[An inspiring post-Thanksgiving story from Road to VR, where you’ll find more pictures] Dreamporte Needs Your Immersive Videos for Unique VR Education Program November 26, 2014 by Paul James Dreamporte is a non-profit organisation set up to help bring the wonders of the world to underprivileged children. But they need help to achieve their goal: your 360 degree or 3D videos. We asked co-founder of the project, Kelly Zhang, to tell us what Dreamporte is and why it matters.…

[From USA Today, where the story includes two other images and a 3:00 minute video report; more information about Santa HQ is available in a press release via Business Wire] [Image: From Let’s Play OC, where the post includes more information about Santa HQ in Orange County, California] Retailers use virtual technology to vie for sales Hadley Malcolm, USA TODAY November 24, 2014 A journey to the North Pole now includes selfies, ‘elf-ray’ vision and a passport. In a bid for more customers and ultimately more sales, shopping malls and retailers are making holiday shopping an interactive and virtual experience,…

[From The Telegraph; see also coverage of Stuart Turner’s appearance at WIRED2014 in Wired, where the story includes a 7:45 minute video, a longer article about him in Mancunian Matters, and his Robots and Cake blog] [Image: Stuart Turner operates the drone with a live video feed to his laptop. DAN ROWLANDS / MERCURY PRESS] Bedroom-bound quadriplegic develops drone to see the world Stuart Turner, who has spina bifida, uses head movements to pilot the camera-mounted flying device, thousands of miles from his Yorkshire home By Tom Brooks-Pollock, and agencies 25 Nov 2014 A quadriplegic man who is confined to…

[From The Verge, where the story includes a 3:31 minute video. A longer article in Billboard includes this analysis: “The illusion of ’being there’ or ‘presence’ is often invoked by VR enthusiasts. Did I feel like I was there? Not exactly. I felt like I was in the best movie theater of my life, though. The video resolution, sound and depth of field were remarkable. It took very little effort to suspend my disbelief.” ] Watch Paul McCartney perform in virtual reality with a new Android app By Adi Robertson on November 20, 2014 360-degree video company Jaunt is trying…

[From VICE Media, where you can watch a 0:47 minute trailer and the 32:47 minute program. For another status report on the topic see “When Porn and Virtual Reality Collide (NSFW)” from Gizmodo.] The Digital Love Industry: Investigating the Future of Love and Sex in the Digital Age ​Soon, virtual reality is going to crash into our lives in a way we never even imagined. Though dating and masturbating have long been commandeered by the web, it’s only been as a kind of middleman. Now we’re nearing the possibility of falling in love with your computer, as meeting your dream…

[From Gizmodo, where the story includes several more images and a 3:11 minute video] The NASA Playground That Takes Virtual Reality To a Whole New Level Brent Rose November 18, 2014 Gizmodo’s Space Camp is all about the under-explored side of NASA. From robotics to medicine to deep-space telescopes to art. All this week we’ll be coming at you direct from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, shedding a light on this amazing world. You can follow the whole series here. We’ve seen how NASA recreates the vacuum of space right here on Earth, but what about the gravity…