[From Investor’s Business Daily] [Image: InTouchHealth’s flat-panel screens, the “heads” of its robots, let off-site professionals see and treat patients. AP] The Virtual Doctor Is In: Robots In Hospitals By Paul Korzeniowski, FOR Investor’s Business Daily Posted 03/29/2011 At Ocean Beach Hospital in Ilwaco, Wash., when arriving patients show signs of a stroke, a key member of their medical team is … a tall flat-panel screen. Actually, the screen is attached atop a 6-foot device, a robot that functions mostly as a mobile videoconferencing system. Telemedicine is moving into the telepresence-robot era, with devices that roll on wheels and are…

[From The New York Times] This Lady Liberty Is a Las Vegas Teenager By Kim Severson and Matthew Healey Published: April 14, 2011 As if further proof were needed that New York is not the center of the universe. The United States Postal Service has issued a new stamp featuring the Statue of Liberty. Only the statue it features is not the one in the harbor, but the replica at the New York-New York casino in Las Vegas. You might think that the post office would have just gone with the original, the one off the tip of Lower Manhattan…

[From The Independent] Augmented reality projects transform Boston into a digital cyberland Monday, 18 April 2011 Areas of Boston will be transformed into interactive digital landscapes as a series of augmented reality artworks come to life during the Boston Cyberarts Festival, which begins April 22. With an open mind and smartphone in hand, people traveling from one area of the festival to another will look on as aliens invade the public space around them in an art project titled Occupation Forces. The artwork, created by Mark Skwarek, is made possible through a technology called augmented reality (AR for short).…

[From MIT’s Technology Review; a summary of past, present and future computer interfaces is available here] Business The Struggle to Spread the Minority Report Interface Economics and user expectations are bigger hurdles than the technology Friday, April 22, 2011 By Paul Boutin In the 2002 film Minority Report, Tom Cruise’s cop of the future made use of a mind-blowing computer interface—a holographic wall of images and data floating before him, which Cruise manipulated by donning special gloves and making sweeping gestures to call up, move, zoom, combine, and discard far more information than fits on any PC screen, far more quickly.…

[A press release from Novint; more detailed information, including a 7:00 minute video, is available from Nonpolynomial Labs] Novint Technologies and ForceTek Enterprises Merge ForceTek Brings Capital and Stunning New Exoskeleton Technology, Giving Motion Control a Sense of Touch (Albuquerque, NM – April 6, 2011) – Novint Technologies, Inc. (OTCBB: NVNT) today announced the completion of Novint’s merger with ForceTek Enterprises, LLC. Novint will be combining ForceTek’s XIO exoskeleton controller with Novint’s high fidelity 3D touch technology to create the world’s first consumer 3D touch exoskeleton device. Users will wear the XIO exoskeleton on their arm, and XIO itself will…

[From The Montreal Gazette, where the story includes additional images] Scientists take steps to making “bionic” leg By Julie Steenhuysen, Reuters April 20, 2011 CHICAGO — As 20-year-old Hailey Daniswicz flexes muscles in her thigh, electrodes attached to her leg instruct a computer avatar to flex its knee and ankle — parts of Hailey’s leg that have been missing since 2005. Daniswicz, a sophomore at Northwestern University who lost her lower leg to bone cancer, is training the computer to recognize slight movements in her thigh so she can eventually be fitted with a “bionic” leg — a robotic prosthesis…

[From MSNBC’s Cosmos Log blog, which features more links and a 0:26 minute video] Control the cosmos with your fingers By Alan Boyle What do you get when you cross a WorldWide Telescope with a Kinect motion-sensing game controller? You get the “universe at your fingertips,” according to Microsoft Research’s Curtis Wong, who demonstrated the gesture-controlled cosmos today at the MIX11 conference in Las Vegas. Actually, having the universe at your fingertips is how Wong has thought of the freely available WorldWide Telescope project since it was first unveiled in 2008. The software, which is freely available through a Web-based interface…

[From UCLA’s Daily Bruin] Taking architecture to new dimensions Virtually mapped French Gothic buildings allow complete immersion through computer models By James Barragan Published April 12, 2011 A smile spreads across Stephen Murray’s face as he answers a question about the building Royce Hall was modeled after. “The Basilica of Saint Ambrogio,” he says confidently. He knows. Of course he knows – he is an expert in Romanesque and Gothic art. The Columbia University professor presented only the second public showing of his new project “Mapping Gothic France” Monday night as a part of the 12th annual Hammer Foundation Lecture…

[From Ubergizmo; more information and pictures at Engadget and the Telepresence Tech web site] Samsung telepresence booths to change the future of shopping? By George Wong 03/24/2011 At the Samsung Mobilization event today, Samsung unveiled their new 3D communication kiosk that makes use of TelePresence Technology. It renders 2D images that float and rotate in space, allowing users to see every angle of a product they are interested in. If you’ve always felt cheated by products you purchased online because of how they end up on your doorstep not looking like the photographs, these kiosks should be right up your…

[From The Atlantic Magazine, where the long article includes sidebar features] [Image credit: Bryan Christie] Mind vs. Machine In the race to build computers that can think like humans, the proving ground is the Turing Test—an annual battle between the world’s most advanced artificial-intelligence programs and ordinary people. The objective? To find out whether a computer can act “more human” than a person. In his own quest to beat the machines, the author discovers that the march of technology isn’t just changing how we live, it’s raising new questions about what it means to be human. By Brian Christian March…

[From The Oxford Mail; more information including pictures is available here] It’s Google earth for RAF jumpers Friday 8th April 2011 By Dan Hearn RAF recruits are using a state-of-the-art simulator to learn how to parachute safely. Students at RAF Brize Norton’s parachute training school use harnesses and virtual reality goggles to ‘jump’ in a range of different environments. Instructors can simulate rain, fog and snow, and choose any time of day or night. Wind speed and direction can also be adjusted to make the descent more challenging. Last night instructors praised the new £500,000 system at the Carterton RAF…

[From Fast Company; more information including images and videos is available here] It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s … a New Seagull-Like Robot Spy Drone! By Kit Eaton Fri Mar 25, 2011 A new robotic flying drone, styled like a seagull, has arrived on the scene. It doesn’t squawk, poop or steal french fries from your hand, but it’s an example of incredible bio-mimicking design that could be the future of airborne robots. We’ve met a Festo robot before–a robotic manipulator/gripper arm with a design that’s heavily inspired by elephant trunk muscles–and so we know about the company’s penchant…