[From VentureBeat] TourWrist’s 360-degree panoramas add another dimension April 18, 2012 Heather Kelly Remember virtual reality tours, those 360-degree panoramic photos you could navigate with your mouse? They were hot for a while, popping up on every real estate agent and hotel site, but the low quality and jerky navigation made them feel antiquated and oh-so Web 1.0. TourWrist began reviving the art form last year by taking it mobile and adding a slick user interface. Now the company is taking the images further with an update to its iPhone and iPad app, new APIs and SDKs, and neat interactivity features,…

[From The Guardian’s GrrlScientist blog; watch the 8:32 minute video in HD on YouTube] Riding the Booster Riding a solid rocket booster up and then down again during a launch of the space shuttle Tuesday 10 April 2012 Here’s a fun little video from NASA: an HD video that shows a stunning view from a solid rocket booster attached to the space shuttle, pushing it up into orbit, and then not attached to the space shuttle, whilst the booster is plunging back to Earth.…

[From The Wall Street Journal, where the story includes more images and multiple videos] Rapper’s De-Light: Tupac ‘Hologram’ May Go on Tour By Ethan Smith April 16, 2012 The biggest buzz at Sunday’s Coachella music festival in California wasn’t for a hot new DJ or indie-rock band. It was for Tupac Shakur, the rapper who died more than 15 years ago and “performed” Sunday night alongside Snoop Dogg and producer Dr. Dre. Internet video of the Sunday evening show became an instant sensation on Monday morning. That response is helping push the possibility of a virtual Tupac tour in coming…

[From io9] Ray Bradbury on how Disneyland humanized robots By Lauren Davis Apr 15, 2012 Ray Bradbury is a self-professed “Disney nut” and, in 1965, found himself dismayed by an article in the Nation decrying Disneyland as vulgar entertainment. In response, he penned a love letter to Disneyland, defending Walt Disney as a man on the cutting edge of making robots seem human. Bradbury wrote this piece, “The Machine-Tooled Happyland,” for the October 1965 issue of Holiday magazine. It’s a defense of Disneyland, which Bradbury admits he hesitated to visit because it struck him as anti-intellectual. He recalls a fond…

[From The Hollywood Reporter; the original story about the reasons for the censorship appeared in Offbeat China; in a related story in The Telegraph, Twitter users ‘thought Titanic disaster was just a film plot’] Chinese ‘Titanic’ Fans Balk at Cuts to Rerelease UPDATED: Government regulators edit out nude scenes, but the film is expected to surpass the 2D version’s box-office performance. 4/12/2012 by Patrick Brzeski Chinese moviegoers turned up en masse for the debut of Titanic 3D on Tuesday, netting 20th Century Fox International $11.6 million, the second-highest opening-day take ever in the country. The original Titanic earned $44 million…

[From DigInfo TV, where the story includes a 2:13 minute video] Robot Hand Communicates Grip Force, Body Temperature and Touch 27 March 2012 A research group at Osaka University is developing a robot hand for tele-handshaking. It communicates a person’s grip force, body temperature, and touch. “In ordinary video-conferencing systems, it’s difficult even to see life-sized pictures of other people. But by attaching this robot hand, you can shake hands with people at a distance. Shaking hands like this gives a greater sense of other people’s presence than you get with regular video-conferencing systems.”…

[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…