[From Discovery News, where the story includes a 1:46 minute video] Stoneage Artists Created Prehistoric Movies Analysis by Rossella Lorenzi Jun 8, 2012 Stone Age artists used cartoon-like techniques to give the impression that wild beasts were trotting or running across cave walls, a new study has suggested. Reporting in  the June issue of Antiquity, archaeologist Marc Azéma of the University of Toulouse–Le Mirail in France and independent French artist Florent Rivère argued that by about 30,000 years ago Paleolithic artists used “animation effects” in their paintings. To render the movement, they deconstructed it in successive images. According to the…

[From The Independent Florida Alligator; more information and a 4:17 minute video is available on YouTube] UF class lets students connect Posted: Tuesday, October 9, 2012 Michael Scott Davidson, Alligator Writer Angelos Barmpoutis doesn’t want distance to keep students from sharing a classroom. That’s why the UF Digital Worlds Institute research and technology coordinator is developing the Virtual Distance Learning Classroom, a digital system that will allow students to congregate online in virtual reality classrooms from the comfort of their couches. Unveiled in November at SC11, a supercomputing conference in Seattle, the system creates 3-D avatars using the infrared depth…

[From BBC News; a 2:13 minute video is available here; much more information is available at the Random International site] Exhibition gives visitors power to control the rain By Sabrina Sweeney Entertainment reporter, BBC News 4 October 2012 Most of us have been caught in a torrential downpour and wished we could make it stop, but how would it feel to have the power to control the weather? Rain Room, a new 3D exhibition at London’s Barbican Centre marries art, science and technology to do just that. Despite standing in a space filled with drops of falling water, visitors remain…

[From Campus Technology] [Image: From “4 Ways to Use Video Conferencing Technology in the Classroom,” available at SecurEdge Network] Maximizing the Instructional Impact of Videoconferencing The spread of cheap and powerful videoconferencing tools had led to widespread adoption of the technology in an effort to lower costs and put resources to better use. But Education Consultant and Executive Director of Academic Programs and Faculty at Daymar Colleges Group Ruth Reynard argues that it can improve teaching and learning as well. By Ruth Reynard 10/04/12 As videoconferencing technology has improved and become ubiquitous, the financial and technological barriers to using it…

For a change of pace today, links to three short videos that relate in at least a peripheral way to presence: 1. Aimee Mann’s video for “Charmer” (4:06) featuring actress Laura Linney as a robot doppelganger (for more see NPR’s All Songs Considered blog). 2. Actress Kristin Bell featured on Jimmy Kimmel Live in a mock ad for MoMi on the iPhone 5 (2:10). 3. The well-known Simpsons theme recreated with ‘real life’ actors (1:00).…

[From The Guardian’s Architecture and Design blog] Like-A-Hug? The Facebook vest that gives you a hug from your friends MIT students have designed a ‘wearable social media vest’ that translates every virtual Facebook ‘like’ into a real hug Posted by Oliver Wainwright 9 October 2012 Ever wanted more from your social media? Is all that clicking and typing not quite hitting the spot? When the momentary excitement from that vibrating alert in your pocket fades, are you left empty, hollow, wanting more? No, probably not. But if you did, then fret no longer, because some crafty MIT students have developed…