[From Shelley Palmer’s blog, where there are several more images] glasses.com — A New Online Shopping Experience You Need to See By: Shelly Palmer on 7.14.13 While shopping online is commonplace, the experiences people have while online shopping vary greatly. Forgive me for oversimplifying, but companies that offer goods and services for purchase via connection to the public Internet tend to favor the web or mobile (wap or app). And, they tend to be hardcore commerce or hardcore experiential, but not both and, to be honest… I have rarely seen any electronic shopping environment that literally “turned my head” until…

[From The Mill; watch the 90 second ad on Vimeo; for more on the making of the ad see a 2:43 minute ‘Behind the Scenes’ video on YouTube; for information about the controversy surrounding the ad see the Wall Street Journal’s Scene Asia blog and a 4:50 minute video from The Run List] Johnnie Walker Change the Game (Bruce Lee) Enter the CGI: The Mill helps Johnnie Walker, BBH China and director Joseph Kahn bring martial arts master Bruce Lee back to the screen Johnnie Walker’s latest spot “Change the Game” features a fully CG facial performance from legendary Bruce…

[From TechNewsDaily] ‘Lolita’ chatbot catches online predators Jillian Scharr TechNewsDaily July 13, 2013 Be wary of your online “friends”: Your anonymous chat buddy might be a sexual predator — or an artificially intelligent chatbot designed to trap pedophiles. A new chatbot does just that. Its name is Negobot, but some are calling it “virtual Lolita” after the novel by Vladimir Nabokov because it poses as an emotionally vulnerable teenage girl and tries to trick online predators into giving away information that would help the authorities track down pedophiles.…

[From RedOrbit] People Prefer Robots That Care For You, Not Those That Need Caring For July 9, 2013 Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online As the prospect of robots entering our everyday life becomes more and more of a reality, scientists have become more interested in the relationship between man and machine. A new study published in Computers in Human Behavior looks at the issue from a human’s perspective and asks how a robot’s presentation affects how it is perceived. “For robot designers, this means greater emphasis on role assignments to robots,” said S. Shyam Sundar, co-director of…

[From The University of East Anglia, where the story includes a 0:46 minute video. The article is available here] Out-of-body’ virtual experience could help social anxiety Mon, 24 Jun 2013 New virtual imaging technology could be used as part of therapy to help people get over social anxiety according to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA). Research published today investigated for the first time whether people with social anxiety could benefit from seeing themselves interacting in social situations via video capture. The experiment gave participants the chance to experience social interaction in the safety of a virtual…

[From The Houston Museum of Natural Science; details about the Nautilus Live project are in the press release that follows below] Nautilus Live – Journey to the Ocean Floor From June 21 through November 2013, the 211-foot exploration vessel Nautilus is exploring the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, mapping the geological, biological, archaeological and chemical aspects of these regions to an astonishing depth of approximately 2,000 meters. Join the team in making their discoveries live from the Burke Baker Planetarium, which will connect to the Nautilus to provide live camera feed and crew interaction twice a day via an…

[From Businessweek] Meet the Ava 500, the Roomba’s Corporate Cousin By Brad Stone June 10, 2013 Since the founding of iRobot more than 20 years ago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinout has produced robots that vacuum and mop floors, clean gutters, and patrol war zones. The Bedford (Mass.)-based company has sold more than 9 million home robots and, in the process, has done more than anyone to move the machines out of science fiction and into the real world of affordable devices. Today, iRobot (IRBT) adds another product to its league of extraordinarily practical machines, the Ava 500.…

[From TVNZ, where the story includes the 1:01 minute video mentioned. A 10:25 minute BBC News interview and discussion is available on YouTube, and links to stories about other recent labour simulations can be found at The Huffington Post.] Screaming man lasts just two hours in labour simulator Published: Friday June 28, 2013 Source: ONE News It’s often a sticking point in the battle of the sexes – is the pain of child birth the most agonising experience a person can go through, and could any man actually endure it? Well now one guy has decided to take one for…

[From New Scientist, where the story includes a 0:43 minute video] Learn to shake your new tail as a virtual animal 20 June 2013 by Douglas Heaven Virtual worlds are fun to explore, but what about virtual bodies? It turns out we can quickly learn to control an avatar in the form of an animal if our movements are mapped on to its digital representation.…

[From PopSop] Skype creates “impossible portraits” as part of its new “Stay Together” campaign in the USA Anna Rudenko – July 3, 2013 Skype’s latest campaign, “Stay Together” by Pereira & O’Dell, features emotional stories about U.S. users who share their experiences of staying connected with their loved ones over Skype, across the world. The “Stay Together” videos include three “impossible portrait stories.” In the spots, people who are not with their loved ones at the moment are able to reconnect with them using Skype and pose together for a family portrait in a Skype projected picture. In this virtual…

[From Road to VR, where the story includes additional images and a 0:53 minute video] Exclusive: Sneak Peek and Interview — Wicked Paradise, The World’s First Erotic VR Game (video: NSFW) June 12, 2013 | Posted by Ben Lang Recently I spoke with Jeroen Van den Bosch, CEO and Founder of Wicked Paradise, the world’s first erotic virtual reality game. Bosch updates us on the game’s latest progress and shares some early prototypes of the game’s vision. Notice: portions of this article contain sexually explicit content and is not intended for viewing by anyone under 18 years of age. Jeroen…

[From the Philadelphia Inquirer, where the story includes a photo gallery] Gettysburg reenactment is a campaign in itself With 15,000 participants and 80,000 spectators expected, “I think of it as a historical Woodstock,” an organizer said. Edward Colimore, Inquirer Staff Writer Posted: Sunday, June 30, 2013 The armies are already beginning to arrive, days ahead of the big battle. Tucked away in the rolling Adams County countryside are rows of billowy white tents. Men in blue and in gray march with shouldered muskets. Officers on horseback ride by with sabers jingling at their sides. One hundred and fifty years after…