[From MedCity News, where the story includes a 2:10 minute video] Welcome to the Matrix: Using virtual reality to develop global clinical trials 3.26.12 | Stephanie Baum In a bid to address the reality of global clinical trials among life science companies, one business has developed software to facilitate business collaboration meetings taking place between multiple parties in different locations and continents using … wait for it: avatars. Ron Burns, the CEO of ProtonMedia, said its ProtoSphere world logically addresses the challenge of simultaneous global communication. Burns told MedCity News: “Our companies relate to the room environment the most.…

[From The Huffington Post, where the story includes more images] [Image: One of the winners of the Shapeway contest, this amazing design, courtesy of SaGa Design, is essentially an iPhone casing that forces you to interact with the usually intangible Siri.] Shapeways Siri Contest: iPhone 4S Virtual Assistant Brought To Life Through Design (PICTURES) The Huffington Post  Courteney Palis  Posted: 02/29/2012 Ever since the iPhone 4S was released back in October, the device’s voice-controlled virtual assistant app has captured the attention of users and non-users alike. By now, we’ve grown accustomed to Siri and her pleasant monotone, always at our…

[From TechWeekEurope; the 3D Focus article includes detailed information] Glasses-Free 3D Teleconference Links UK And Russia Telepresence just got more immersive…. On March 26, 2012 by Max Smolaks A 3D teleconference that didn’t need the participants to wear special glasses linked London and Russia yesterday, in the first experiment of this kind in the world. It was possible due to a host of inventions by Russian company Triaxes Vision, based in the Siberian city of Tomsk. During the experiment, the guests of the 3D Storytelling conference, a broadcast and gaming industry event held in London, could see and talk to…

[From CNBC] [Image: Eon Reality’s virtual reality product, the Eon iCube.] Virtual Reality Technology Comes of Age Published: Tuesday, 27 Mar 2012 By: Joan Voight, Special to CNBC.com Scuba diving among the sharks along Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is a breathtakingly immersive experience. It’s also dangerous and expensive. But exploring a virtual ocean and coming nose to nose with a real-looking shark is a viable alternative. That, in a nutshell, has been the promise of virtual reality over the years — it could put us in an artificial environment that feels entirely real, without getting our feet wet. Movies like…

[From PhysOrg.com, where the story includes an additional image] [Image: The Naval Research Laboratory’s Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot (SAFFiR) is a humanoid-type robot being designed for shipboard firefighting. Credit: U.S. Naval Research Laboratory] NRL designs robot for shipboard firefighting March 8, 2012 By Donna McKinney (PhysOrg.com) — In both war and peacetime scenarios, fire in the shipboard environment is serious and frequently results in excessive damage and high repair costs because the fire is not detected or controlled adequately. To help further improve future shipboard firefighting capability, scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory have formed an interdisciplinary team to develop…

[From Mashable] With Augmented Reality, Wallit App Assigns Virtual Walls to Physical Places March 06, 2012 by Sam Laird “People have wanted to leave their mark since the beginning of humanity,” says Veysel Berk, creator of the mobile app Wallit. “Now they are going to be able to do that digitally using their smartphones.” Released Tuesday for iPhone and iTouch, Wallit is hailed by Berk as the world’s first “social augmented reality app.” Like Facebook, it enables you to interact with your friends. Like Twitter, it only lets you write in short 140-character bursts. Like Foursquare, its digital benefits are…