[From Salon] [Image: Scene still from “A.I.”] Why artificial intelligence is the future of religion Robotics and Christianity have a longer history than you’d expect, and they’re only growing more entangled Michael Schulson, Religion Dispatches Sunday, Sep 14, 2014 This article originally appeared on Religion Dispatches. There are places you never expect to be in life. For me, this was certainly one of them: in a conference room in suburban Charlotte on the campus of Southern Evangelical Seminary, with an enormous old Bible on a side table, shelves of Great Books lining the walls, and, on the conference table itself,…

[From Wired, where the story includes many more images and a 0:25 minute video of the Teleporter experience] [Image: The two Teleporters standing in New York City. Starting September 18, one will be near City Hall, the other will be at the Marriott Marquis. Courtesy of Marriott Hotels/Framestore] The Future of Travel Has Arrived: Virtual-Reality Beach Vacations By Peter Rubin 09.18.14 I’m the only person in the hotel lounge. It’s night, and darkness lingers beyond the windows. Despite the room’s emptiness, there’s a feeling of warmth; a fireplace crackles, and music mixes with the hum of subdued conversation and clinking…

[From The Verge, where the story includes many images and a 1:19 minute video] You can now attach your iPad directly to your face to experience virtual reality AirVR wants to turn your iPad Mini and iPhone 6 Plus into portable virtual reality goggles By Carl Franzen September 16, 2014 It was only a matter of time. The iPad has been adapted for all sorts of intriguing and surprising purposes over the years (including, recently, a sex toy). Meanwhile, a number of enterprising organizations and individuals have sought to create makeshift virtual reality goggles out of people’s readily available mobile…

[From The Hollywood Reporter, where the story includes a 6:34 minute video] [Image: Douglas Trumbull at Toronto International Film Festival’s Future of Cinema conference, September 11, 2014; image from Mike Edgell] Future of Film: VFX Legend Douglas Trumbull’s Plan to Save the Movies The 72-year-old, who’s best known for his work on ‘2001: A Space Odyssey,’ says he’s figured out how to win the battle against big TVs and smartphones — from a studio on his farm in the Berkshires 9/2/2014 by Scott Feinberg A version of this story appeared in the Sept. 12 issue of The Hollywood Reporter.…

[From The Washington Post, where the story includes three videos] ‘What is reality?’: A Q&A with the artist who used social media and Photoshop to fake an epic trip even her parents fell for By Caitlin Dewey September 12 Zilla van der Born is not a spy, but for five weeks last year, she acted like one: hiding out in her apartment, wearing disguises when she went outside, and telling everyone she knew — even her parents — that she was jetting around Southeast Asia. She was not. What the 25-year-old Netherlander was undertaking was an epic feat of performance…

[From The Creators Project blog, where the post includes other images and a 2:09 minute video] Catch 3D Holographic Fish At Seaside Projection Mapping Exhibition By Beckett Mufson — Sep 8 2014 Digital art studio teamLab—known for their interactive, often smartpone-enabled installations—have turned their projection mapping prowess towards Japan’s Kagawa Water Front Festival, transforming a boat and seaside into a 3D holographic fishing hole. Using their smartphones as a fishing pole, enthusiastic festival-goers could cast a line into the Inland Sea and race to “capture” giant digital fish project not on a screen, but on water and mist. The 3D…

[From VRFocus; more information, including a 2:51 minute video, is available at IndieGoGo] New LA-Based 3D Museum with VR Exhibit Launches Crowd-Funding Campaign Jamie Feltham September 11, 2014 As fans of the technology know, history is currently being made in the virtual reality (VR) space. Companies such as Oculus VR continue to make strides in developing head-mounted displays (HMD) that make the concept, once limited to fiction, a viable consumer market. Some of that history is set to be documented along with other 3D media in a new Los Angeles-based museum that has recently launched an IndieGoGo campaign.…

[From Businessweek; for more information see the coverage in Medical Xpress and the study in the journal Psychological Sciences] The Lonely Can’t Tell Other People From Dolls By Drake Bennett September 11, 2014 In the movie Cast Away, Tom Hanks, playing a man stranded alone on the proverbial desert island, turns a volleyball into his closest friend. A new study suggests that, even under less extreme circumstances, loneliness primes us to lower the bar on who, or what, we’ll befriend. The study, in Psychological Science, attempted to determine “how differences in our need to connect with other people could affect…

[From TechCrunch, where the story includes more images and a 12:27 minute video] FOVE Uses Eye Tracking To Make Virtual Reality More Immersive September 9, 2014 by Catherine Shu FOVE wants to ramp up by the virtual reality experience by creating the world’s first consumer-oriented headmount display to use eye tracking. The Tokyo-based startup was founded by CEO Yuka Kojima and CTO Lochlainn Wilson and is launching today on the Disrupt SF stage. Fove’s name comes from the words “field of view” and “fovea,” or the part of the eye that is responsible for sharp central vision. The headmount combines…

[From Phys.org, where the story includes two more pictures; for more information see the Miraisens press release, which uses the term presence extensively] [Image: A journalist tries to use “3D-Haptics Technology”, at a press preview in Tsukuba, suburban Tokyo on September 1, 2014] Japan firm showcases ‘touchable’ 3D technology Sep 01, 2014 Technology that generates touchable 3D imagery was unveiled in Japan Monday, with its developers saying users could pull and push objects that are not really there. Know-how that could improve a gaming experience, or allow someone to physically shape objects that exist only on a computer, will soon…

[From Yahoo! Tech, where the story includes several more pictures and a 2:32 minute video] [Image: A UC Berkeley student tests PETA’s “I, Chicken” virtual reality experience. (Alyssa Bereznak/Yahoo Tech)] I Tried a Virtual Reality Game Made by PETA That Simulates Being Slaughtered as a Chicken Alyssa Bereznak, Tech Columnist Sep 5, 2014 I hear the sound of the wind and the clucking of birds behind me. The sky above me is bright and blue, filled with fluffy clouds and framed by a beautiful mountain landscape. Sapphire-hued creeks surround me. I look around and then I see myself, reflected in a…

[From Wired] [Image: Sergey Galyonkin/Flickr] The War for Our Digital Future: Virtual Reality vs. Integral Reality By Dan Ostrower, CEO of the innovation and design consultancy Altitude 08.29.14 Like most people I spend much of the day digitally connected, gazing at screens that make my life and work more interesting and productive. Yet for all the positives that connectivity provides us there’s also a downside lurking in those glowing pixels. They’re just not real. So as we extend our Internet time, we risk getting sucked into an isolated virtual reality that lacks the richness, emotional relevance and real experiences engendered…