[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…

[A transcript of a 2:05 minute video story from ABC News; more information, including multiple demonstration videos, is available on the FaceCake web site; see also this press release] New Technology Lets You Try on Virtual Clothes Before You Buy FaceCakes’s Virtual Try-On system promises to free users from dressing rooms forever. 12/11/2013 [It was] the closet made famous in “Clueless.” It was the closet of the future, now everyone can use it with a new technology that lets you try on clothing just by standing in front of a web cam. It’s the FaceCake Virtual Try-On system, and it…

[Pretty amazing… this is from Motherboard, where you can watch the 3:41 minute video; in addition to the link in the post, more images, including animated gifs, are available at Colossal] MIT’s 3D Touch Display Brings the Virtual World into Real Life By DJ Pangburn January 5, 2013 It didn’t take long for 2014 to produce some rad videos of technology in action. MIT’s Tangible Media Group just released a video of its remote “touch” display, inFORM, allowing a user to manipulate the real, 3D world through some nifty digital wizardry. Led by profession Hiroshi Ishii, the Tangible Media Group…

[An interesting presence-evoking phenomenon that seems likely to become increasingly common. The post is from NPR’s Krulwich Wonders blog; a video of the Forever21 Times Square Interactive Billboard is also available on YouTube] Billboards That Drop Angels On Your Head by Robert Krulwich January 04, 2014 There you are in the middle of the city, traffic all around, planes buzzing above and you notice a little boy on a giant screen pointing up. “Look,” says the boy. And you look, and the on-screen boy is pointing at an actual plane flying in the sky. He knows its flight number, its…

[From CNET, where the story includes more images and a 2:30 minute video] Augmented-reality contact lenses to be human-ready at CES While Google works to bring a polished Glass device to market, wearables startup Innovega is taking head-mounted displays a step further: contact lenses that interact with full HD glasses. by Nick Statt January 3, 2014 Anyone who has ever dreamed up a sci-fi future in which neon interfaces float in front of us and information exists not on screens, but projected onto our eyes, is likely watching the blossoming wearable technology market with great anticipation. With its iOptik system,…

[The PBS NewsHour in the U.S. aired two presence-related reports on January 2, 2014. The transcript of the first, which includes interviews with Marvin Minsky, Cynthia Breazeal and Sherri Turkle, is below and you can watch the 7:28 minute video version or listen to the MP3 audio version here. The second report, “What role does the human touch play in the digital age?,” features Jaron Lanier and Andrew McAfee from MIT’s Center for Digital Business in a discussion about how to “retain the value of human work and relationships … in a digital age that creates more automated services at…