[From Search Engine Journal; a 0:50 minute video recorded at CES is here] The Google Earth Treadmill: A New Way to Explore the World Bob Young January 14, 2011 If you stepped out onto my balcony right now, you’d see your breath fogging up instantly. Your fingers and toes would probably go numb within a few seconds. If you spat, it might turn to an icicle before it hit the ground. It’s for this reason that I usually find myself less fit during the winter; I hate going outside when it’s this frigid, and my main method of exercise is…

[From The New York Times, which features additional images] [Image: Kora Van den Bulcke walks around her exhibit “RealTime UnReal.”] When Pictures Leap to Other Screens January 13, 2011 By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN “Why have a Museum of the Moving Image at all?” is the question that readily comes to mind before visiting the new, improved, expanded incarnation of this venerable institution in Astoria, Queens, which reopens its doors on Saturday after a $67 million face-lift that might even put Hollywood cosmeticians to shame. Yes, the fact that the Marx Brothers’ antics and Rudolph Valentino’s gaze were committed to celluloid by…

[From Wright State University Newsroom] [Image: Wright State biomedical engineering graduate students Srikar Karanam and Jenny Davis worked on the project to help make the avatars as culturally authentic as possible.] Wright State researchers to create culture-specific virtual humans for Army January 10, 2011 Jim Hannah You’re a freshly minted high school grad strolling down the street of your small Ohio hometown, giving a nod to the village barber, your former coach and the girl next door. The next thing you know, you’re a rifle-toting soldier. And the streets you’re walking are those of Afghanistan, where you encounter people who speak Pashtu…

[From New Scientist] Smart contact lenses for health and head-up displays Lenses that monitor eye health are on the way, and in-eye 3D image displays are being developed too – welcome to the world of augmented vision 10 January 2011 by Duncan Graham-Rowe Magazine issue 2794. The next time you gaze deep into someone’s eyes, you might be shocked at what you see: tiny circuits ringing their irises, their pupils dancing with pinpricks of light. These smart contact lenses aren’t intended to improve vision. Instead, they will monitor blood sugar levels in people with diabetes or look for signs of…

[From PC Magazine] iRobot’s AVA is an App-Ready Robot A new telepresence robot combines mobility smarts, location awareness and even apps. By: Lance Ulanoff 01.06.2011 LAS VEGAS–Imagine your iPad. Imagine it on a robot. Now imagine that robot is a 5-foot-tall, self-navigating bot that can use the interface and app capability of your favorite portable device to create a new kind of telepresesence automaton. Roomba manufacturer iRobot has gone beyond imagining to developing a working prototype called AVA, perhaps the first practical mobility platform.…

[From DVICE] Watch live sports from on the field with Japan’s 3D VR tech By Evan Ackerman Jan 8, 2011 For their 2022 FIFA World Cup bid, Japan promised us that they’d have 3D fields that we could watch live games on while flying around in virtual reality. Japan didn’t get the 2022 World Cup, but they’re making the technology a reality anyway, and here’s what it’s going to look like.…

[From TechNewsWorld; a 2:46 minute video is available here] Avatar Kinect Puts Your Best Face Forward Avatar Kinect allows for richer virtual interactions by tracking the actual facial expressions and gestures of users and letting their avatars express them on screen — or not. “With an avatar, people can choose which visual details they want to transmit,” observed UVa prof Kamin Whitehouse. The technology could go way beyond gaming — bringing dramatic changes to business teleconferencing, for example. By Mike Martin TechNewsWorld 01/06/11 2:50 PM PT “Avatar” movie director James Cameron couldn’t have scripted a better keynote speech for Microsoft (Nasdaq:…

[From iSmashPhone] They Work For Scale: Old-School Optical Illusion Propels Animated Fish Pond It’s interesting that the current 3D/CGI boom is not only pushing technological advances in the screening room AND the living room — it’s also resurrecting a scad of old-fashioned, low-tech tricks.  If your last name isn’t Cameron, you probably can’t afford to design your own stereoscopic HD videocamera rig and shoot a gazillion-dollar sci-fi blockbuster.  However, as we’ve seen on this very blogeroo, you can get “3D” on your iPhone with a brace of mirrors, or make ghostly text float in mid-air with your iPad. Now say…

[From Military & Aerospace Electronics; also see an article in Flying magazine in which a pilot describes his experience using Honeywell’s Smartview system] Designs for avionics and synthetic vision rely heavily on human factors research Jan 4, 2011 By John McHale People interact with machines in different ways — with their eyes, touch, voices, and even their brain waves. These human factors are important when designing cars, home theaters, and especially commercial and military aircraft cockpits. Telepathic flight control still resides in fictional realms such as the 1982 Clint Eastwood movie FireFox — in which a pilot stole a Soviet jet…

[From The Guardian] The Mind’s Eye by Oliver Sacks – review Oliver Sacks’s study of optical dysfunction is a real eye-opener, says Tim Radford Tim Radford The Guardian, Saturday 1 January 2011 All reality is virtual: we reconstruct the outside world with a virtual reality headset pre-installed at birth and tuned by experience so perfectly that most of the time we are barely conscious of it. The optic nerve delivers data from a blitz of electromagnetic wavelengths: the brain filters the information, selects the focus, interprets the imagery and projects it on to an interior screen. This unthinking process is…

[From The University of Derby Connected Online] [Image: A 3D image produced by the VisiDeck system] Games Technology ‘Virtually’ Advances Architecture 7 December 2010  Architects’ two-dimensional plans are set to be turned into highly realistic three dimensional (3D) virtual worlds you can walk through and interact with, thanks to a joint hi-tech project between the University of Derby and one of its graduates. Tony Coates, a student on the University’s BSc (Hons) Architectural Technology and Practice degree course, and software consultant Andy Yelland, who worked on the popular computer game Spiderman 2 among others, established company VisiDeck Ltd. The company…

[From Singularity Hub] [Image: Ah, the holidays…when good people all over the world log on to Skype and share a virtual meal in Amsterdam.] Celebrate Together When You’re Worlds Apart: Virtual Holiday Dinner December 30th, 2010 by Aaron Saenz This holiday season 156 people living on six different continents got to eat dinner with their closest friends and loved ones even though they were thousands of miles apart. Was it Christmas magic, a Hanukkah miracle, or a Kwanza surprise? Nope, just another example of modern technology. Using five robotic telepresence ‘dolls’, Skype, and one oversized table, Dutch advertising firm Wieden+Kennedy…