[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…

[From Businessweek; a 4:06 minute video is available on YouTube;  more information is on the project’s web site] Toyota Robot Booked for First Conversation With Human in Space By Anna Mukai June 26, 2013 Toyota Motor Corp. said a robot it co-developed will have the first human-robot conversation in space as part of a project to make machines that can interact with and assist people living alone. “This is one small step for me, but one giant leap for robots,” the 13-inch-tall humanoid robot named Kirobo said at a briefing in Tokyo after being unveiled to the theme song of…

[From Complex, where the post includes additional images. For more see the project’s blog] Vatican Museums Provides Virtual-Reality Tour of 2,600-Year-Old Tomb (Video) By Justin Ray | Jun 26, 2013 It may be time to make a trip to the Vatican Museums. A pan-European team has created a walk-in, virtual reality tour of the famous Etruscan tomb called the Regolini-Galassi. Although the tomb is not open to the public, for the first time people will be able to experience the tomb via the replica. The Vatican is going futuristic, with the project known as Etruscanning 3D.…

[From The Atlantic] [Image: Brian Moore tests out the VirtuSphere. (Brian Lane Winfield Moore/Flickr)] The Quest for Seamless, High-Quality Virtual Reality One of the greatest challenges for creating a feeling of “presence” has long been physical obstacles such as your sofa. Now, a handful of companies are building devices designed to let you move freely in place. Chris Baraniuk Jun 25 2013 “I put on the head-mounted display and I was very disappointed because all I saw were fat pixels. You know, nothing was interesting,” says Mel Slater, a professor at University College London and a world expert in virtual…

[From The Guardian; see New Scientist for more coverage] Dance and digital projection: Bring on the virtual rhinos It’s disturbing. It’s hallucinatory. And it could be the shape of things to come. Judith Mackrell watches a show that turns dance into a digital dreamscape Judith Mackrell The Guardian, Sunday 23 June 2013 In a converted industrial space on the fringes of Paris’s 13th arrondissement, an assortment of dance, design and technology experts are watching the latest work by the French company Le Théâtre du Corps. What they see is not so much a dance piece as an expensive and beguiling…

[From Digital Energy Journal] Using 3D virtual environments for training UK company Languagelab helped Tengizchevroil staff learn English up to four times faster than with classroom training, by using virtual reality training. Thursday, June 13, 2013 For Kazakhstan oil company Tengizchevroil (TCO), Languagelab created a system that could be used for both health and safety (HSE) and language training. ‘We worked with them to create a bespoke course for their English language needs, and as the engagement that they had from their students was so much higher that any of their previous online solution providers, they chose to offer our…

[From the Cornell Chronicle; much more information, including a video, is available at the links below. Many media stories about this emphasize the robot’s ability to serve beer at the appropriate time; a few note potential applications for telepresence robots] Think ahead: Robots anticipate human actions By Bill Steele Apr. 29, 2013 A robot in Cornell’s Personal Robotics Lab has learned to foresee human action and adjust accordingly. The robot was programmed to refill a person’s cup when it was nearly empty. To do this the robot must plan its movements in advance and then follow the plan. But if…