Augmented reality puts the squeeze into virtual hugs

Connected to a computer, the device can simulate several types of heart beat, a realistic hug, the tickling sensation of a butterfly stomach, and a tingling feeling along the spine. It can also generate warmth.

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Solar Powered Augmented Contact Lenses Cover Your Eye with 100s of LEDs

Want eyesight that would make the Terminator jealous? Well, in a few years, you might be able to say hasta la vista to your normal old contact lenses and hello to the solar powered augmented lenses that University of Washington professor Babak Amir Parviz and his students are working on. The technology would embed hundreds of semitransparent LEDs onto a thin lens, letting wearers experience augmented reality right through their eyes. And the applications – from health monitoring to just plain bionic sight – could be endless.

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The Singularity's impact on Business leaders: a Scenario: how will technologically enhanced Individuals collaborate with "normal" employees?

Oh boy...

The "Human Singularity" refers to the radical fusion of the human body with technology to achieve levels of mental acuity and physical ability that eclipse anything humans have previously known. This would represent a singular event in human history: For the first time, people would be driven by laws other than

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5 Creepy Ways Video Games Are Trying to Get You Addicted

So, the headlines say somebody else has died due to video game addiction. Yes, it's Korea again.

What the hell? Look, I'm not saying video games are heroin. I totally get that the victims had other shit going on in their lives. But, half of you reading this know a World of Warcraft addict and experts say video game addiction is a thing. So here's the big question: Are some games intentionally designed to keep you compulsively playing, even when you're not enjoying it?

Oh, hell yes. And their methods are downright creepy.

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Baby dies as parents raise virtual child online

A Korean couple let their baby starve to death while they were busy raising a virtual child online, police said.

The couple, from Suwon in South Korea, would leave their three-month-old daughter home alone in their apartment while they spent up to 12 hours a day playing a Second-Life style3D fantasy game called Prius Online, The Sun newspaper reports.

Police said the couple had become totally immersed in the online game and neglected their real lives, giving their daughter just a bottle of milk per day.

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Brain scanners to be used to 'design' political candidates

Sinister news today, as psychologists in the US unveil plans for so-called "neuromarketing" - the use of magnetic-resonance brainscans to maximise the appeal of products while they are being designed.

"Neuromarketing may prove to be an affordable way for marketers to gather information that was previously unobtainable, or that consumers themselves may not even be fully aware of," says Ariely, according to a statement released yesterday by Duke University, where he is based.

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Nanotech May Tap Into Your Mind

Telecommunications researchers in Japan are attempting to create electronic sensors that can not only receive information from the brain, but could manipulate our neural pathways.

While the concept might conjure science-fiction images of half-human, half-machine cyborgs, Dr Keiichi Torimitsu of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT), says the research is more likely to provide relief for people with Parkinson's disease or overcoming a stroke.

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Augmented Identity

An application that lets users point a smart phone at a stranger and immediately learn about them premiered last Tuesday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Developed by The Astonishing Tribe (TAT), a Swedish mobile software and design firm, the prototype software combines computer vision, cloud computing, facial recognition, social networking, and augmented reality.

"It's taking social networking to the next level," says Dan Gärdenfors, head of user experience research at TAT. "We thought the idea of bridging the way people used to meet, in the real world, and the new Internet-based ways of congregating would be really interesting."

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Comment: Frightening.

Students brains 'rewired' by the internet

Experts say the internet encourages users to dart between pages instead of concentrating on one source such as a book, the traditional staple of student research.

This new 'associative' thinking leaves the majority incapable of 'linear' disciplines like reading and writing at length because their minds have been remoulded to function differently.

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Cellphone and Entertainment Fees Add Up for Families

John Anderson and Sharon Rapoport estimate they spend $400 a month, or close to $5,000 a year, keeping their family of four entertained at home.

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Your Future Morning View Will Make You Vomit

Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop from Keiichi Matsuda on Vimeo.

Organic Transistor Paves Way for New Generations of Neuro-Inspired Computers

For the first time, CNRS(1) and CEA(2) researchers have developed a transistor that can mimic the main functionalities of a synapse(3). This organic transistor, based on pentacene(4) and gold nanoparticles and known as a NOMFET (Nanoparticle Organic Memory Field-Effect Transistor), has opened the way to new generations of neuro-inspired computers, capable of responding in a manner similar to the nervous system.

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