[From Salon; much more information, including images and videos, is available at the artists’ Tumblr blog] [Image: Copy of the Eiffel Tower in Tianducheng (2012) (all photographs by Phil Thompson and Sebastian Acker)] What’s the Eiffel Tower doing in China? Two artists attempt to explain the Chinese phenomena of “copy towns,” replica cities popping up across the country By Ryan O’Hanlon Sunday, May 19, 2013 This piece originally appeared on Pacific Standard. Hallstatt, Austria, is in China. So is the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, Christ the Redeemer and a soon-to-be-completed Manhattan. There are others, too, and it’s all part…

[From 3D Focus, where the story includes several additional images and a video] [Image: Immersive Cocoon] “VR can change the world with the right apps” says VR expert May 20, 2013 Sébastien ‘VR Geek’ Kuntz is one of the world’s foremost experts on virtual reality.  A board member of the French national VR association AFRV, Kuntz worked at Virtools / Dassault Systèmes as the lead virtual reality engineer for four years. He founded ‘i’m in VR’ to achieve his goal of providing the most immersive VR experiences to everyone. One of the company’s software tools – MiddleVR, won a Laval…

[From Digital Trends, where the story includes additional images] Playing God: Meet the man who built the most lifelike android ever By Andrew Couts — May 18, 2013 Next month, leaders in the world of robotics, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence will converge on New York City for the second annual Global Future 2045 Congress, an event devoted entirely to the quest toward “neohumanism” – the next evolution of humankind. GF2045 is the brainchild of Russian billionaire Dmitry Itskov, who’s made it his life’s goal to transpose human consciousness into a machine, thus giving us the power of immortality. (Really.) Among…

[From MIT’s Technology Review] Second Life Founder’s New Virtual World Uses Body Tracking Hardware Hardware that tracks your head, eyes and hands will make the follow up to Second Life very different to the pioneering virtual world Tom Simonite May 20, 2013 The founder of once-popular virtual world Second Life, Philip Rosedale, is working on a new 3D digital world that looks like it will be operated using gestures and body-tracking hardware. Rosedale declined to talk about his new company, called High Fidelity, just yet. But videos and other material posted online by the company suggest it is working on…

[From Gamespot, where the story includes an additional image and two videos] VRcade Sets Its Sights on the Next Leap in Immersive Gaming Using the Oculus Rift, VRcade’s engineers are designing what they believe will become the future of virtual entertainment. May 8, 2013 By Peter Brown, Editor The Oculus Rift has single-handedly revived public interest in virtual reality and it represents a tremendous leap forward from the immature head-mounted display tech that was touted so passionately in the ’90s. For developers interested in advancing the field of immersive gaming, it has already proven to be a catalyst of sorts,…

[From The Washington Post, where the story includes a large photo gallery] Mind-controlled prostheses offer hope for disabled By Devin Powell, Published: May 6 The first kick of the 2014 FIFA World Cup may be delivered in Sao Paulo next June by a Brazilian who is paralyzed from the waist down. If all goes according to plan, the teenager will walk onto the field, cock back a foot and swing at the soccer ball, using a mechanical exoskeleton controlled by the teen’s brain. Motorized metal braces tested on monkeys will support and bend the kicker’s legs. The braces will be…

[From ExtremeTech] An elastic touchscreen into which you can literally sink your fingers By James Plafke on April 19, 2013 When touchscreens first became widespread on our mobile devices, the main complaint from touchscreen detractors was that it felt weird to poke at a flat surface rather than tactile buttons. Eventually, most of the mobile phone audience grew to either love or live with the flat touchscreen. Now, with an elastic touchscreen you can pull and poke, a project out of MIT’s Media Lab aims to put tactile sensation back into using your devices.…

[From NBC News, where the story includes additional images] [Image: ARMAR IIIa, designed by the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (KIT), unloads a dishwasher in a recent demonstration in Germany] Dawn of the bot? New era nears, experts say Nidhi Subbaraman NBC News May 13, 2013 Science fiction is quickly taking a back seat to science fact. Just look at a new report by the country’s leading roboticists. By 2030, it says, robots will be everywhere. At the gym, they’ll help you train. In operating rooms, flea-sized robots will zip through your blood vessels to repair tissues. Using voice commands and…

[From VentureBeat, where the story includes additional images] How Google is melding our real and virtual worlds with games, apps … and Glass May 1, 2013 John Koetsier “The world around you is not what it seems,” says Ingress, the virtual game that uses the real world as its gamespace. And, perhaps, when Google’s semi-independent division Niantic Labs is finished with its mission, we humans won’t be, either. Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and usable. Note carefully that Google says nothing about the Internet in that statement. In the last few eye-blinks…

[From Singularity Hub; for more information, see “Bringing back the brainwaves: NeuroGaming 2013 Conference in retrospect” at Neurogadget.com] The Future of Gaming – It May All Be in Your Head Written By: Aaron Frank Posted: 05/12/13 Gaming as a hobby evokes images of lethargic teenagers huddled over their controllers, submerged in their couch surrounded by candy bar wrappers. This image should soon hit the reset button since a more exciting version of gaming is coming. It’s called neurogaming, and it’s riding on the heels of some exponential technologies that are converging on each other. Many of these were on display…

[From CNET] [Image: The arrays use some 8,000 touch-sensitive transistors. Credit: Georgia Institute of Technology] New ‘smart skin’ so sensitive it rivals the real thing Researchers say their experimental arrays sense pressure in the same range as the human fingertip, which could result in better bots and prosthetics. By Elizabeth Armstrong Moore April 26, 2013 Using what they are calling “mechanical agitation,” researchers out of the Georgia Institute of Technology say they’ve developed arrays that can sense touch with the same level of sensitivity as the human fingertip, which could result in better bots and prosthetics.…

[From Penn State] [Image: Game avatar with a backpack. Credit: S. Shyam Sundar, Penn State] Bonding with your virtual self may alter your actual perceptions By Matthew Swayne May 2, 2013 PARIS — When people create and modify their virtual reality avatars, the hardships faced by their alter egos can influence how they perceive virtual environments, according to researchers. A group of students who saw that a backpack was attached to an avatar that they had created overestimated the heights of virtual hills, just as people in real life tend to overestimate heights and distances while carrying extra weight, according…