[From New Scientist] Microsoft develops shape-shifting touchscreen Updated 13:16 29 November 2010 by Paul Marks Microsoft this week filed a patent application covering a novel way to construct a “tactile” touchscreen – a display that uses technical tricks to convince users they are actually touching the ridges, bumps and textures of a displayed image. Whereas previous screens produced only an illusion of texture, Microsoft proposes producing a real texture, using pixel-sized shape-memory plastic cells that can be ordered to protrude from the surface on command.…

[From Broadway World] PETER PAN Set to Play Atlanta in State-of-the-Art Theatre Tent, Tix On Sale 10/25 Thursday, October 14, 2010; Posted: 11:10 AM – by BWW News Desk threesixty° entertainment presents the spectacular new threesixty° stage production of PETER PAN, J M Barrie’s classic story performed in a state-of-the-art theater tent for a limited engagement in Pemberton Place®, adjacent to the World of Cola-Cola®, in the heart of Downtown Atlanta. Performances start Friday, January 21. Conceived by an award-winning creative team and featuring 23 actors, stunning puppets, epic music, dazzling flying sequences, and the world’s first 360-degree CGI theater…

[From The University of Leeds] Virtual training gets real! Published Thursday 2nd December 10 Computerised training systems are getting an extra dose of reality, thanks to an EU-funded research project led by the University of Leeds. PC-based virtual reality training is typically cheaper than face-to-face sessions with a mentor or coach. As the recent Hollywood blockbuster Up in the Air showed, multiple members of staff can be trained by practising various scenarios in a virtual reality environment without having to leave their desks. With businesses continually seeking to curb costs, more and more companies may follow the example of George…

[From MIT’s Technology Review Editors blog; the original post includes a 1:27 minute long video] Collaborative Augmented Reality Makes Beautiful Music With ARmonica, two players bounce virtual balls off musical note bars using Wii remotes. Kristina Grifantini 11/17/2010 Augmented reality (AR) places interactive, virtual objects and effects over the real world, and it has huge potential for gaming. Imagine wearing an AR headset to play chess with animated virtual pieces on a real chess board, or to fight computerized zombies running into your own home. For this to happen, computer scientists need to make sure players’ views and motions are…

[From Parade] [Image: Family portrait: Jeff, Joel, Marissa, and Mira with Flat Jared. [Photo: Adrianne Stewart] The Stewart family deploys a novel solution to stay close to Dad By Brad Dunn When her husband shipped out to Iraq in August 2008, Marissa Stewart knew nothing could replace Daddy for her three young children. Still, she was afraid they would start to forget about their father. How could she fill the void he left behind? Today, she points to a lifelike, life-size photo of U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Jared Stewart perched on a chair in her Seattle living room. “That bit…

[From The Design Blog] NatoStation lets you experience the life inside womb, virtually Naresh Chauhan | Nov 23 2010 Designed by Colombian designer Nelson Ayala, the “NatoStation” (NS) is a virtual reality simulator wherein the user experiences visual, acoustic and sensory sensations similar to the prenatal environment, i.e. life inside the womb. Featuring an ergonomic and dynamic egg shape, the NS lets the user assume a position comparable to the fetal position, so he/she could virtually escape the atmosphere for a moment and relax in comfort. To experience the calm seclusion, you need to wear a helmet that includes a…

[A press release from amNewYork via PR Newswire; a pdf of the paper is available here] Manhattan’s Most Widely Read and Distributed Newspaper Comes to Life on November 24th amNewYork innovates again, digitally enhancing paper with metaio’s augmented reality NEW YORK, Nov. 23, 2010 /PRNewswire/ — amNewYork, Manhattan’s most distributed daily newspaper innovates again, becoming the first U.S. newspaper to present its readers with an augmented reality feature that will breathe life into its Thanksgiving eve paper. Watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day balloons float from the pages of the paper, check out who’s invading Gotham and get answers to the…

[From Tech2] Miss London? See It In A Record Breaking 80 Gigapixels By: Padmini Harchandrai   |   Nov 20, 2010 Talk about being an avid photographer! Whew! Here is a record breaking 360 degree panoramic view of London made from 7886 individual stills, compiled into an 80 Gigapixel photo. The entire image is 400,000 x 200,000 pixels. This panoramic photo was stitched on a Fujitsu CELSIUS workstation comprising dual 6-core CPUs, 192GB of RAM, and a 4GB graphics card. The camera was a digital SLR that used a 400 mm lens and was mounted on a robotic camera mount that seamlessly…

[From Switched] Kinect’s Second Life: 5 Awesome Hacks, from Puppets to KinectBots by Terrence O’Brien on November 20, 2010 The Kinect hasn’t exactly wowed gamers, and reviews of the add-on have been tepid at best. Still, the rather elaborate motion-controller for the Xbox 360 has found fans among the hacking community, thanks to its impressive array of cameras and sensors. Resourceful modders have hooked the device up to computers, created elaborate shadow puppets and mapped 3-D models of rooms. Read on to check out a few of our favorite Kinect hacks floating around the Web.…

[From APCMag.com; a 3:12 minute video is available here] [Image: Part of the calibration test from MyEars. Shapes headphone sound to match your ears.] Dramatic surround sound improvement for gamers blows Dolby away Software that generates an audio profile of your ears and improves gaming surround sound piped to your headphones is now available for subscription. Get set for amazing sound. Bennett Ring 19 November 2010 While graphics in games show what’s immediately in front of players, it’s the soundscape that envelops and surrounds them, instilling a sense of place. Unfortunately many gamers use headphones, and this is a major…

[From just-style; a 1:18 minute video is here] [Image: Dassault’s 3D tool at online retailer Espacemax.com] 3D technology takes online shopping to new heights By: Leonie Barrie | 9 November 2010 One of the leading suppliers of PLM software is hoping its expertise in 3D virtual reality tools will provide another option for the fashion industry to stay competitive. Dassault Systèmes, perhaps best known in the apparel industry for its Enovia global product lifecycle management (PLM) system, is also ramping up applications for its 3DVIA software to offer a new interactive environment for brands, products and consumers.…

[From New Scientist’s CultureLab blog] (Image:As stories migrate from print to screen, new possibilities are transforming the art of telling a story and ourselves with it(Phil Ashley/Getty)] Storytelling 2.0: Metamorphosis of the storybook 15 November 2010 Amanda Gefter, CultureLab editor Stories have become synonymous with books so it is easy to forget that books are just one technology for storytelling. With digital technologies ubiquitous and growing more sophisticated will the book simply fade away? It’s hard to say, but storytelling is certainly undergoing a dramatic makeover, with so-called electronic literature paving the way. Over the next six pages, writers, scientists…