[From PennLive, where the story also features a 1:14 minute video] [Image: Harrisburg University senior Todd Baker prepares to try the Virtusphere, a virtual reality device, for the first time. Students are working with companies to create virtual worlds for real life training. Credit: Christine Baker, The Patriot-News] Harrisburg University’s Virtusphere has potential for experimentation, education and revenue March 08, 2011 By Kourtney Geers, The Patriot-News Crawl inside this 10-foot human hamster ball and you’ll be able to go just about anywhere. The ball, called a Virtusphere, allows the person inside to wander around unhindered, exploring virtual environments seen through…

[From The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Wired Campus blog] [Image Courtesy of Lori Foster Thompson] Online, People Learn Best from Virtual ‘Helpers’ That Resemble Them March 3, 2011 By Ben Wieder Turns out looks and personality still count in online learning. That’s the finding of a study on how people’s perception and performance in online training is affected by the appearance and communication style of online learning “helpers,” or virtual agents that pop up on a screen and guide people through a program. Some of the earliest uses of such programs have been with younger students. One program used an online…

[From the MIT Technology Review blog Mims’ Bits] Are Physical Interfaces Superior to Virtual Ones? Humans have enormous capacity for spatial memory. Why don’t our user interfaces take advantage of that? Christopher Mims 03/02/2011 Something’s been bothering me ever since I started reading books, especially non-fiction, on my Kindle: I can’t remember where anything is. Physical books are full of spatial reference points; an especially beloved book is a physical topography in which we develop a vague sense of which chapters contain relevant information; even where, on a page, a particularly striking sentence or diagram lies. Ebooks have none of these…

[From Engadget, where a 7:34 minute video and two other videos are available] Emotiv EEG headset hacked into VR trapeze act, lets you fly like Superman (video) By Sean Hollister posted Mar 1st 2011 Last year, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute students built a virtual reality contraption that let them soar through the sky, held aloft by a trapeze harness and seeing through HMD-covered eyes. This year, they’re controlling it with the power of their minds. For his master’s thesis, project leader Yehuda Duenyas added an Emotiv headset — the same one controlling cars and the occasional game — to make the…

[From Gizmag] [Image: Edwina Portocarrero from Bove’s group, decked out in tunic and wig, stood in for Carrie Fisher and re-enacted the famous holographic message, which was captured and displayed in real-time.] Consumer holographic TV creeps closer to reality By Paul Ridden January 30, 2011 Despite a relatively tepid consumer take-up, the buzz surrounding 3D television is still quite intense. But even the viewing improvements offered by stereoscopic technology may pale by comparison to the holographic goings-on at MIT. Researchers are taking the first steps toward making holographic technology a reality for consumers. Using primarily off-the-shelf components, the team has…

[From CanadaEast’s New Brunswick Business Journal] [Image: Darren Piercey in UNB Fredericton with a screen shot from his phobia app. Photo: Keith Minchin/For the Telegraph-Journal] Professor’s app helps allay fears Innovation: Phobia sufferers benefit from NBIF Breakthru finalist’s work Published Monday February 28th, 2011 Jennifer Campbell For the Telegraph-Journal For some, a spider is a source of amazement – the way it weaves its beautiful web – and for others, a spider is a source of sheer horror. It’s estimated that half of women and 10 per cent of men have some level of arachnophobia, or fear of spiders. Three…

[From The Guardian] [Image: It’s OK to touch … a fan gets close to the Johnny Depp waxwork at Madame Tussauds. Photograph: Susan Swindells (work experience) for the guardian] What makes Madame Tussauds’ wax work? It’s been pulling in visitors since 1835, but why does Madame Tussauds remain so popular, even in the CGI age? Patrick Barkham joined the crowds – plus Brad, Jacko, the Queen and all – to find out Patrick Barkham The Guardian, Saturday 26 February 2011 Johnny Depp is getting a peck on the cheek. A bloke peers up Marilyn’s billowing skirt. Teenagers jostle a wobbly…

[From ABI Research] Telepresence Market Gains Momentum; Diversifying Applications Will Drive Growth NEW YORK – February 16, 2011 Latest global telepresence and videoconferencing equipment market forecasts from ABI Research show that the value of the telepresence, video infrastructure and endpoints market is set to reach $5.5 billion by 2016. In 2010, the market registered greater than 15% year-on-year growth to reach $2.3 billion. During the year, the spotlight shifted to emerging applications such as desktop video, personal telepresence, video integrated within unified communications environments, mobile videoconferencing, and video-over-virtual-desktop infrastructure (VDI). At the higher end of the telepresence spectrum, the telepresence…

[From BldgBlog] [Image: Giovanni Fontana’s 15th-century “castle of shadows,” from a paper by Philippe Codognet] Castle of Shadows Posted Monday, February 21, 2011 In a book published nearly 600 years ago, in the year 1420, Venetian engineer Giovanni Fontana proposed a mechanical construction called the Castellum Umbrarum, or “castle of shadows.” Philippe Codognet describes the 15th-century machine as “a room with walls made of folded translucent parchments lighted from behind, creating therefore an environment of moving images. Fontana also designed some kind of magic lantern to project on walls life-size images of devils or beasts.” Codognet goes on to suggest…

[From The Official Microsoft Blog; more information is available in a second post here] [Larger image available here] Microsoft is Imagining a NUI future Microsoft blog editor 26 Jan 2011 You don’t have to look very far to realize that technology is becoming more natural and intuitive. In a typical day, many people use touch or speech to interact with technology—on their phones, at the ATM, at the grocery store and in their cars. The learning curve for working with computers is becoming less and less of a barrier thanks to more natural ways to interact. As Craig Mundie has…

[From Automotive Discovery; more information and a 2:24 minute video are available here] Toyota Announced New Virtual Reality Simulator at the Daytona 500 Written on February 21, 2011 by Lynn Beverly Toyota has announced the debut of a multi-sensory experience virtual reality simulator at the Daytona 500.  Developed by Digital Tech Frontier, LLC. (DTF), Toyota’s Baja simulator incorporates actual motion, 3D sight and sound as it delivers experiences and a message about distracted driving as you are behind the wheel of the 2011 Toyota 4Runner. Premiering at the Daytona 500 Toyota Pit Pass event, Toyota’s Baja simulator is the result…

[From The Hollywood Reporter] Details of Dramatic Changes for Oscars Telecast Oscar producers Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer explain to The Hollywood Reporter that they are taking a radical departure from past shows. 2/18/2011 by Gregg Kilday The Oscars are entering the world of virtual reality. This year’s Academy Awards telecast is taking a radical departure from past years. Producers of the Feb. 27 show are abandoning the concept of a traditional set. Instead, they will rely on a series of “projections” to give the show a constantly changing look. “Our design this year is actually going to reflect more…