[From The New York Times’ Bits blog] IMAX Chief Envisions the Future of 3-D in Theaters By Nick Bolton January 25, 2012 DAVOS, Switzerland — For the IMAX Corporation, the future is brighter, larger and in 3-D. The company is developing prototypes of new laser technologies that will allow for drastically larger and brighter screens by 2013. “We have purchased the rights to parts of 10,000 patents from Kodak that will throw much more light on screens than you see today,” said Richard L. Gelfond, IMAX’s chief executive, in an interview at Documented@Davos, an event held by Scribd and Mashable.…

[A press release from Virtalis] Virtalis Supplies Advanced Visualisation for Nuclear AMRC Virtalis has designed and installed two Virtual Reality (VR) systems for the new Nuclear AMRC at Sheffield. The Nuclear AMRC was set up to support the nuclear supply chain for the new generation of nuclear reactors. It aims to put UK industry at the forefront of nuclear technology, both nationally and internationally. Rab Scott, Head of Virtual Reality and Simulation at the Nuclear AMRC, explained: “The visualisation capability Virtalis has delivered will make our technology more accessible than ever before. This is because what makes the nuclear sector…

[From ExtremeTech; more information is available from Taylor Veltrop’s web site] Remotely pat your pet with Kinect and a Wiimote By Sebastian Anthony on January 3, 2012 Taylor Veltrop, an enterprising roboticist with a fondness for felines, has crafted the mother of all Kinect (and Wiimote!) hacks: The teleoperation of a robot to groom a cat. As always with these hacks, you should […] watch the [4:25] video, then come back […] to find out how it works.…

[From io9] Robot and Frank is the next great science fiction indie By Jordan Hoffman Jan 23, 2012 In the movies, technology is usually represented one of two ways: a hallelujah-worthy miracle or a soul-deadening trespass on the natural order of things. Robot and Frank, a film receiving near-unanimous praise at the Sundance Film Festival, is smart enough to know better. Technology, like everything in life, isn’t black and white, and is only as good or bad as the people who interact with it. Okay, so here’s the pitch: Frank Langella and a robot crack safes. You’d be forgiven for…

[From The Los Angeles Times] [Image: A SoftKinetic application called Guru Training Systems is shown at the Consumer Electronics Show last week in Las Vegas. (Myung J. Chun, Los Angeles Times)] New gesture, voice technology may make remote controls obsolete Systems that enable consumers to control TVs, smartphones, tablets and home appliances by waving a hand or saying a word are eliminating the need for clunky pointing devices. January 20, 2012|By David Sarno, Los Angeles Times The remote control has never been much beloved. If it’s not getting lost or running out of batteries, the device — and its inscrutable…

[From Discovery] [Image: Toyohashi University of Technology assistant professor Dzmitry Tsetserukou guides the NAVIgoid telepresence robot system.] Human Gets Immersed In Remote Robot’s Actions These kinds of robots could represent us in faraway places, letting us interact with friends, family and coworkers as if we were there. By Alyssa Danigelis Dec 28, 2011 What if you could be in two places at once? Or four? A group of Japanese roboticists envisions a world where we all use robots to visit friends and family, and represent us in distant work sites. They are developing a telepresence robot they think will give…

[From DVICE, where the story includes additional images and a video] Contact lenses upgrade your eyes to enable true immersive VR By Evan Ackerman Jan 17, 2012 Our eyes are just not built for the future. It sucks, but it’s true. We can’t physically focus on things that are very close to us, which is why we’re not all rocking high-resolution immersive virtual reality displays built into our eyeglasses. How do we fix this problem? Simple: we upgrade our eyeballs. We’ve posted about head-mounted VR displays a lot around here, but there’s always a compromise going on: you can have…

[From Wired magazine’s Danger Zone blog] [Image: U.S. Department of Defense] Army’s Virtual Reality Plan: A Digital Doppelganger for Every Soldier By Katie Drummond January 18, 2012 The Army wants soldiers of the future to be all they can be — onscreen and off. As the military’s enthusiasm for virtual reality training continues to grow, the Army’s got a new plan to make the programs freakily immersive: National Defense magazine is reporting that the Army wants to give every soldier a digital doppelganger — a custom avatar they can use throughout their stints in the military, and in myriad virtual…

[From Gizmag] BodyWave lets you control a PC with your mind – without a headset By Kent Sutherland January 16, 2012 A bio-feedback armband called BodyWave is the first of its kind to measure brainwave activity through the body, not the scalp. Instead of an EEG headset recording a user’s concentration level, the Bodywave reads brainwaves at the arm by measuring the electric current given off by neurons firing in the brain. Bundled with an interactive software package called Play Attention, it reportedly enables interactive feedback and training towards peak mental performance. Apart from the obvious potential in sport, its…

[From Wired] Marco Tempest makes open-source magic for the 21st century By Charlie Burton 03 January 12 Magic tricks depend on secrecy. So it might seem counterintuitive that Marco Tempest — a Swiss-born magician living in New York — has gone open-source. He reveals his methods, talks to his audiences online and asks for feedback. “If someone has a good idea, I put it in my show and give credit,” says Tempest, 46. His illusions embrace screens, augmented reality, robotics and software (which he makes available to download for free), and familiar magic props. In his “magic projection” trick (pictured),…

[From Adorama; more information is available at the Tamaggo web site and in another press release here] Tamaggo 360 Creates Immersive Images It looks like an egg. It costs under $200. And it turns any scene into a 360-degree virtual reality with minimal effort. PMA@CES News By Adorama News Writer January 12, 2012 Creating a 360-degree image usually requires setting up your camera on a specialized tripod and using software and lots of time,  effort and expense. The Tamaggo 360 is claimed to be the first picture-taking device to easily create an “immersive imaging event”. It has a fully-integrated, built-in…

[From Gizmodo; more details follows in a second item below] Sharp’s 8k TV Is Like Standing in the Presence of a Wrathful God By Sam Biddle Jan 11, 2012 Sharp’s lineup of TVs has been pretty lackluster so far. Oh! Except for this 85-inch 8k television, which is made up over 33 million pixels that look so shockingly good I actually felt ill. The 8k set is a prototype, but the technology is real. Really, really real—and 16 times the resolution of 1080p. Which already looks fab. I’ve simply never looked at a thing like this before. What’s the point…