[From netimperative (“Intelligence for Digital Business”); a summary of the report (in anAcrobat .pdf file) is available here]   Report: Are virtual holidays going to replace real ones? A generation of ‘Go-Nowhere Gamers’ could turn their back on out-of-home leisure in favour of gaming, social networking, and ‘always on’ media unless the travel industry responds to their needs, says a report commissioned by lastminute.com. Apr 26, 2010 The Future of Free Time report, produced by the online travel and leisure retailer in association with think-tank Future Foundation, looks at how travel and free time will change over the next five…

[From National Public Radio (NPR); the online story includes an audio version] Using Virtual Reality To Make Nuclear Reality Safer by Mike Shuster April 26, 2010 At Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico — home of the first American atomic bomb — scientists are using video-game technology to enhance training for the inspectors who monitor civilian nuclear activities around the world. The goal is to use virtual models of nuclear facilities to provide much more realistic training — an effort to revolutionize global efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.…

[From Crave (“The Gadget Blog from CNET”); a 1:17 minute video is here] April 23, 2010 Picture the possibilities with 3D Lego animations by Tim Hornyak Having trouble picturing what that Lego monster castle/spaceship/robot will look like when assembled? Lego is rolling out augmented-reality store displays that show shoppers, in 3D animation, what a completed kit will look like. The move follows other toy makers bringing AR to action figures and baseball cards. I’m waiting for cereal boxes in my supermarket to start spewing 3D cornflakes. The Danish toy giant, known for cool stuff like Mindstorms robot kits and wacky…

[From Goal.com (“Score to Live”)] Virtual Reality: A Search For The Heart Of America’s Game Eric Betts finds video games convert fans to the beautiful game By Eric Betts Apr 21, 2010 One of the joys of being a soccer fan in the United States is the opportunity to convert the unbelievers, to watch as someone who was once indifferent or antagonistic falls in love with the game. To love soccer is to know it. People can’t develop a life-long passion for the game without a basic understanding of what’s happening on the pitch. Knowing the rules isn’t enough; I…

[From Xconomy Seattle (“Business + Technology in the Exponential Economy”)] Software, Interfaces, culture How a Business Can Span the Globe and Stay Close-Knit: Microsoft’s “Telepresence” Project Gregory T. Huang 4/12/10 Stop me if this sounds familiar. You work in a tight-knit team that has one or two colleagues who are located in a different office—across the street, across the state, or across the country. You’d like to communicate with them more regularly, but phone calls, e-mails, and video conferences have to do. Inevitably, you feel like you (and they) miss out on some day-to-day interactions that help all of you stay…

[From CNN’s SciTech blog] April 20, 2010 Real fear in a virtual world Posted by: John D. Sutter — CNN.com writer/producer  So, I walked up to a virtual pit. It was maybe 30 feet deep. With a wood plank crossing it. Somewhere deep down in my rational brain, I knew the hole wasn’t real – that it was a virtual reality scenario in a cramped office at Stanford University, where the floor seemed completely pit-free until I put on a clunky piece of hardware called a “headmount.” But that headmount changed everything.…