[From USA Today, where the story includes two other images and a 3:00 minute video report; more information about Santa HQ is available in a press release via Business Wire] [Image: From Let’s Play OC, where the post includes more information about Santa HQ in Orange County, California] Retailers use virtual technology to vie for sales Hadley Malcolm, USA TODAY November 24, 2014 A journey to the North Pole now includes selfies, ‘elf-ray’ vision and a passport. In a bid for more customers and ultimately more sales, shopping malls and retailers are making holiday shopping an interactive and virtual experience,…

[From The Telegraph; see also coverage of Stuart Turner’s appearance at WIRED2014 in Wired, where the story includes a 7:45 minute video, a longer article about him in Mancunian Matters, and his Robots and Cake blog] [Image: Stuart Turner operates the drone with a live video feed to his laptop. DAN ROWLANDS / MERCURY PRESS] Bedroom-bound quadriplegic develops drone to see the world Stuart Turner, who has spina bifida, uses head movements to pilot the camera-mounted flying device, thousands of miles from his Yorkshire home By Tom Brooks-Pollock, and agencies 25 Nov 2014 A quadriplegic man who is confined to…

[From The Verge, where the story includes a 3:31 minute video. A longer article in Billboard includes this analysis: “The illusion of ’being there’ or ‘presence’ is often invoked by VR enthusiasts. Did I feel like I was there? Not exactly. I felt like I was in the best movie theater of my life, though. The video resolution, sound and depth of field were remarkable. It took very little effort to suspend my disbelief.” ] Watch Paul McCartney perform in virtual reality with a new Android app By Adi Robertson on November 20, 2014 360-degree video company Jaunt is trying…

[From VICE Media, where you can watch a 0:47 minute trailer and the 32:47 minute program. For another status report on the topic see “When Porn and Virtual Reality Collide (NSFW)” from Gizmodo.] The Digital Love Industry: Investigating the Future of Love and Sex in the Digital Age ​Soon, virtual reality is going to crash into our lives in a way we never even imagined. Though dating and masturbating have long been commandeered by the web, it’s only been as a kind of middleman. Now we’re nearing the possibility of falling in love with your computer, as meeting your dream…

[From Gizmodo, where the story includes several more images and a 3:11 minute video] The NASA Playground That Takes Virtual Reality To a Whole New Level Brent Rose November 18, 2014 Gizmodo’s Space Camp is all about the under-explored side of NASA. From robotics to medicine to deep-space telescopes to art. All this week we’ll be coming at you direct from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, shedding a light on this amazing world. You can follow the whole series here. We’ve seen how NASA recreates the vacuum of space right here on Earth, but what about the gravity…

[From The Verge, where the story includes more pictures] How to live for a month in virtual reality Artist Mark Farid will spend 28 days as someone else in ‘Seeing I’ By Adi Robertson on November 18, 2014 Next year, artist Mark Farid wants to give up a month of his life to virtual reality. If a crowdfunding campaign succeeds, he’ll spend 28 days in a gallery, wearing a VR headset and a pair of noise-canceling headphones. For the duration of the show, all he’ll experience will be video and audio captured by a complete stranger, going about their daily…

[From The Verge; more information, including video material, is available from Samsung] Samsung announces Project Beyond, a 360-degree 3D camera that creates virtual reality worlds By Nathan Ingraham on November 12, 2014 Samsung just announced Project Beyond at its 2014 Developer Conference — it’s a 360-degree camera module that captures everything around it in 3D. It captures a gigapixel of 3D footage every second, and can stream that footage back to someone wearing Samsung’s Gear VR headset, essentially transporting them into that world. Essentially, Project Beyond continuously creates a virtual 3D environment of wherever it is placed — Samsung said…

[From io9, where the post includes a video clip and more images; the full episode is available on the South Park web site] Behold The Terrifying Real-Life South Park From Last Night’s Episode Meredith Woerner Thursday November 13, 2014 Last night, South Park used Oculus Rift and The Matrix to fall into a virtual reality hole where nothing was what it seemed. And everyone was being told that their reality “wasn’t real”—over and over, until we ended up just as lost as the kids. And then there was a twist. Warning: spoilers [are below and] in [the embedded] clip [from] the…

[From The Guardian, where the story includes more images] [Image: The Who’s Oculus Rift app will be released in early 2015. Photograph: PR] The Who to launch virtual reality app for Facebook’s Oculus Rift Fly-through app will celebrate band’s 50th anniversary, alongside 3D retrospective apps for Android and iOS Stuart Dredge Monday 10 November 2014 I’d always hoped I’d fly through a virtual reality environment on a Lambretta listening to some of The Who’s greatest hits before I got old. Now I have, courtesy of an official app being developed for Facebook’s Oculus Rift headset. The app, which is due…

[From TBI; more information, including demo videos, can be found on the DEEP web site] Arte makes VR move with Polar Sea 360 by Pascale Paoli-Lebailly November 14, 2014 A new cross media experience about the Arctic region and the impact of global warming is coming to screens, combining TV, web and virtual reality elements and blending adventure, science and arts.…

[From Business Insider Australia, where the story includes an additional picture] Freelancer Has A Robot In Its Office That Has Staff Working In Ways They Never Imagined Pete Cooper, Freelancer.com  November 13, 2014 So our first telepresence robot arrived in the office late last week. It started out interesting then became an experience none of us will forget. Our robot looks like a weird iPad mounted on a segway, sort of like a stick with wheels that should look precarious but through the magic of software actually drives with a remarkable smooth and almost statuesque elegance. Until it hits a…

[From MIT’s Technology Review] Virtual Reality Aims for the Mobile Phone A smartphone-based virtual reality headset from Samsung and Oculus VR could make the technology more accessible, but it also demonstrates a new set of challenges. By Simon Parkin on November 12, 2014 Max Cohen, head of mobile at Oculus VR, the virtual reality startup bought by Facebook this year for $2 billion, is unequivocal: the dominant way most consumers will experience virtual reality will be on mobile devices. “PCs and dedicated machines will always have more power, but at some point, graphics become ‘good enough’ on a mobile device…