[From Digital Trends, where the story includes more images and a 0:31 minute video] Sony’s creating ‘Inception Glasses’ that will bend city streets and buildings around you By Jeremy Kaplan – September 24, 2014 Here’s one way to make the mountain come to Mohammed. In the 2010 Christopher Nolan film Inception, Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page create impossible dream environments by folding whole city blocks in upon themselves. It’s remarkable to see – so remarkable that Sony Computer Science Lab researcher Yuichiro Takeuchi decided to make the science fiction conceit into a reality. On Monday he unveiled the technology, running…

[An account of an inverse presence experience from The Verge] I tricked my brain into thinking real life was VR Welcome to the desert of the unreal By Adi Robertson on September 22, 2014 If you talk to anybody who’s into virtual reality for more than ten minutes, you will probably end up speculating about when we might achieve total immersion: the point at which a simulated experience becomes functionally indistinguishable from real life. Most people will submit that we’re not near that point yet, barring a nightmare scenario that Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey posited at the company’s conference this…

[From Geektime; see the Kickstarter site for much more information including videos] Yourbot lets you talk to your future generations Yourbot is your digital replica in the cloud and a foundation to preserve it for years to come. Your lineage will be able to chat with you in the year 2114 and beyond Amit Peri | On September 17, 2014 Imagine you could have a chat with your grandest of great great grandchildren today, what would you wish to tell them? Yourbot is an Android device with speech-to-text conversation engines which allows our future generations the ability to interact with…

[From Businessweek, where the story includes more images] [Image: As you walk around the farm, floating graphics add context. Courtesy Gannett Digital] A Newspaper’s First Trip Into Virtual Reality Goes to a Desolate Farm By Joshua Brustein September 22, 2014 Against the odds, the Des Moines Register has just become one of the first newspapers to move into virtual reality. Gannett (GCI), publisher of USA Today and dozens of regional publications, has released its debut report made specifically for the Oculus VR headset: an interactive view of a farm in Iowa designed to accompany a series of newspaper articles being…

[From Wired, where the story includes more pictures] Airbus Patents a VR Helmet That’ll Make You Forget You’re on a Plane By Alex Davies 09.16.14 In a world where economy-class seats are getting thinner and lavatories are shrinking, any flight longer than an hour can feel like a traveling prison. Aircraft manufacturer Airbus is abetting the shift, but a recent patent filing shows it hasn’t forgotten about you, the passenger who actually has to sit in these miserable flying cells. It’s considering helmets that will let you forget you’re in an airplane at all.…

[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.…