[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…

[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…