced by stereo speakers, surround-sound speakers, speaker-arrays, or headphones, which essentially give an illusion to listeners that sounds are being produced in the 3D space around them. The effects are the result of manipulating the listener’s sound perception through the placement of virtual sound sources in the 3D space to alter the way the sound is played.… read more. “‘Virtual Sound Ball’ renders significantly improved 3D home theater audio”