[From The Conversation] [Image: The courtroom in the County Court of Victoria as used for the study’s experiment. Credit: Emma Rowden] Higher quality court videolinks will improve justice outcomes: study Jul 03, 2013 Alexia Attwood Editor, The Conversation Poor lighting, bad camera angles and technical glitches in videolink testimonies can affect justice outcomes in court, a new study has found, with researchers urging courts to adopt standardised videoconferencing guidelines.…

[From TechCrunch; for more information and a 1:58 minute video visit the Globacore project page] Old Enough To Remember Paperboy For NES? Now You Can Live It With Oculus Rift July 31, 2013 Old school gamers will remember Paperboy, an arcade game — later ported to home systems like the NES and Atari ST — that let you savour the pleasure of virtually breaking your neighbours’ windows by tossing a rolled up newspaper through their front room as you powered past on your bike. Because that’s what passed for entertainment in 1984. Well, time and technology has moved on but…

[From the Telegraph, where the story includes additional images; for more information including images and two videos, see the project’s Kickstarter page] Virtual insanity: the rise and rise of the digital pet Could Looksi Pups become the Tamagotchi for the iPhone generation? Rhiannon Williams investigates By Rhiannon Williams 29 Jul 2013 Digital pets have long been big business for video game developers and toy manufacturers – they’ve been cashing in on the hopes and dreams of children worldwide for over 20 years.…

[From the Daily Mail, where the story includes many more images] Vorsprung durch tech drink! Carl the robot bartender serves customers at German bar The humanoid robot measures out spirits at the Robots Bar and Lounge Nine customers can take a seat at the bar in Ilmenau, eastern Germany 27 July 2013 He’s handy with a shot glass and customers travel from far and wide to admire him at work. The only strange thing about Carl the bartender is that he’s not quite human. The humanoid robot mixes drinks for guests at the Robots Bar and Lounge in Ilmenau, eastern…

[From MobiHealthNews] Orlando Health explores telemonitoring as an alternative to hospital admissions By: Neil Versel | Jul 23, 2013 While other hospitals are trying to comply with a new Medicare policy by assuring recently discharged patients don’t have to be readmitted, Orlando Health is trying to prevent inpatient admissions in the first place by sending some patients home from the emergency department with telemonitoring equipment. The Central Florida health system is a month into a planned four-month pilot of home-based videoconferencing units tied to simple vitals monitors and a visiting nurse program, in hopes of lowering costs and boosting patient…

[From Yahoo! News] [Image: Using an Oculus Rift with Atlas to play a shooting game. On the bottom right hand corner is what you see through …] The Atlas looks like the most insane home video-gaming experience ever Jason Gilbert July 25, 2013 As video games have become more and more realistic over the past few decades, we are quickly approaching the dream of the movie Tron: to be able to actually physically exist within our games, to bring a new level of immediacy to the act of playing. Improvements in graphics have made this partly possible; innovative systems like…

[From CNN] Robots: The future of elder care? By Heather Kelly, CNN July 19th, 2013 Would you let a robot take over as a live-in nurse for your aging parent or grandparent? In 2050, the elderly will account for 16 percent of the global population. That’s 1.5 billion people over the age of 65, according to the Population Reference Bureau. Caring for those seniors – physically, emotionally and mentally – will be an enormous undertaking, and experts say there will be a shortage of professionals trained and willing to take on the job. “We have to find more resources and…

[From the Huffington Post, where the story includes many images of the artist’s paintings (one of which is titled ‘presence’)] [Image: ‘Devotion’  Oil on Belgian linen, 50 cm x 41 cm] [Image: ‘Processional’  Oil on Belgian linen; from designboom] Robin Eley’s Hyperrealist Paintings Show The Sexy Side Of Plastic (NSFW PHOTOS) Posted: 07/15/13 Australian artist Robin Eley is a master of deception. Using oil paint, a series of tiny brushes and hours upon hours of intense concentration, he creates some of the most impressive hyperrealist works we’ve come across. What appear to be surreal nude photographs and snapshots of bizarre…

[From Credit Union Times] Virtual Reality Comes to Ohio Credit Union Beam Up the Cash, Scotty By Missy Baxter July 24, 2013 The latest technology popping up in credit unions seems almost as futuristic as Star Trek’s holodeck. Imagine having a real-time conversation with a life-size, 3D image of a credit union staffer who can answer questions about everything from car loans to savings rates. Plus, throw in theater-quality sound and eye contact. That might sound a bit like science fiction, but members at the $194 million MidUSA Credit Union in Middletown, Ohio, will soon be able to tap into…

[From Fast Company’s Co.DESIGN, where the story includes an image gallery and a 4:03 minute video] Disney’s Crazy Invention Lets You Feel Phantom Objects Floating In Air You know how Kinect lets you interact with virtual objects? A groundbreaking project called Aireal lets you feel them, too. July 19, 2013 By Mark Wilson Microsoft’s Kinect is an amazing device. It can track virtually any motion you make, allowing your real body to interact with an amazing invented world. There’s just one catch: You can’t actually feel anything. Aireal is the result of research by University of Illinois PhD student Rajinder…

[From psfk, where the story includes a 2:05 minute video] 3D Dissection Table Helps Students Explore Rare Medical Cases [Video] Explore the body like never before with high resolution, life-sized medical images that you can cut, uncut, rotate and label. Libby Garrett on June 19, 2013. @libby_garrett The Anatomage Table is the world’s first life-sized 3D interactive virtual dissection table, allowing people to interact with high resolution anatomical models and perform detailed dissections by using a virtual scalpel. The table features an interactive multitouch screen that allows users to turn, grasp and cut life-sized anatomical models and view the organ…

[From Scientific American; there’s much more about Jeremy Bailenson and his work in the July 11, 2013 PBS NewsHour report How Virtual Reality Games Can Impact Society, Encourage Prosperity and an accompanying extended interview] If You Know How a Cow Feels, Will You Eat Less Meat? Inside a lab on the Stanford University campus, students experience what it might feel like to be a cow By Anne C. Mulkern and ClimateWire STANFORD, Calif. — Inside a lab on the Stanford University campus here, students experienced what it might feel like to be a cow. They donned a virtual reality helmet…