[From The Financial Times] Playing Stravinsky with a full orchestra By Hannah Nepil Published: November 6 2009 22:50 I brandish a stick and wallop a bass-drum 11 times in quick succession. “Very good,” remarks David Corkhill, principal percussionist of the Philharmonia. This would be encouraging, were my mentor not merely a recorded image on a flat screen. Re-Rite: Be the Orchestra, an installation-cum-exhibition that opened last Tuesday, offers the chance, according to its creator Esa-Pekka Salonen, “to understand the physical reality of being inside an orchestra”. Since becoming principal conductor of the Philharmonia in September 2008, the Finnish maestro has…

[From Delmarva Now; more information about the Fourmation project is available here] Web designer’s college work wins award By Brian Shane, Staff Writer, November 5, 2009 OCEAN CITY — A local graphic designer was part of a design team that won an international award recognizing an innovative project completed using Wii video game controllers. Nick Deimler, 22, and four of his fellow Drexel University digital media majors created a video game for their senior project. It uses infrared technology inherent in the Nintendo Wii video game system to create a new game that immerses the player in a 3-D virtual…

[From Gizmag (“invention, innovation and emerging technologies in all fields of human endeavour”); the web version of this story contains video segments] GOOD THINKING Take a stroll through virtual reality on the CyberWalk omni-directional treadmill By Darren Quick November 4, 2009 PST Jogging on the spot has gone high tech thanks to an omni-directional treadmill that allows you to walk in any direction while staying centered on the treadmill. When coupled with virtual reality (VR) technology it offers the potential for truly natural walking and immersion in virtual environments.…

[From the web site of Zest Audio; more information about Lightstep Technologies follows below] Community Simulates Disaster for Life Safety Zest Audio has recently completed the installation of a high power Community sound system for the demonstration facilities of Lightstep Technologies at their Belfast headquarters. Lightstep produce innovative products to help people escape from life threatening situations. Following many well publicised disasters in recent years, involving major loss of life in high rise buildings, nightclubs, underground stations and at sea, Lightstep has developed systems that represent a significant step forward in Life Safety systems. Much has been done to improve…

[A press release from Media-Newswire] Video Game to Help Urban Teens Avoid HIV Infection Focus of Nearly $4 Million Grant To Yale New Haven, Conn. – Creating a video game to help teens avoid sex, drugs and alcohol use-behaviors that could lead to HIV infection-is the aim of a five-year, $3.9 million research grant to Yale from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The grant, to be paid out over five years, will fund work by Lynn Fiellin, M.D., assistant professor of medicine at Yale School of Medicine. (Media-Newswire.com) – New Haven, Conn. –…

[From The Vancouver Sun] Butting out in virtual reality may have real-life results By Linda Nguyen, Canwest News Service October 28, 2009 Our actions in virtual reality may subconsciously lead to changes to real-life addictive behaviours, according to a group of Quebec researchers. A recent study by the GRAP Occupational Psychology Clinic and University of Quebec in Gatineau found that smokers who destroyed cigarettes in a virtual-reality environment many times over a period of months reported having less of a tobacco addiction than those who were assigned another virtual-reality task. The theory behind the study, published in the current issue…

[From the Pixels and Policy blog (“Uncovering the ways virtual worlds change our politics, policy, and culture”)] 10/26/2009 The Curious Case of Racism in Second Life The standard techno-optimist argument in favor of expanding the Metaverse goes something like this: Virtual worlds hold the promise of commuication without regard for distance, physical ability, gender, or race. Every aspect of the avatar is flexible, rendering prejudice obsolete. It appears such wishful thinking might be snagged on the heated issue of race. Pixels and Policy reports on a little-noticed study that says our racial biases are carrying over into the Metaverse. Bringing Race…

[From The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Wired Campus blog; more information is available here and at the EchoDamp web site] October 27, 2009, 02:00 PM ET Software Helps Music Students Collaborate Online With Crystal Clarity By Jeff Young Music schools have a tradition of bringing in famous musicians to hold master classes with a handful of students, but many of those visits have been cut this year because of tight budgets. Free software developed at the University of Southern California promises to make videoconferencing clear enough to hold such classes remotely over high-speed Internet connections. The software is called EchoDamp,…