Researchers at McGill University in Montreal, Canada have developed floor tiles that can simulate the look, sound and feel of snow, grass or pebbles underfoot. Such a tool could perhaps be used for augmented reality applications, tele-presence, training, rehabilitation or even as virtual foot controllers.

The modular “haptic” floor tiling system is made up of a deformable plate suspended on a platform. Between the plate and platform are sensors that detect forces from the user’s foot. And the plate can give off vibrations that mimic the feeling of stepping on different materials. A top-down projection and speakers add visual and audio feedback. more>>>

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Imagine a light switch or a book that appears only when you need it — Japanese scientists are one step closer to making the stuff of sci-fi films into reality after creating a hologram that can also be felt.

“Up until now, holography has been for the eyes only, and if you’d try to touch it, your hand would go right through,” Hiroyuki Shinoda, professor at Tokyo university and one of the developers of the technology, told Reuters.

“But now we have a technology that also adds the sensation of touch to holograms.” more>>>

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Are supercomputers on the verge of creating Matrix-style simulated realities? Michael McGuigan at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, thinks so. He says that virtual worlds realistic enough to be mistaken for the real thing are just a few years away. more>>>

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Click HERE to read an awesome article on some technologies on the slicing edge of Augmented Reality!!

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CLICK IN THE PLAYING VIDEO AND DRAG THE MOUSE AROUND TO SEE THIS TECHNOLOGY AT WORK! REALLY NEAT

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Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Google dove into the sea on Monday by releasing an updated 3-D mapping service that lets users explore the ocean as if they were dolphins, swimming past submerged volcanoes and through underwater canyons.

The enhanced Google Earth, available for download at earth.google.com, offers everything from photographs and videos of sea life to models of shipwrecks to water temperature data collected from buoys. Dozens of partners - including the National Geographic Society, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the Scripps Oceanographic Institution - contributed information to the project, which is aimed at fostering learning, promoting conservation and, no doubt, increasing Google’s popularity. more>>>

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Maybe this is another step toward a singular planetary consciousness that has an internal model of ’self’.

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(PhysOrg.com) — A 3D television system which would display holographic images floating in mid air - reminiscent of a famous scene from Star Wars - could be a reality in households within the next decade according to findings by a team of University of Aberdeen academics. more>>>

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By Dan Simmons
Reporter, BBC Click

The idea of having a virtual you following the real you around may seem rather strange - for those of us used to having our feet firmly on the ground.

But the creation of a virtual Berlin lets people be in two places at the same time - as 20km of the city has been faithfully replicated into an online world.

By the end of 2008, 50,000 buildings in the German capital are expected to have been copied into the virtual world.

“While Second Life and others worlds offer some stylised versions of cities - Twinity uses the 3D mapping data currently used for things like satnav and Google Earth,” said Jochen Hummel, the chief executive of Metaversum - owner of Twinity.

“One by one each building is then made to look as it would in the real world,” he said. more>>>

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Extraordinarily lifelike characters are to begin appearing in films and computer games thanks to a new type of animation technology.

Emily - the woman in the above animation - was produced using a new modelling technology that enables the most minute details of a facial expression to be captured and recreated.

She is considered to be one of the first animations to have overleapt a long-standing barrier known as ‘uncanny valley’ - which refers to the perception that animation looks less realistic as it approaches human likeness.

Researchers at a Californian company which makes computer-generated imagery for Hollywood films started with a video of an employee talking. They then broke down down the facial movements down into dozens of smaller movements, each of which was given a ‘control system’. more>>>

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8/28/08

(PhysOrg.com) — In the future of immersive entertainment, people may not only walk through floating 3D images, but also manipulate the images in thin air. Taking a step toward this reality, researchers have built a prototype of a room-sized 3D immaterial display, demonstrating the possibility of using the technology for a variety of entertainment purposes.

In recent years, 2D FogScreens have gained popularity at entertainment venues. Desktop-sized and handheld DFD displays also exist, although users are restricted to a single viewpoint. In a room-size DFD display, users could stand anywhere, and wouldn’t need to wear 3D glasses, to view 3D images.

“The biggest advantage to DFD rendering lies in the fact that observers do not have to wear encumbering glasses to view the 3D scene,” Lee told PhysOrg.com. “Although traditional auto-stereo displays and volumetric displays also exhibit this quality, their inherent technology limits their usability. Autostereo displays allow for a limited number of views, and volumetric displays are usually enclosed within some space which users cannot or should not interact with. DFD displays allow for many views and interaction as long as a user is reliably tracked.” more>>>

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You can see where this is going…

Flat-panel displays might be all the rage, but at least in some situations, Microsoft thinks the shape of things to come might be a sphere.

After months of rumors, Microsoft researchers are taking the wraps off a prototype that uses an internal projection and vision system to bring a spherical computer display to life. People can touch the surface with multiple fingers and hands to manipulate photos, play games, spin a virtual globe, or watch 360-degree videos.

Sphere, as it’s known, is expected to be shown publicly for the first time Tuesday at Microsoft’s Faculty Summit in Redmond. For now, it’s purely a research project. The company says it doesn’t currently have plans to offer it as a product. The idea is to see what the technology can do, and how people will use it.

“It’s really an exploration of ideas,” explained Hrvoje Benko, the Microsoft researcher spearheading the project, during a sneak preview Monday afternoon. more>>>

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Science and technology graduates at the University of Sussex have created a virtual campus which looks like the university’s real site.

The virtual campus can be visited by people who are signed up to the web-based virtual world, Second Life.

Each user creates a virtual version of themselves, or an avatar, which can then fly around the campus.

Researchers are looking at ways to use the campus as a platform for teaching, such as providing online resources. more>>>

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