[From Psychology Today’s The Storytelling Animal blog] The Power of Fake Gay (and Black) Friends How fiction changes the world. by Jonathan Gottschall, Ph.D. Published on June 20, 2012 by Jonathan Gottschall, Ph.D. in The Storytelling Animal The “evolution” of President Obama’s views on same-sex marriage match the rapidly liberalizing attitudes of the country as a whole.  The swift pace of change has flummoxed social scientists, who expect much slower erosion of entrenched cultural biases. On the May 6th episode of Meet the Press, Joe Biden surprised viewers not only by endorsing gay marriage himself, but by attributing historic changes…

[From 3D Focus; James Iliff’s web site features an extensive two part post titled The Conquest of Presence in First-Person Shooters] The rise of consumer-facing smartphone 3D virtual reality US based virtual reality expert James Iliff reports on the rise of smartphone virtual reality applications and why VR will be the next frontier in gaming. Jun 18, 2012 Beyond 3D camera rigs, blockbuster movies, and anaglyph glasses, the 3D scene in Los Angeles has a bustling underground, and a revolution is on the horizon.  The small but tight-knit virtual reality hardware community is striking out against corporate monoliths like Sony…

[From Scotsman.com; details regarding the WA|HH Quantum Sensations ‘drunk’ spray are available at Gizmodo; see LBBOnline for more on the Mariah Carey holographic appearances] Chitra Ramaswamy: Virtual reality, but not quite Published on Sunday 24 June 2012 Life, eh? Just when you think things can’t get any sillier than a £16 spray that simulates the feeling of being drunk when sprayed down one’s gullible gullet (note: this is not a joke), you discover that being dead is no longer an obstacle to, well, living. Or at least making money. I’m talking about holograms, people. Not the kind you find on…

[From Phys.org, where the story includes more images and two videos] Canon’s Mixed Reality System may speed design cycles June 23, 2012 by Nancy Owano (Phys.org) — Canon this week announced a new augmented reality system—headset and software. The new system is to allow virtual prototypes to replace physical ones. Three-dimensional computer generated images can instantly change based on the user’s movements. The Mixed Reality (MR) System is being initially promoted as an industrial design tool where, for example, the head-set-wearing user gets to see a computer-generated image of a car on a set of real tires, all in realtime.…

[From The Japan Times; a 3:26 minute video is available here and the full research report is here] Riken develops system blurring line between virtual and reality Jiji June 28, 2012 The Riken research institute says it has developed a “substitutional reality” system to study how the brain works when people become confused about the reality of what they perceive. In an experiment using the system, subjects could not tell the difference between real-life scenes and recorded ones displayed on special head-mounted gear, according to an article by Riken published in the British journal Scientific Reports.…

[From TekGoblin] Different Types of Immersion and How They Work Posted by Daniel Moeller June 25, 2012 In virtual-reality speak, ‘immersion’ can mean a number of different things. Ever taken a look at the Matrix, and thought about what it might mean for us? Rene Descartes was one of the first to ask this question – if we’re totally ‘immersed’ in an environment where all sense stimuli are artificially produced and fed to us, how could we distinguish that environment from external reality? Immersion is a critical concept in game design, and it comes in four main flavors. In this…