[From Wired’s Gadget Lab blog] Adidas Turns the Sneaker Into an Augmented Reality Device By Priya Ganapati  December 23, 2009 Can’t find your Nintendo DS? Try one of the new Adidas sneakers instead. Adidas has created a virtual 3-D world that can be accessed using an upcoming line of five men’s sneakers in an idea that ties into one of the technology trends of the year: augmented reality. “The foundation of augmented reality lies in adding a layer to the real world,” says Chris Barbour, head of digital marketing for Adidas Originals. “That’s what we have done. We have taken a…

[The advertising campaign and Faces in Places blog in this item illustrate our ability to see hidden social objects whether created intentionally or not. The item is from The Inspiration Room (“a creative archive and community site… providing you with the latest and classic creative inspirations from television, print, ambient and interactive advertising, music videos, photography and design”); watch the ad in HD here] American Express Faces American Express is highlighting the benefits of the their Charge Card with “Don’t Take Chances. Take Charge”, an integrated advertising campaign using images of everyday objects with happy or sad faces. The campaign is designed to illustrate how…

[From PhysOrg] Immersive Game System Allows Physical Interaction Between Players December 22, 2009 By Lisa Zyga Enlarge (PhysOrg.com) — With a new immersive multiplayer game system, researchers are further blurring the line between gaming and the real world. Using a mouse and keyboard sounds kind of quaint compared to the system developed and tested by Jefry Tedjokusumo, Steven ZhiYing Zhou, and Stefan Winkler of the National University of Singapore (Winkler is currently with Symmetricom in San Jose, California). The game designers have created a few varieties of a first-person shooter (FPS) game in which players use a gun or sword…

[From The Telegraph (UK)] 3D Nazi propaganda to be auctioned A rare piece of 3D Nazi propaganda designed to show the German army’s march across Europe is to be auctioned Published: 21 Dec 2009 The rare boxed set of stereo cards were a basic version of “virtual reality” and allowed families and children feel like they were on the front line from their living rooms. They were dreamt up by Hitler’s evil war machine and showed the progress of the army as it conquered the West. Rich Nazi families, who were able to buy them with special viewing glasses, were…

[From the Moving Pixels blog of PopMatters (“an international magazine of cultural criticism”)] 9 December 2009 Locomotion, Parkour, and the Illusion of Competence in Video Games Video gaming’s recent love affair with parkour (or free running) should really come as no surprise given the centrality of two basic forms of movement, running and jumping, to the video game experience.  In a sense, this love affair might be traced back to Super Mario Bros. whose gameplay solely derives from the notion of carefully managing velocity and gauging distances. One of the more innovative elements of Super Mario Bros. is one often taken…

[From AppleInsider] Thursday, December 17, 2009 Apple exploring 3D head-tracking, battery life improvements By Neil Hughes Future Apple hardware could track the location of a user and adjust a 3D display according to their position, creating the illusion that an on-screen object is physically present. Known as head-tracking, the technology has been known and implemented for sometime. But a new patent application filed by Apple this week suggests the Mac maker could employ the advanced method to allow users greater interactivity with their computer.…

[From The New York Times] November 21, 2009 Review What Is Real, What Isn’t? By RODERICK CONWAY MORRIS All figurative art contains an element of trompe l’oeil, while the essence of the “true” trompe l’oeil is that it sets out to deceive us into believing that the objects we are seeing are not the result of artifice but real. The fifth-century B.C. artist Zeuxis, so the story goes, painted grapes so life-like that birds flew down to peck at them. But even such an artist as Zeuxis was fooled by his rival Parrhasius: When Zeuxis tried to push aside the…

[From The New Zealand Herald News] Technology brings Santa to his fans at Starship By Lincoln Tan Wednesday Dec 16, 2009 Just hours after surgery, 6-year-old Tabitha Monk rushed to put on her Sunday best for a chat with Santa from his North Pole grotto. “It’s really so cool to talk to Santa,” Tabitha said, and nodded in agreement when asked if this was an easier way to be asking Santa for presents. “I’ve asked Santa for a laptop, printer, clothes and shoes, and also to get better.” Tabitha, a Year 2 student at Buckland School, has pancreatitis (inflamed pancreas)…

[From Gizmag; the blog entry includes an image gallery and a 3:23 minute video; the Inspector Bots web site is here] ROBOTICS SWAT BOT has trouble-makers in its sights By Jeff Salton December 14, 2009 The Robotic Weapon or SWAT BOT is what you get when you cross a paintball gun and pepper spray with a remote-controlled RV whose parents were a laptop computer and the Road Runner. Designed for law enforcement situations like riot control, hostage scenarios, building security, bomb threats or other hostile or covert situations, this all-aluminum, lithium polymer battery powered unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) is equipped…