[From Crave (“The Gadget Blog from CNET”); a 1:17 minute video is here] April 23, 2010 Picture the possibilities with 3D Lego animations by Tim Hornyak Having trouble picturing what that Lego monster castle/spaceship/robot will look like when assembled? Lego is rolling out augmented-reality store displays that show shoppers, in 3D animation, what a completed kit will look like. The move follows other toy makers bringing AR to action figures and baseball cards. I’m waiting for cereal boxes in my supermarket to start spewing 3D cornflakes. The Danish toy giant, known for cool stuff like Mindstorms robot kits and wacky…

[From Goal.com (“Score to Live”)] Virtual Reality: A Search For The Heart Of America’s Game Eric Betts finds video games convert fans to the beautiful game By Eric Betts Apr 21, 2010 One of the joys of being a soccer fan in the United States is the opportunity to convert the unbelievers, to watch as someone who was once indifferent or antagonistic falls in love with the game. To love soccer is to know it. People can’t develop a life-long passion for the game without a basic understanding of what’s happening on the pitch. Knowing the rules isn’t enough; I…

[From Xconomy Seattle (“Business + Technology in the Exponential Economy”)] Software, Interfaces, culture How a Business Can Span the Globe and Stay Close-Knit: Microsoft’s “Telepresence” Project Gregory T. Huang 4/12/10 Stop me if this sounds familiar. You work in a tight-knit team that has one or two colleagues who are located in a different office—across the street, across the state, or across the country. You’d like to communicate with them more regularly, but phone calls, e-mails, and video conferences have to do. Inevitably, you feel like you (and they) miss out on some day-to-day interactions that help all of you stay…

[From CNN’s SciTech blog] April 20, 2010 Real fear in a virtual world Posted by: John D. Sutter — CNN.com writer/producer  So, I walked up to a virtual pit. It was maybe 30 feet deep. With a wood plank crossing it. Somewhere deep down in my rational brain, I knew the hole wasn’t real – that it was a virtual reality scenario in a cramped office at Stanford University, where the floor seemed completely pit-free until I put on a clunky piece of hardware called a “headmount.” But that headmount changed everything.…

[From PC Authority; a 1:29 minute Google Earth video is here; an 8:14 minute Bing demo video is here]. Street View photos used for amazing Google Earth 3D cities by Daniel Long onApr 14, 2010 Google has combined its wealth of street view data with satellite imagery to create the a 3D city effect, while a Microsoft engineer has given an amazing demo of live video within Bing Maps. See the videos. 3D textured cityscapes are nothing new to Google Earth users: international cities such as New York have displayed this type of imagery for a while now.…

[From The Winnipeg Free Press; more information is here and here] [Picture from projectdesign] Life imitates art: ‘holodeck’ therapy to help rehabilitate wounded vets By: Bob Weber, THE CANADIAN PRESS 18/04/2010 EDMONTON – Wounded soldiers and injured civilians will soon be using technology reminiscent of the holodeck on old Star Trek movies to help regain their physical and mental confidence. “In this case, reality is reflecting art,” said Commodore Hans Jung, surgeon-general for the Canadian Forces. Jung was speaking at a funding announcement to bring a $1.5-million virtual reality simulator to Edmonton’s Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital. People learning to use an…

[From St. Louis Today; a response is here] Our own little private virtual worlds By Patricia McLaughlin UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE 11/21/2009 [snip] Once the Age of Reason arrived in the 18th century, and you couldn’t do anything without a plausible scientific explanation, turning people to stone, gold, salt or whatever went out of style. So what a surprise to see it rebound in the 21st century and quickly reach epidemic levels. You know what I mean if you’ve ever been trapped in the cereal aisle behind a woman frozen in place, head tilted at an odd angle, eyes focused on…

[From CNET’s Crave blog; a 1:43 minute video is here]    March 27, 2010 Moo-Tube: Russian cows get LCD TVs by Tim Hornyak A farm in Russia has turned its cows into TV junkies by installing high-tech LCD televisions in a barn. The farm in the Moscow region began its Farm 2.0 experiment earlier this month in an attempt to boost milk quality. The lack of open spaces and visual stimuli during winter apparently gives cows the blues, affecting milk. The farmers decided to find out whether TV can make the animals any happier.…

[From MIT’s Technology Review Editors blog; a 4:17 minute video is here]   Monday, April 12, 2010 New Computer Interface Goes Beyond Just Touch Manual Deskterity combines a touch with the trusty pen. By Erica Naone Touch screen interfaces may be trendy in gadget design, but that doesn’t mean they do everything elegantly. The finger is simply too blunt for many tasks. A new interface, called Manual Deskterity, attempts to combine the strengths of touch interaction with the precision of a pen.…

[From MIT Media Relations; a 1:42 minute video is here]   MIT Media Lab unveils ‘Surround Vision’ New system would let TV programs spill off the screen and into the living room for immediate release: April 9, 2010 contact: Jen Hirsch – MIT News Office email: jfhirsch@mit.edu call: 617-253-1682 written by: Larry Hardesty, MIT News Office CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Surround sound technology uses multiple speakers to extend the world of a TV show or movie beyond the edges of the screen: the audience can, in effect, hear what’s happening just off-camera. Researchers at MIT’s Media Lab have developed a system…

[From WSAZ-TV in West Virginia; the story features a 3 minute video]    Apr 7, 2010 The Future of Mine Safety Training Days after one of the worst mining disasters in U.S. history, one group is hoping to change the way coal miners get their safety training. Brad Myers HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (WSAZ-TV) — Just days after 25 miners died in an apparent mine explosion in West Virginia, the push is already on to take safety training for miners to the next level. “One of the tragedies of having a disaster of this sort is to see the human suffering,” West Virginia…

[From the New York Times] TV Sports In 3-D, Masters Does Have Extra Dimension By RICHARD SANDOMIR Published: March 31, 2010 If the test footage shot recently at the Augusta National Golf Club is an authentic gauge, the Masters in 3-D will look terrific. Only a few thousand early adopters with 3-D television sets will be able to see the tournament in this manner, but they will be fortunate: one look at Augusta in 3-D will make high-definition seem obsolete.…