[From The Maine Campus; the VEMI Lab web site is here] [Image: Richard Corey, VEMI Lab Manager, (left) and Timothy McGrath (right) take part in a virtual world in Virtual Environment and Multimodal Integration Lab, located on the third floor of Boardman Hall. Photo by Paul Perkins] Students create virtual realities in campus lab By Rachel Curit Posted on Sunday, September 11th, 2011, 11:10 pm Several University of Maine students are escaping the tedium of school on a regular basis, although classes began only two weeks ago, by plugging in to virtual realities. Unlike students who may avoid the pressures…

[From The New York Times, where the article includes a multimedia feature; information about Audyssey’s latest product, Personal Surround, is available here] [Image: Tyson Yaberg of Audyssey Laboratories listened to an experimental system at the University of Southern California. Audyssey’s goal is to make dens and living rooms sound like concert halls and movie theaters. Photo by David Ahntholz for The New York Times.] Sound, the Way the Brain Prefers to Hear It By GUY GUGLIOTTA Published: September 5, 2011 LOS ANGELES — There is, perhaps, no more uplifting musical experience than hearing the “Hallelujah” chorus from Handel’s “Messiah” performed…

[From Time magazine’s Techland blog, where the post includes additional information; the full Sony press release, which includes the claim that the product will “provide entertainment enthusiasts with a more immersive, engaging visual experience,” is here] Sony Unveils Ultra High-Def 4K Projector: So Long 1080p! By Matt Peckham on September 8, 2011 You’ve finally picked up a monster-sized high-definition 1080p flatscreen for your entertainment center, you’re plowing through your Blu-ray stacks of Lost or Friday Night Lights or Breaking Bad at a crisp, eyeball-thrilling 1920 x 1080 pixels, and then you see this: Sony’s launching a projector that’ll run at 4K,…

[From Wired’s Gadget Lab blog, where the original post includes many additional images; also see the follow-up at Venture Beat here] How Microsoft Researchers Might Invent a Holodeck By Dylan Tweney August 31, 2011 A few hundred yards away, in Hardware Studio B, the rubber gets a little closer to the road. An impressive, multistory curtain of LEDs hangs in the lobby, displaying some sort of interactive art that responds to movement and sounds in the space, while employees enjoy a game of pingpong. The rest of the building is more prosaic, with surplus computers stacked up in the unused…

[From ArtInfo, where the story includes other images and a short video] ART AND TECHNOLOGY How Augmented Reality Is Going Viral in the Art World, From the Omi Sculpture Park to a 9/11 Memorial By Kyle Chayka Published: August 31, 2011 Right under our noses, or perhaps under our fingertips, a new art medium has been springing up. Augmented Reality (AR) refers to smartphone, tablet, and computer applications that mix the real with the digital, using mobile devices’ built-in cameras to take an image of a user’s physical surroundings, and adding in digital graphics or information on the viewing screen…

[From Cardiovascular Business] [Image: A nurse (left) and a paramedic (right) train medical resident Simon Moore (centre) at Nanaimo General Hospital. Photo by Chris Koehn. Source: University of British Columbia.] JAMA: Medical technology simulation training has proven its worth Written by Editorial Staff September 6, 2011; Last updated on September 7, 2011 A new meta-analysis has confirmed the effectiveness of technology-enhanced medical simulation in clinical training—and the study’s lead author, David A. Cook, MD, a medical-education specialist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., suggested in an interview that the time has come to stop proving the obvious. The analysis was…