[From Discovery News, where the story includes a 1:40 minute video] [Image: The goggles trick the senses, making a cookie appear bigger, for example] ‘Diet Glasses’ Fool Wearers Into Eating Less Augmented reality goggles trick eaters into feeling more satisfied with their meals. Jun 4, 2012 Content provided by Miwa Suzuki, AFP Goggles that trick the wearer into thinking the plain snack in their hand is a chocolate cookie, or make biscuits appear larger have been unveiled in Japan, offering hope to weak-willed dieters everywhere. Researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed devices that use computer wizardry and augmented…

[From Advertising Age’s The Media Guy blog] Instagram Is OK, But Photoshop Is Evil? The Truth About Digital Lies Photoshop Gets Bashed For Digitally Altering Reality. So How Come Instagram Gets a Pass? By: Simon Dumenco Published: May 28, 2012 When Facebook bought Instagram last month, pretty much all the media coverage focused primarily on a single narrative thread: how a tiny startup with just 13 employees and no revenue came to be worth $1 billion. That, of course, is an astonishing business story, but in obsessing about the economics of Instagram, its aesthetics — the real reason why it’s…

[From The Sydney Morning Herald’s Smoke & Mirrors blog] [Image: The walls of Sydney’s Town Hall Station resembled a Woolworth’s supermarket shelf in Australia’s first virtual supermarket. Photo: Getty Images] Virtual reality at a tipping point By George Wright June 4, 2012 Technology is only going to get more immersive and consume a bigger percentage of our attention. Take Ready Player One, a book by Ernest Cline. This work of fiction describes a near future where our over populated and environmentally damaged planet sees society flee their daily struggles to interact in a massively multiplayer world. When the eccentric Jobs/Zuckerberg-esque…

[From Matthew Lombard] During the spring 2012 semester that just ended, I taught a Temple University course titled Psychological Processing of Media. The course, for undergraduate and masters level students, emphasized telepresence research and theory; the syllabus is here. One of the optional assignments was  “Telepresence Creativity” with the only instructions to “[c]reate a high quality graphic or video on the theme of presence and telepresence; see instructor with ideas and questions.” Below are links to the work produced by students in the class. Do you teach or know of a course that covers telepresence? If so, please email me…

[From Philly Tapped (see  pp. 89-94); thanks to Liudi Wang] [Image: Eric Welch and Kyle Stetz square off at “Beer Pong”] Beer Goggles Philadelphia Science Festival By Brendan Clay April 30, 2012 [snip] This is the second year that Yards [Brewing Company] has released a beer for the Science Festival, a 10-day celebration of science and innovation held at locations all over Philadelphia. [snip] Besides debuting Atom Blonde, the Science Fair mixer hosts exhibits and tech demos. The big hit of the night is “Beer Pong,” which is not the college drinking game, but a variation of the videogame Pong…

[From Information Week; a 1:12 minute video is available here] Leap Motion: Control PC With Hand Gestures Gesture-based computer interaction, as depicted in “Minority Report,” looks like it will soon become commonplace. “The Leap” peripheral lets you control UI elements using gestures made in the air. By Thomas Claburn – InformationWeek May 22, 2012 09:00 AM The mobile revolution has prompted not only new forms of computers but also new ways to interact with them. Apple brought touchscreens to the masses. Google introduced voice-based and image-based search in Android and iOS, and is presently working on augmented reality glasses.…