[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…

[From Billboard] LessThan3’s Virtual Event Platform to Beam Ultra Music Festival Around the World By Kerri Mason | February 15, 2013 Ultra Music Festival unveiled its Phase 3 lineup this morning, adding fan favorites like Arty and Tommie Sunshine to an already impressive roster of artists, from EDM and beyond. The festival will take place in Miami over two weekends, March 15-17 and 22-24. Also part of this morning’s press release was the introduction of a new element to the UMF experience; one for fans who can’t make it to South Florida this March. The festival announced that its website…

[From AP via The Huffington Post, where the story includes more images] Robot Replaces Student At Winchester Elementary School, Allows Devon Carrow To Attend Remotely (PHOTOS) By Carolyn Thompson 02/15/13 WEST SENECA, N.Y. — In an elementary school hallway, a teacher takes her second-graders to the library, leading a single-file line of giggling boys and girls that’s perfectly ordinary until you get to a sleek white robot with a video screen showing the face of a smiling, chubby-cheeked boy. Devon Carrow’s life-threatening allergies don’t allow him to go to school. But the 4-foot-tall robot with a wireless video hookup gives…

[From The Telegraph; more information including videos and the article in Nature are available on the web site for Dr. Nicolelis’s lab] [Image: One of Duke University’s infrared detector-equipped test subjects] Scientists create ‘sixth sense’ brain implant to detect infrared light A brain implant which could allow humans to detect invisible infrared light has been developed by scientists in America. By Nick Collins 17 Feb 2013 Scientists have created a “sixth sense” by creating a brain implant through which infrared light can be detected. Although the light could not be seen lab rats were able to detect it via electrodes…

[From Gizmag, where the story includes many additional images] [Image: With the lightweight components, wearing the Oculus VR headset is no less cumbersome than any ordinary pair of goggles] Eyes-on with the Oculus Rift’s jaw-dropping virtual reality system By Jonathan Fincher February 14, 2013 The Oculus Rift VR system has been steadily gaining more attention in the past several months, thanks to glowing endorsements from some major figures in the the video game industry and a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign that brought in almost US$2.5 million. We’ve been following the development of the Oculus Rift for some time now, so…

[From Gizmodo UK (formerly via Humans Invent), “in partnership with Sharp”] [Image: It’s possible with the software to predict the audience at adapt content to suit.] Tailored advertising that stops you in your tracks By Leo Kent 11th February 2013 As we become ever numb to traditional forms of advertising it is growing increasingly important for companies to incorporate new technology into their campaigns to excite and captivate their intended audience. At the ISE trade show in Amsterdam this month, Sharp unveiled a rather clever new device that makes advertising a more personalized experience and it is something that businesses…

[From Retail Digital] Retail Technology Tesco goes the virtual reality way in UK Partners with Red Dot Square 3 Feb 2013 Shukti Sarma Supermarket Tesco is to use virtual reality technology to plan how their category ranges appear on shelves. With the new approach Tesco will no longer require physical product specimens from each of their supplier manufacturers. This will cut the planning process enabling significant time savings for their colleagues and suppliers. Tesco is the first UK retailer to integrate the technology of virtual reality company Red Dot Square into their existing systems and ways of working. They will…

[From The Bangor Daily News, where the story includes additional captioned images and a short video] [Image: Senior mechanical engineering student, Tim McGrath puts on a virtual reality headset in the Virtual Environment and Multimodal Interaction Laboratory at the University of Maine on Friday, Feb. 8, 2013. Brian Feulner | BDN] UMaine researchers working to shape the future of virtual sight By Nick McCrea, BDN Staff Posted Feb. 08, 2013 ORONO, Maine — Boardman Hall at the University of Maine is engulfed in flames. Fire alarms blare in the background and thick, disorienting smoke impairs your vision. But with the…

[From ExtremeTech] Augmented reality robot provides physical sensations from virtual characters By James Plafke on February 11, 2013 One of the most common tropes in science fiction is the ability to apply the image of a person over the frame of a robot, thus creating a visually identical copy of a human. Now, as Japanese startup Different Dimension Inc. (DDI) gears up to market a life-sized augmented reality robot, the world is one step closer to creating visual human doppelgangers. In recent science fiction, such as Minority Report or the “I Dated a Robot” episode of Futurama, fictional technology is…

[From Singularity Hub] Recording Your Life, Allowing Others To View It As Virtual Reality World: Lifelogging Written By: Peter Murray Posted: 02/10/13 It’s called Bad Trip, and it certainly feels like one. Alan Kwan has been recording every moment of his life since November 2011 and he faces the same problem that other lifeloggers do: what to do with all that video footage? Needing a way to organize the rapidly accumulating footage and to provide a way for he and others to easily navigate the data, Kwan has made a game of it. “Bad Trip” is an immersive virtual reality…

[From CSIRO; follow the link at the end for more information, including an interactive preview] Telepresence robot for museums With support from the Department of Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy we’re creating a mobile tele-presence robot to help virtually connect school kids and visitors in regional areas with our Australian to the National Museum of Australia. 25 January 2013 The challenge For many, a visit to a museum is an eye-opener, especially those institutions that offer hands-on interactive exhibits. But for even more people living in regional communities, museums are not hands-on; they are not even accessible, because of distance…

[From ChemViews Magazine] [Image: The pen of the haptic device translates quantum calculations into force feedback to ‘feel’ what’s going on in a reaction.  © Wiley-VCH] Feel Your Molecule’s Reactions DOI: 10.1002/chemv.201300006Author: Vera Köster Published Date: 17 January 2013 Source / Publisher: International Journal of Quantum Chemistry/Wiley Periodicals Copyright: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim Learning by Touch The human being learns best by haptic sensing. This means by touching something and feeling its size, contour, surface texture, weight, etc. Small children start to explore their surrounding like this. Experiencing chemical reactions in this way would bring enormous advantages.…