[From the Subway Stories web site, which features much more information including images and videos] Subway Stories By Alon Chitayat & Jeff Ong “Subway Stories” is an interactive subway simulator exploring the inner-lives of commuters in New York City. Living in New York City, many of us spend hours a day below ground. Each day millions of people commute via the subway — an apparently “interactive” experience if you stop to consider the potential collisions that could happen. But if you’ve spent significant time on subways, you begin to realize it’s often an isolating experience — one of the last…

[From Race Yourself, where the press release includes a 1:40 minute video and several photos (I couldn’t find a screenshot with the 400 tonne cargo train –ML)] Get Fit This Year by Fleeing From Augmented Reality Zombies: Race Yourself Transforms Exercise Into a Game on Google Glass Race Yourself is a New Fitness Startup for Google Glass, Aiming to Turn Exercise Into a Game.  By Racing Against a Virtual Projection of Yourself, Attaining Personal Bests, and Burning Calories, You Can Unlock New Game Modes Such as Running Away from Giant Rolling Boulders. Race Yourself has Already Raised £200,000 from Investors…

[“In My Shoes experiments with alternative methods of communication. My aim is to put audiences as close to being in the shoes of a stranger as I can, I use virtual reality software, touch, taste, sound & smell to make it as true to life as possible.”… This is from The Guardian, where the story includes an additional picture.] [Image: Jane Gauntlett leads someone wearing audio-visual and more conventional props through a performance of In My Shoes in New York. Photograph: Amy Hart] Virtual reality theatre puts experience of brain damage centre stage Jane Gauntlett’s brain injury forced her to…

[From Dezeen, where the post includes additional images and a related video] [Image: Neil Harbisson is the first officially recognized human cyborg, but digitally enhanced human brains may become the norm in the future. Photograph by Dan Wilton.] “Cyborg scenario” will see computers in the brain replace wearable tech 17 January 2014 News: surgically implanted chips that feed digital information directly into the brain will supersede wearable technology, according to the co-founder of a leading 3D imaging studio. WiFi-enabled chips mounted inside the skull will be more effective than today’s devices such as virtual reality headsets and Google Glass, according…

[A different but arguably very related use of the term presence, from Brain Pickings: “Watts argues that our primary mode of relinquishing presence is by leaving the body and retreating into the mind — that ever-calculating, self-evaluating, seething cauldron of thoughts, predictions, anxieties, judgments, and incessant meta-experiences about experience itself.”] An Antidote to the Age of Anxiety: Alan Watts on Happiness and How to Live with Presence Wisdom on overcoming the greatest human frustration from the pioneer of Eastern philosophy in the West by Maria Popova “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,” Annie…

[From ScienceDaily] Virtual Reality Moral Dilemmas Show Just How Utilitarian We Really Are Jan. 15, 2014 — “Moral” psychology has traditionally been studied by subjecting individuals to moral dilemmas, that is, hypothetical choices regarding typically dangerous scenarios, but it has rarely been validated “in the field.” This limitation may have led to systematic bias in hypotheses regarding the cognitive bases of moral judgements. A study relying on virtual reality has demonstrated that, in real situations, we might be far more “utilitarian” than believed so far.…

[From GMA News] Levitation technology brings Star Trek holodecks closer to reality By TJ Dimacali, GMA News January 2, 2014 One of the most iconic technologies in the Star Trek universe are its ubiquitous “holodecks”, which use fictional “holomatter” to generate realistic three-dimensional objects that people can interact with. Now, scientists at the University of Tokyo have invented a way to levitate and manipulate particles in mid-air—essentially paving the way for making holodecks a thing of science fact. Yoichi Ochiai, Takayuki Hoshi and Jun Rekimoto of the University of Tokyo’s Nagoya Institute of Technology have been able to use sound…

[From Forbes blog of Steven Kotler] [Image: U.S. Navy personnel using a VR parachute trainer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)] Legal Heroin: Is Virtual Reality Our Next Hard Drug Steven Kotler, Contributor Co-written with Laura Anne Edwards, Global Content Partner, Unreasonable Group January 15, 2014 So video games are addictive—this we know. It comes down to dopamine, one of the brain’s basic signaling molecules. Emotionally, we feel dopamine as pleasure, engagement, excitement, creativity, and a desire to investigate and make meaning out of the world. It’s released whenever we take risks, or encounter novelty. From an evolutionary standpoint, it reinforces exploratory behavior.…

[From The Verge, where the  post includes a 1:24 minute video] Full-body virtual reality is here, but try not to puk The latest version of the Virtuix Omni is sickeningly immersive By Ellis Hamburger on January 8, 2014 When a Combine Soldier throws a grenade at you, your instinct is to run. In the Virtuix Omni, you can. At CES 2014, Virtuix showed off the latest version of its virtual reality rig, which features 40 capacitive sensors in its base to track your every step and move your character inside a game. Until now, the Omni tracked your legs with a…

[Computers that don’t crash and can more effectively do things people do should be better able to evoke presence. From The New York Times] [Image: Kwabena Boahen holding a biologically inspired processor attached to a robotic arm in a laboratory at Stanford University. Erin Lubin/The New York Times] Brainlike Computers, Learning From Experience By John Markoff Published: December 28, 2013 PALO ALTO, Calif. — Computers have entered the age when they are able to learn from their own mistakes, a development that is about to turn the digital world on its head. The first commercial version of the new kind…

[A press release from Revolve Robotics; more information, including stories about uses of KUBI, are on the company’s web site] Now Shipping! The robot that doesn’t roam; KUBI ditches the wheels for stronger interaction Revolve Robotics Press Release –  December 17, 2013 Revolve Robotics Co-founders Marcus Rosenthal and Ilya Polyakov believe that their KUBI video conferencing robot is part of a new generation of devices that will change the way we interact remotely. KUBI is now shipping to Indiegogo Backers and available to the public through Revolve’s website (www.revolverobotics.com/get-kubi/). It is a simple device compared to the growing number of…

[From The Conversation, where the post includes additional images] [Image: Out and about on the digital farm. Sabrina Dent] Virtual nature makes us feel good even if it’s Farmville Sue Thomas, Visiting Fellow at the Media School at University of Bournemouth 16 December 2013 Environmental psychologists have long known that encounters with the natural world are good for us. But nature can now also be found in our virtual lives – in the photos we share online, the games we play, even the words we use. And it seems to help soothe our connected minds. Cyberspace is full of the…