[From The Jerusalem Post] Israelis, Iranians meet to ‘share love’ on Facebook Few Iranians make it past the censors in the unique people-to-people dialogue forum By Niv Elis 03/26/2012 Israelis may not be allowed to travel to Iran in person, but virtual reality may be the next best thing. In the most recent grassroots attempt to build civil society ties between the two peoples, Israelis and Iranians met Monday in a Facebook forum dubbed “ISRAEL ? IRAN PEACE & LOVE World gathering.” Having created an online sensation with their online forum called “Israel-Loves-Iran” in recent weeks, 41-year-old Ronny Edri and…

[From PetaPixel; more information, including a 23 minute video, is available at The Next Web] Virtual Photo Walks Make Photography Accessible to People with Disabilities Jessica Lum -·Mar 05, 2012 The last time C. Corey Fisk walked was in 1992. She has multiple sclerosis, an incurable disease that affects the central nervous system and gradually took her ability to walk and leave her bed. But early February, she went on a photo walk with photographer John Butterill in the woods behind his house in Ontario, Canada — all from her own home in northern California. The two met only virtually…

[From the MIT Technology Review Guest blog, where the post includes a 2:29 minute video; more information is available from The New York Times’ Bits blog; see also “The real Google Glasses” post on Kotke.org here] An Expert’s View on Google’s Goggles Mark Changizi, a neurobiologist and the author of The Vision Revolution, discusses Google’s augmented-reality glasses. John Pavlus 04/06/2012 Project Glass, the latest sci-fi concept to come out of Google’s X Lab, has gotten a lot of attention online in the past 24 hours thanks to a clever demo video that shows a user donning a pair of augmented-reality…

[From the web site of Amidio] Introducing FUTULELE, the Ukulele for iPad and iPhone Mar 12, 2012 By: Toyo FUTULELE is an upcoming Ukulele synthesizer for iOS. Although it can work on a single iPad, similar to our well-known guitar synth OMGuitar, Futulele really shines with a special guitar-shaped case that holds both an iPad and an iPhone, which are connected to each other via Bluetooth. We have managed to reduce the chord switch lag to a minimum level and capture every little nuance of a high-grade professional Ukulele instrument. You can use up to 12 chords for each song,…

[From DigInfo TV, where the story includes additional images and a 1:43 minute video] Videoconferencing system that shows who’s talking to whom, being developed by NTT 3 April 2012 MM-Space, being developed by a lab at NTT, is a system designed to make users of video conferencing systems involving several people feel as if they are talking to each other in the same room. This system records the faces and voices of users from the spaces where they’re talking, and transmits them to spaces where the conversation is recreated. A recreation space has several projectors, see-through screens, actuators, and speakers,…

[From MIT’s Technology Review, where the story includes an audio version] [Image: Flutter lets you play or pause music in iTunes or Spotify by holding up an open palm.] Hold Your Hand Up to Play Some Music Via an ordinary webcam, a startup puts simple gestural control in the palm of your hand. Tuesday, April 3, 2012 By Rachel Metz When Navneet Dalal listens to music on his computer, he doesn’t want any keyboard taps or mouse-button clicks to interrupt the experience. He’d rather just hold up an open palm to play or pause the tunes. Dalal is cofounder of…

[From MedCity News, where the story includes a 2:10 minute video] Welcome to the Matrix: Using virtual reality to develop global clinical trials 3.26.12 | Stephanie Baum In a bid to address the reality of global clinical trials among life science companies, one business has developed software to facilitate business collaboration meetings taking place between multiple parties in different locations and continents using … wait for it: avatars. Ron Burns, the CEO of ProtonMedia, said its ProtoSphere world logically addresses the challenge of simultaneous global communication. Burns told MedCity News: “Our companies relate to the room environment the most.…

[From The Huffington Post, where the story includes more images] [Image: One of the winners of the Shapeway contest, this amazing design, courtesy of SaGa Design, is essentially an iPhone casing that forces you to interact with the usually intangible Siri.] Shapeways Siri Contest: iPhone 4S Virtual Assistant Brought To Life Through Design (PICTURES) The Huffington Post  Courteney Palis  Posted: 02/29/2012 Ever since the iPhone 4S was released back in October, the device’s voice-controlled virtual assistant app has captured the attention of users and non-users alike. By now, we’ve grown accustomed to Siri and her pleasant monotone, always at our…

[From TechWeekEurope; the 3D Focus article includes detailed information] Glasses-Free 3D Teleconference Links UK And Russia Telepresence just got more immersive…. On March 26, 2012 by Max Smolaks A 3D teleconference that didn’t need the participants to wear special glasses linked London and Russia yesterday, in the first experiment of this kind in the world. It was possible due to a host of inventions by Russian company Triaxes Vision, based in the Siberian city of Tomsk. During the experiment, the guests of the 3D Storytelling conference, a broadcast and gaming industry event held in London, could see and talk to…

[From CNBC] [Image: Eon Reality’s virtual reality product, the Eon iCube.] Virtual Reality Technology Comes of Age Published: Tuesday, 27 Mar 2012 By: Joan Voight, Special to CNBC.com Scuba diving among the sharks along Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is a breathtakingly immersive experience. It’s also dangerous and expensive. But exploring a virtual ocean and coming nose to nose with a real-looking shark is a viable alternative. That, in a nutshell, has been the promise of virtual reality over the years — it could put us in an artificial environment that feels entirely real, without getting our feet wet. Movies like…

[From PhysOrg.com, where the story includes an additional image] [Image: The Naval Research Laboratory’s Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot (SAFFiR) is a humanoid-type robot being designed for shipboard firefighting. Credit: U.S. Naval Research Laboratory] NRL designs robot for shipboard firefighting March 8, 2012 By Donna McKinney (PhysOrg.com) — In both war and peacetime scenarios, fire in the shipboard environment is serious and frequently results in excessive damage and high repair costs because the fire is not detected or controlled adequately. To help further improve future shipboard firefighting capability, scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory have formed an interdisciplinary team to develop…

[From Mashable] With Augmented Reality, Wallit App Assigns Virtual Walls to Physical Places March 06, 2012 by Sam Laird “People have wanted to leave their mark since the beginning of humanity,” says Veysel Berk, creator of the mobile app Wallit. “Now they are going to be able to do that digitally using their smartphones.” Released Tuesday for iPhone and iTouch, Wallit is hailed by Berk as the world’s first “social augmented reality app.” Like Facebook, it enables you to interact with your friends. Like Twitter, it only lets you write in short 140-character bursts. Like Foursquare, its digital benefits are…