[From Fast Company’s Co.Design, where the story includes additional images and reader comments] Why The Human Body Will Be The Next Computer Interface Fjord charts the major innovations of the past, and predicts a future of totally intuitive “micro gestures and expressions” that will control our devices. By Andy Goodman and Marco Righetto (of Fjord) March 5, 2013 By now you’ve probably heard a lot about wearables, living services, the Internet of Things, and smart materials. As designers working in these realms, we’ve begun to think about even weirder and wilder things, envisioning a future where evolved technology is embedded…

[From Mashable] [Image: Taylan Kay] ‘Auti-Sim’ Game Simulates Life With Childhood Autism Camille Bautista  – March 7, 2013 In a playground filled with gleeful shouts, you approach a group of children. Suddenly, your vision turns blurry and pixelated. The echoing screams become raucous. It’s the experience of sensory overload, according to a new game called Auti-Sim. The simulation, created by a three-member team at the Vancouver Hacking Health hackathon, aims to raise awareness of the challenges of hypersensitivity disorder and help people understand how it can lead to isolation. The closer you get to loud and active children, the more…

[From Virtually Real opinion column by Kat Smith in The Daily Orange, the independent campus newspaper of Syracuse University] Smith: Development of virtual storytelling, audience immersion in news content controversial Published March 7, 2013 By Kat Smith Part of a journalist’s role in society is to bring the audience into the story. Immersive journalism uses gaming platforms and virtual reality to take this idea to the next level and puts users inside a re-construction of events. Nonny de la Peña, manager of the University of Southern California MxR lab, presented this technology in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium on March 4.…

[From Duke Health; a 12:41 minute video is available on YouTube; the article is available from Scientific Reports] Brain-to-brain interface allows transmission of tactile and motor information between rats By Duke Medicine News and Communications Published: Feb. 28, 2013 DURHAM, N.C. — Researchers have electronically linked the brains of pairs of rats for the first time, enabling them to communicate directly to solve simple behavioral puzzles. A further test of this work successfully linked the brains of two animals thousands of miles apart—one in Durham, N.C., and one in Natal, Brazil. The results of these projects suggest the future potential…

[From The Wrap] Hollywood to the FAA: Let Us Use Drones! (Exclusive) Published: February 05, 2013 By Ira Teinowitz Look, up in the sky. It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s … If the Motion Picture Association of America has its way, it soon could be a camera-equipped pilotless drone shooting the overhead chase scenes for Hollywood’s action thrillers. The MPAA is pushing the Federal Aviation Administration to allow the use of what have been called “drones” — but in the movie business are far more likely the size of model planes and model helicopters than anything like what the…

[From TechCrunch, where the story includes a 5:33 minute video] Squeeze Virtual Reality With The Upverter + YC Hardware Hackathon-Winning Cyborg Glove [Video] Josh Constine Tuesday, February 26th, 2013 What if you could actually grasp the sword you pick up in a video game, or if surgeons could feel their robots hit bone? That’s the promise of the Tactilous glove, which won this weekend’s Upverter + Y Combinator Hardware Hackathon. Watch as we demo the Frankenstein-meets-Nintendo contraption that lets you touch objects in virtual reality.…

[From The Daily Mail; see the video interview at CNN International; a related interview excerpt from 2012 follows] Sensors that can understand your facial expressions and ‘virtual reality’ screens: Google’s Android boss reveals the phone of the future Matias Duarte said making world more ‘tangible’ is next step Team also working on Google’s Glass wearable computer Computers must work ‘as people expect not the other way round’ By Steve Robson Published: 25 February 2013 | Updated: 26 February 2013 The mobile phones of the future will recognise our faces and hands and create a world that is like virtual reality.…

[From The Iowa State Daily, where the story includes additional images] [Image: Joe Holub, graduate student in electrical and computer engineering, crouches down behind a barricade while participating in the virtual reality MIRAGE simulator on Feb. 20.] MIRAGE virtual system gets whole body involved in lab By Emily Drees Posted Feb 27, 2013; Updated Feb 28, 2013 The Mixed Reality Adaptive Generalizable Environment room, commonly known as the Mirage room, is essentially a research lab that gets the whole human body involved on a physical level, but is enhanced with virtual reality. The Mirage room, which is located in Black…

[From Time] [Image: Harry McCracken / TIME.com] Wharton and Cisco Show Off the Telepresence Classroom of Tomorrow By Harry McCracken Feb. 25, 2013 As I write this, I’m watching a presentation in a classroom of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Management. Nothing remarkable about that — except that the gent doing the presenting is in Philadelphia, and I’m at the school’s San Francisco branch. That’s the whole point of the presentation, though. The event in question is a demo of a joint project between Wharton and Cisco to use Cisco’s telepresence technology to make long-distance learning feel more…

[From The Financial Post, where the story includes additional images] [Image: Salia and Wesley Crusher view a holographic reproduction of an unnamed planetoid on the holodeck in 2365. Handout/Paramount Pictures] Star Trek-like holodeck may be closer to reality than you think Matt Hartley | Feb 20, 2013 TORONTO • On board Star Trek’s USS Enterprise, there was a room where Lt. Commander Data could experience the world of Sherlock Holmes, Lt. Worf enjoyed cowboy adventures with his son and Captain Jean-Luc Picard relaxed while roleplaying as private detective Dixon Hill. The holodeck. Perhaps no other piece of fictional technology from the…

[From Mashable via CNN; see also The Verge article “I used Google Glass: The future, but with monthly updates: Up close and personal with Google’s visionary new computer” by Joshua Topolsky] How it will feel to wear Google Glass By Pete Pachal, Mashable Thu February 21, 2013 (CNN) — What would it be like to wear Google Glass? Google answered that very question Wednesday morning, posting a lot more information about Project Glass, including the user interface, through a series of photos and videos. You can see the UI and some of the features of Glass here, although the images…

[From Yahoo!7, where the story includes a 1:24 minute video; much more information, including a press release, a video and more images, is available here] Virtual Sydney tour to attract tourists Damien Smith, 7News Sydney Updated February 20, 2013 FIRST ON 7: Sydney has a powerful new tool to attract tourists and their dollars. Before coming here, potential travellers can now have virtual visits, putting themselves in the picture by going online to experience our Harbour city with 360 degree views. Anyone, no matter where they are in the world, can see our sights over the internet as if they…