[From The Orange County Register, where the story includes many additional images] Imagineers plan Cars Land with virtual reality By Ian Hamilton / The Orange County Register Updated: June 16, 2012 Almost 60 miles from Disneyland in Anaheim, I’m standing in the middle of Cars Land, the 12-acre addition to the Disneyland Resort in California Adventure that is the largest expansion to the resort in its history except for California Adventure. In front of me, blue skies and wispy white clouds float behind the vaguely automobile-inspired mountains of Radiator Springs, the town from Pixar’s “Cars” film. I can’t see them,…

[From DVICE; another story on this follows below] Immersive iPad app puts you in the middle of any video By Adario Strange June 14, 2012 In years past we have been dazzled by the experience of virtual reality, and in recent years augmented reality has offered the promise of digitally enhanced meatspace. But a new twist offers an immersive experience that might be called sublimated reality. Condition One has created an embeddable immersive video player that allows you to experience previously recorded video as though you are there as the video is happening. In some ways it brings to mind…

[From BLDG BLOG] O.P. Tree Posted Sunday, June 03, 2012 The “O.P. Tree” was an Observation Post Tree deployed during World War I. Its “goal,” as author Hanna Rose Shell explains in Hide and Seek, her newly published history of the relationship between camouflage and photography, “was to craft a mimetic representation of a tree—and not just any tree, but a particular tree at a specific site” on the European battlefield. The design, fabrication, and, perhaps most interestingly, installation of this artificial plant form had a fascinating and somewhat Truman Show-esque quality:…

[From The University of Canterbury’s Psychology Department; more information and a 2:44 minute video are available from Stuff] UC designs virtual quake simulator 31 May 2012 Researchers are creating an earthquake simulator at the University of Canterbury to investigate ways to help Cantabrians overcome post-traumatic stress disorders caused by ongoing seismic activity. UC’s Human Interface Technology Laboratory New Zealand (HIT Lab NZ) is constructing a virtual reality simulator that includes a platform fitted with bass shakers to recreate a virtual earthquake.…

[From Technology Review’s Physics arXiv blog] The Future of Medical Visualisation Medicine has been revolutionised by 3D imaging techniques. But you ain’t seen nothing yet, say data imaging researchers KFC 06/08/2012 Medical visualisation is the use of computers to create 3D images from medical imaging data sets. It’s a relatively young field of science, relying heavily on advances in computing for its horsepower. Despite its youth, these techniques have revolutionised medicine. Much of modern medicine relies on the 3D imaging that is possible with magnetic resonance imaging scanners and computed tomography (CT) scanners, which make 3D images out of 2D…

[From PC Gamer, where the story includes the complete three part video] John Carmack is making a virtual reality headset, $500 kits available soon, video interview inside Graham Smith June 6 2012 John Carmack has been building a virtual reality headset in his spare time. He’s showing it to people behind closed doors at this year’s E3, tucked away inside the Bethesda booth, and described it as “probably the best VR demo the world has ever seen.” Our video hero, David Boddington, was the 30th person in the world to use it. Check [here] for a 20 minute video with…

[From InformationWeek Healthcare; for more see ZDNet’s Health blog] The Doctor Will See You In Walmart Retailer rolls out telemedicine services that give shoppers access to doctors through videoconferencing technology. By Nicole Lewis, InformationWeek June 05, 2012 It’s the weekend and you’ve gotten a nasty cold with a high temperature and need to see a doctor, but you also need to buy milk, eggs, and bread. Walmart’s telemedicine services now give new meaning to the term “one-stop shopping.” A statement outlining the Arkansas retail giant’s use of telehealth technology indicates that Walmart has engaged BCS Global Networks to provide videoconferencing…

[From The Christian Science Monitor’s chapter & verse blog; short videos are available here and here] Harry Potter ‘Book of Spells’ will come to life via Sony J.K. Rowling’s ‘Book of Spells’ will allow players to wave wands and cast spells using Wonderbook technology. By Husna Haq / June 5, 2012 It’s being called the reinvention of the storybook. At a Monday announcement at the annual video game conference known as the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, Sony Entertainment of America announced J.K. Rowling’s “Wonderbook: Book of Spells,” an interactive spell book that comes alive on PlayStation 3 videogame…

[From Discovery News, where the story includes a 1:40 minute video] [Image: The goggles trick the senses, making a cookie appear bigger, for example] ‘Diet Glasses’ Fool Wearers Into Eating Less Augmented reality goggles trick eaters into feeling more satisfied with their meals. Jun 4, 2012 Content provided by Miwa Suzuki, AFP Goggles that trick the wearer into thinking the plain snack in their hand is a chocolate cookie, or make biscuits appear larger have been unveiled in Japan, offering hope to weak-willed dieters everywhere. Researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed devices that use computer wizardry and augmented…

[From Advertising Age’s The Media Guy blog] Instagram Is OK, But Photoshop Is Evil? The Truth About Digital Lies Photoshop Gets Bashed For Digitally Altering Reality. So How Come Instagram Gets a Pass? By: Simon Dumenco Published: May 28, 2012 When Facebook bought Instagram last month, pretty much all the media coverage focused primarily on a single narrative thread: how a tiny startup with just 13 employees and no revenue came to be worth $1 billion. That, of course, is an astonishing business story, but in obsessing about the economics of Instagram, its aesthetics — the real reason why it’s…

[From The Sydney Morning Herald’s Smoke & Mirrors blog] [Image: The walls of Sydney’s Town Hall Station resembled a Woolworth’s supermarket shelf in Australia’s first virtual supermarket. Photo: Getty Images] Virtual reality at a tipping point By George Wright June 4, 2012 Technology is only going to get more immersive and consume a bigger percentage of our attention. Take Ready Player One, a book by Ernest Cline. This work of fiction describes a near future where our over populated and environmentally damaged planet sees society flee their daily struggles to interact in a massively multiplayer world. When the eccentric Jobs/Zuckerberg-esque…

[From Matthew Lombard] During the spring 2012 semester that just ended, I taught a Temple University course titled Psychological Processing of Media. The course, for undergraduate and masters level students, emphasized telepresence research and theory; the syllabus is here. One of the optional assignments was  “Telepresence Creativity” with the only instructions to “[c]reate a high quality graphic or video on the theme of presence and telepresence; see instructor with ideas and questions.” Below are links to the work produced by students in the class. Do you teach or know of a course that covers telepresence? If so, please email me…