[From Mashable, where the story includes a 0:55 minute video] Travel Through 2,000 Years of Paris’ History With Interactive 3D Model October 5, 2012 by Zoe Fox If you’re a fan of time travel, exploring cities, history or virtual reality experiences, you’re going to love the latest project from Dassault Systèmes. With the help of historians and archeologists, Dassault has created Paris 3d, an interactive model that transports any Internet user through two millennia of the city’s history. See how the French capital developed since its Roman conquest in 52 BC until the present day. Witness the construction of the…

[From The Miami Student; more information is available in The HIVE: A Huge Immersive Virtual Environment for research in spatial cognition (in press) (pdf).] Students explore virtual reality in HIVE By Samantha Wargolet for The Miami Student Published: Tuesday, October 2, 2012 Participants enter a grocery store full of food with a shopping list in hand, and a timer begins to count down from six minutes. As they walk around the aisles, it is slightly difficult to walk straight, and the items on the shelf are impossible to pick up. These shoppers are not at your local Kroger; they are…

[From VentureBeat] Zugara’s virtual dressing rooms take the X factor out of online shopping September 25, 2012 Rebecca Grant No matter how good a piece of clothing looks online, the reality often falls short. The joy of ripping open a package is destroyed when you discover that a particular shade of teal makes you look seasick or that leopard print jeans are a far better idea in theory. Sometimes, you need to try things on to know if they are right, and this is a frustration shared by web retailers and customers alike. Zugara was granted a patent today for its…

[From The Sydney Morning Herald] Google’s 360-degree tour of endangered reefs September 26, 2012 James Manning, Technology reporter Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has been opened to an audience of more than one billion people worldwide as Google launches a virtual tour of one of the seven natural wonders of the world. Users can log on to Street View on Google Maps and Google Earth and explore high-resolution, 360-degree images of the reef that are being gathered as part of the Catlin Seaview Survey, which documents the health of coral reefs around the world. “The project is as much about the…

[From News-Medical.net] [Image: Rendering of physical environment represented in the AbES software; in gamer mode, the player (yellow icon) navigates through the virtual environment using auditory cues to locate hidden jewels (blue squares) and avoid being caught by chasing monsters (red icons).] ‘Video game’ teaches blind people to navigate buildings Published on September 25, 2012 By Liam Davenport, medwireNews Reporter Blind people can learn the spatial layout of an unfamiliar building using a novel “video game” virtual reality environment that employs only audio-based cues, thus enabling them to learn skills that may improve functional independence, say US and Chilean scientists.…

[From The Times of Malta; more information including a 0:31 minute promotional video is available at http://www.malta5d.com/ and a 5:31 minute video on the making of the 5D film is available on YouTube] Experiencing Malta in virtual reality Kim Dalli Friday, September 28, 2012 A new attraction in Valletta offers an innovative and exciting way to experience the island’s history. Malta 5D combines 3D with new generation 5D cinema effects, allowing the audience full immersion into the world portrayed on screen. The 5D motion chairs have features such as water spray, vibration and leg sweeping while the auditorium has equipment…

[From NBC News] Camera-equipped ‘high dynamic range’ helmet gives you superhuman vision Devin Coldewey September 26, 2012 If you think of high dynamic range imaging, or HDR, you probably think of crazy panoramic cityscapes or lighthouses where everything pops with impossible clarity — imagine seeing the whole world that way. These goggles let you look at everything in real-time 3-D HDR — and it’s more useful than you might think.…

[From Wolters Kluwer Health; short demonstration videos can be found on YouTube here and here] Virtual Reality Simulator Helps Teach Surgery for Brain Cancer, Reports Neurosurgery ‘NeuroTouch’ System Provides 3-D Graphics and Tactile Feedback During Simulated Brain Surgery  Philadelphia, Pa. (September 20, 2012) – A new virtual reality simulator—including sophisticated 3-D graphics and tactile feedback—provides neurosurgery trainees with valuable opportunities to practice essential skills and techniques for brain cancer surgery, according to a paper in the September issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of…

[From PC World, where the story includes additional pictures] Virtual reality: More virtual than real By Julie Sartain, NetworkWorld Sep 24, 2012 Remember virtual reality? The idea that science could create a virtual world of sight, sound, smell and touch was hot two decades ago, then completely fizzled out. “VR made a huge splash in the 90s, but collapsed into near obscurity a few years later. The term VR even became a dirty word for some time, giving way to the less-hyped term immersion,” says Paul Mlyniec, president of California-based Digital ArtForms. “There’s not much new happening in virtual reality,”…

[From The University of Bristol] Virtual reality cow simulator goes global Press release issued 24 September 2012 A virtual reality cow, invented by a University of Bristol graduate, will soon be used to educate future vets around the world. Professor Sarah Baillie (BVSc 1986 and BSc 1984), who has recently returned to the University as Chair in Veterinary Education at the School of Veterinary Sciences, combined her veterinary knowledge with computer science to create the Haptic Cow while studying for a PhD at Glasgow University. The revolutionary Haptic Cow allows students to carry out virtual examinations of the cow using…

[From Kotaku] I’ve Seen the Future of Virtual Reality, and It Is Terrifying Toshi Nakamura Sep 21, 2012 Experience the big-screen in private. That’s the sales pitch for head-mounted displays. One would think that the only real areas for technological advancement would be in the screen resolution and the actual weight of the device. Introducing the Prototype-SR (Substitutional Reality), a new take on the head-mounted display. Based on Sony’s HMZ personal 3D viewer head-mounted display, the Prototype-SR mixes real-time video with prerecorded video to create what Sony hopes is a unique new entertainment experience. The Prototype-SR is currently on display…

[From AP via The Huffington Post; a related 1:07 minute video is available on YouTube] In ‘Kinect Sesame Street TV’ On Xbox, The TV Talks Back To Kids AP  |  By Barbara Ortutay Posted: 09/18/2012 NEW YORK (AP) — Elmo, Big Bird and the rest of the “Sesame Street” crew have always talked to kids. Now, they’ll try to have a two-way conversation with their pint-sized audience using Kinect, the motion and voice-sensing controller created by Microsoft. “Kinect Sesame Street TV,” out Tuesday, is not exactly a video game, though it runs on the Xbox 360 video game system.…