French Airport Tests 'Virtual' Hologram Boarding Agents
Posted by admin / Under Virtual Ink
Orly, France - An airport in France is experimenting with "virtual" boarding agents in a bid to jazz up its terminals with 21st century avatars who always smile, don't need breaks and never go on strike. The pilot project at Paris' Orly airport began last month, and has so far been met with a mix of amusement and surprise by travelers, who frequently try to touch and speak with the strikingly life-like video images that greet them and direct them to their boarding gate. The images materialize seemingly out of thin air when a boarding agent -- a real live
Published on Tuesday 7th of February 2012 09:58:20 AM
Eric Whitacre: A virtual choir 2,000 voices strong
Posted by admin / Under Virtual Ink
This is an amazing video of where technology is taking us with music and the Internet. I’m sure you will all like it.
Published on Tuesday 7th of February 2012 09:58:20 AM
Military treats S.C. virtual, home school students differently
Posted by admin / Under Virtual Ink
High school senior Jared Dennis wants to join the U.S. Air Force. If you look at his credentials, he would appear to be someone any branch of the military would be happy to have. He has a 3.9 grade point average while taking courses like statistics and Japanese and he plays in a regional orchestra. But when he went through the recruitment process with the Air Force, he was told he is a Tier 2 candidate because he attends an online virtual high school. Less than 1 percent of the people the Air Force accepts can be Tier 2 candidates,...
Published on Tuesday 7th of February 2012 09:58:20 AM
U.S. to end "virtual" fence project on Mexican border
Posted by admin / Under Virtual Ink
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama's administration plans to pull the plug on the troubled "virtual fence" project that was meant to better guard stretches of the U.S. border with Mexico, a senior lawmaker said on Friday. The project, being run by Boeing Co, has cost about $1 billion so far and was meant to pull together video cameras, radar, sensors and other technologies to detect smugglers trying to cross the porous border. "The SBInet program has been a grave and expensive disappointment since its inception," Representative Bennie Thompson, the senior Democrat on the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee,...
Published on Tuesday 7th of February 2012 09:58:20 AM
Inside scoop on Vatican’s groundbreaking virtual tour
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VATICAN CITY — As a participant in Villanova University’s Vatican internship program, I had the opportunity to be a part of a groundbreaking project.This Monday, in celebration of the feast of the dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the Vatican website launched a state-of-the-art virtual tour of the basilica.Paul Wilson working on the virtual tour of the Basilica of St. John Lateran in October. (Photo by Villanova intern, Heather West) The tour of St. John Lateran is only a small part of a monumental project in which a team of Villanova University professors and students photographed the...
Published on Tuesday 7th of February 2012 09:58:20 AM
Thousands of Christians form 'virtual connection' to J'lem
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In an effort to connect with Israel both spiritually and physically, tens of thousands of Christians across the globe have watched live webcasts of Jerusalem holy sites on the Internet since the free service was launched several months ago, the head of a new Christian on-line broadcast provider said Friday. More than 30,000 people have viewed the webcasts on www.ipraytv.com since its launch four months ago during the Feast of the Tabernacles/Succot, said Mike Peros, founder and CEO of IPrayTV. The site, which rose to prominence after its live webcasts of Christmas in Bethlehem, has attracted Christians of various denominations...
Published on Tuesday 7th of February 2012 09:58:20 AM
Avatars consume as much electricity as Brazilians (Second Life is Destroying the Planet)
Posted by admin / Under Virtual Ink
Tony Walsh has, as others do, some doubts about whether Second Life is sustainable as a business. But he also poses another question that I hadn't come across before: "Is Second Life sustainable ecologically?" He quotes Philip Rosedale, the head of Linden Lab, the company behind the virtual world: "We're running at full power all the time, so we consume an enormous amount of electrical power in co-location facilities [where they house their 4,000 server computers] ... We're running out of power for the square feet of rack space that we've got machines in. We can't for example use [blade]...
Published on Tuesday 7th of February 2012 09:58:20 AM
Online divorcee jailed after killing virtual hubby
Posted by admin / Under Virtual Ink
A 43-year-old Japanese woman whose sudden divorce in a virtual game world made her so angry that she killed her online husband's digital persona has been arrested on suspicion of hacking, police said Thursday.
Published on Tuesday 7th of February 2012 09:58:20 AM
Virtual Biopsy Can Tell Whether Colon Polyp Is Benign Without Removal, Researchers Say
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Virtual Biopsy Can Tell Whether Colon Polyp Is Benign Without Removal, Researchers Say ScienceDaily (May 22, 2008) — A probe so sensitive that it can tell whether or not a cell living within the human body is veering towards cancer development may revolutionize how future colonoscopies are done, say researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla. Investigators have found that technology known as a high resolution confocal endomicroscopy probe system can determine whether a colon polyp is benign (not precancerous) - without having to remove it for examination by a pathologist. Their study, to be presented at the Digestive...
Published on Tuesday 7th of February 2012 09:58:20 AM
Researchers teach 'Second Life' avatar to think
Posted by admin / Under Virtual Ink
TROY, N.Y. - Edd Hifeng barely merits a second glance in "Second Life." A steel-gray robot with lanky limbs and linebacker shoulders, he looks like a typical avatar in the popular virtual world. But Edd is different. His actions are animated not by a person at a keyboard but by a computer. Edd is a creation of artificial intelligence, or AI, by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, who endowed him with a limited ability to converse and reason. It turns out "Second Life" is more than a place where pixelated avatars chat, interact and fly about. It's also a frontier...
Published on Tuesday 7th of February 2012 09:58:20 AM
Virtual Mega-quake Shows Earthquake Could Inflict Major Damage On Pacific Northwest US
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Virtual Mega-quake Shows Earthquake Could Inflict Major Damage On Pacific Northwest USScientists used a supercomputer-driven "virtual earthquake" to explore likely ground shaking in a magnitude 9.0 megathrust earthquake in the Pacific Northwest. Peak ground velocities are displayed in yellow and red. The legend represents speed in meters per second (m/s) with red equaling 2.3 m/s. Although the largest ground motions occur offshore near the fault and decrease eastward, sedimentary basins lying beneath some cities amplify the shaking in Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, and Vancouver, increasing the risk of damage. (Credit: Kim Olsen, SDSU) ScienceDaily (Feb. 28, 2008) — On January 26,...
Published on Tuesday 7th of February 2012 09:58:20 AM
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