[From ExtremeTech] Augmented reality robot provides physical sensations from virtual characters By James Plafke on February 11, 2013 One of the most common tropes in science fiction is the ability to apply the image of a person over the frame of a robot, thus creating a visually identical copy of a human. Now, as Japanese startup Different Dimension Inc. (DDI) gears up to market a life-sized augmented reality robot, the world is one step closer to creating visual human doppelgangers. In recent science fiction, such as Minority Report or the “I Dated a Robot” episode of Futurama, fictional technology is…

[From Singularity Hub] Recording Your Life, Allowing Others To View It As Virtual Reality World: Lifelogging Written By: Peter Murray Posted: 02/10/13 It’s called Bad Trip, and it certainly feels like one. Alan Kwan has been recording every moment of his life since November 2011 and he faces the same problem that other lifeloggers do: what to do with all that video footage? Needing a way to organize the rapidly accumulating footage and to provide a way for he and others to easily navigate the data, Kwan has made a game of it. “Bad Trip” is an immersive virtual reality…

[From CSIRO; follow the link at the end for more information, including an interactive preview] Telepresence robot for museums With support from the Department of Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy we’re creating a mobile tele-presence robot to help virtually connect school kids and visitors in regional areas with our Australian to the National Museum of Australia. 25 January 2013 The challenge For many, a visit to a museum is an eye-opener, especially those institutions that offer hands-on interactive exhibits. But for even more people living in regional communities, museums are not hands-on; they are not even accessible, because of distance…

[From ChemViews Magazine] [Image: The pen of the haptic device translates quantum calculations into force feedback to ‘feel’ what’s going on in a reaction.  © Wiley-VCH] Feel Your Molecule’s Reactions DOI: 10.1002/chemv.201300006Author: Vera Köster Published Date: 17 January 2013 Source / Publisher: International Journal of Quantum Chemistry/Wiley Periodicals Copyright: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim Learning by Touch The human being learns best by haptic sensing. This means by touching something and feeling its size, contour, surface texture, weight, etc. Small children start to explore their surrounding like this. Experiencing chemical reactions in this way would bring enormous advantages.…

[From The University of Texas at Dallas News Center] [Image: Dr. Balakrishnan Prabhakaran (right) moves a haptic device while Dr. Xiaohu Guo tracks the corresponding movement on the computer screen.] Researchers Pushing the Boundaries of Virtual Reality Devices That Detect and Convey Sense of Touch May Have Applications in Telemedicine Feb. 5, 2013 UT Dallas researchers are extending the borders of virtual reality, going beyond virtual spaces in which people can see and hear one another to an environment that adds the sense of touch. The technology would make it possible for physical therapists, for example, to work with patients…

[From The Huffington Post] [Image: Grand Theft Auto IV from BWT] Fear of Fun By Marty Kaplan, Director, Norman Lear Center and Professor at the USC Annenberg School Posted: 12/31/2012 Some day not all that far in the future, a new kind of entertainment is going to be perfected that will either be the coolest video game ever, or the media equivalent of a lethal man-made super-virus. You can predict what that entertainment might be like just by extrapolating from technology that already exists.…