[From International Business Times, where the story includes a another image and a 1:01 video] The Remote Control Tourists Who Check Out The City Before You Book Your Trip By Mark Johanson on October 10 2013 Ever wish you could truly see a city through someone else’s eyes, explore its streets, and check out its sights and senses before you visited? That’s the aim of Melbourne’s new “Remote Control Tourists,” who will roam Australia’s capital of culture between Oct. 9 and Oct. 13 as slaves to your Facebook and Twitter demands (hashtag #MelbourneRCT). You tell the proxies what to eat,…

[From Road to VR, where the story includes a 2:23 minute video; see also a BBC News report with one of the PIANO creators and the related Synthesia app] Mixed Reality Piano Trainer Makes Learning the Piano Easy (and maybe even fun) October 8, 2013 by Ben Lang Back in December of last year, after seeing few compelling consumer augmented reality applications, I wrote a short article about one that I would actually use, an AR piano trainer. I’m thrilled today to see that something very similar has popped up, and can’t wait to get my hands on it!…

[From NBC News, where the story includes additional images] [Image: Sixense’s new motion-tracking system makes virtual reality seem like it’s finally within our grasp. Sixense/YouTube] Virtual reality gaming is nearly here — we just need the right controller Yannick LeJacq NBC News October 7, 2013 Video games have long promised to offer their players “immersive experiences,” but full-blown virtual reality — the holodeck or the matrix — was still a fantasy. Now with the Oculus Rift headset on the horizon, that’s no longer the case: soon gamers will be able to slip on a pair of high-tech goggles and truly…

[From Ani.me, where the story includes a 6:59 minute video; information and another video about a related app that lets the user shake hands with Hatsune Miku is available from Kotaku] [News] Oculurs VR Allows Fans to ‘Sleep With’ Hatsune Miku By Scott Larsen October 5, 2013 I have friends who are absolutely obsessed with characters. They pride themselves on owning anything and everything which feature’s their obsession’s image: posters, wallets, and of course the coveted hug-pillows. To these individuals, I now simply laugh at their obviously meager efforts. Why? Because with the new Oculus Rift VR, you can take…

[From Gizmodo Australia, where the story includes several more images] Exploring The Prehistoric World, By Way Of Virtual Reality Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan 27 September 2013 For most history students, “exploring the past” means sifting through mountains of data. But digital archaeologist Marcus Abbott wants to make early human civilisation — or its digital simulacra — freely accessible to anyone who wants to explore it. His first prehistoric VR environment? A 3000-year-old spiritual site in the East Anglian fens.…

[From the Georgia Tech News Center, where the story includes additional images] [Image: Akanksha Prakash, a graduate student in the School of Psychology, found that people assign emotions to robots, based on their face.] Putting a Face on a Robot What does the assistive robot of the future look like? It depends. Posted October 1, 2013 | Atlanta, GA A new study from the Georgia Institute of Technology finds that older and younger people have varying preferences about what they would want a personal robot to look like. And they change their minds based on what the robot is supposed…

[From The Construction Index, where the story includes additional images] Keeping it real Virtual reality has come out of the games console and onto site. David Taylor looks at a new approach to training. With any kind of training, there’s nothing quite like first-hand experience to make all that theory come alive. But on the other hand if you drop a complete rookie in at the deep end there’s always the danger they will sink instead of swim. Some trainees simply cannot be allowed to make big mistakes – think of trainee airline or fighter pilots. But on the other…

[From MIT’s Technology Review] [Image: Copy and paste: A tablet can be used to make 3-D scans of an object using the Structure Sensor and other new hardware coming to mobile devices.] Depth-Sensing Cameras Head to Mobile Devices Adding 3-D sensors to existing and future mobile devices will enable augmented-reality games, handheld 3-D scanning, and better photography. By Tom Simonite on October 1, 2013 Just over a decade since cameras first appeared in cell phones, they remain one of the most used features of mobile devices, underpinning wildly popular and valuable companies such as Instagram and Snapchat. Now hardware that…

[From NPR’s Monkey See blog, where the story includes more images and an extended video] [Image: The creators of Breaking Bad judiciously use the point-of-shot sequence in critical scenes of the pilot, including when Walter White is forced to clean the tires of student’s car. Doug Hyun/Courtesy of AMC.] Point Of View: How So Many Rooted For ‘Breaking Bad’s’ Walter White by Michaeleen Doucleff September 27, 2013 If you were still cheering for Walter White at the start of the sixth season (or, as AMC contracts call it, the second half of the fifth season), a mustard stain on a…

[From IEEE Spectrum’s Automaton blog, where the story includes many additional pictures and a video] Testing Robotic Companions on a Simulated Mission to Mars By Simon Engler Posted 26 Sep 2013 | 20:02 GMT Simon Engler (pictured above with robotic dinosaur Pleo) recently spent four months in a Hawaii habitat that simulated a Mars mission. In this guest post, he tells us about the experience and his research on robotic companions for long-duration space missions.…

[From Fast Company’s Co.Create, where the story includes more images and a video] [Image: Death At The Border: Security camera footage was used to plop bystanders at the scene of Anastacio Hernández-Rojas’ death in a wraparound, fully-immersive digital world.] Put On A Helmet, And You’re In The Story: Why Virtual Reality Journalism Is The Future Google, the Associated Press, and the Tribeca Film Institute are funding one of the most ambitious virtual reality projects yet: A 3-D, fully immersive re-creation of the death of a migrant at the U.S.-Mexico border. By: Neal Ungerleider Nonny de la Peña isn’t your typical…

[From the Huffington Post, where the story includes more images and a video] Visualise Studio Explains How To Use Virtual Reality For Marketing — And Not Suck Michael Rundle Posted: 24/09/2013 Of the myriad possible uses for the next-gen of virtual reality, marketing might not seem like the most thrilling. But if you take a trip down to the Visualise Studio in London for Social Media Week, you might come away with a different impression. Visualise, the team behind some of the web’s most impressive ultra-high 360-degree resolution images – from the London Olympics to the Queen’s Jubilee – have…