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CAVE2™, the next-generation large-scale virtual-reality environment, is a hybrid system that combines the benefits of both scalable-resolution display walls and virtual-reality systems to create a seamless 2D/3D environment that supports both information-rich analysis as well as virtual-reality simulation exploration at a resolution matching human visual acuity.

It's easy to get lost in CAVE2. The next-generation virtual reality platform is one of the most advanced visualization environments on Earth. It combines 320 degrees of panoramic, floor-to-ceiling LCD displays with an optical tracking interface that gives rise to a "hybrid reality system" capable of rendering remarkably immersive 3D environments - whether you wish to explore the labyrinthine vasculature of the human brain, or soar swiftly over the vast canyons of Mars.

If you miss those great 1990s movies in which cyberspace runs amok, you'll get a kick out of this video of a real-life system for monitoring cyber-attacks. The new DAEDALUS (Direct Alert Environment for Darknet And Livenet Unified Security) cyber-alert system has been in the making for several years, but now the developer has posted a cute video, to show you what it looks like.If you miss those great 1990s movies in which cyberspace runs amok, you'll get a kick out of this video of a real-life system for monitoring cyber-attacks. The new DAEDALUS (Direct Alert Environment for Darknet And Livenet Unified Security) cyber-alert system has been in the making for several years, but now the developer has posted a cute video, to show you what it looks like.

It seems that more and more policy makers, advocacy groups, advertisers and media pundits are making claims based on science: this kind of potion is good for your health, that chemical is bad for the environment, this new technology can reduce crime. How is the public supposed to know what to believe?

Last week as part of its glitzy annual conference in Long Beach, California, TED awarded its $1 million prize to Sugata Mitra to support his wish to build a "School in the Cloud," a self-organized learning environment based on his "Hole in the Wall" and "Granny Cloud" research. Next week Pearson, the largest and most powerful education company in the world, will publish Dale Stephens' book Hacking Your Education: Ditch the Lectures, Save Tens of Thousands, and Learn More Than Your Peers Ever Will, a personal experience narrative and guide about dropping out of college and making it in Silicon Valley.

"The power of modern smartphones is one of the technological wonders of our age. These devices carry a suite of sensors capable of monitoring the environment in detail, powerful data processors and the ability to transmit and receive information at high rates.  So it's no surprise that smartphones are increasingly targeted by malware designed to exploit this newfound power. Examples include software that listens for spoken credit card numbers or uses the on-board accelerometers to monitor credit card details entered as keystrokes.

Star Trek: The Next Generation may be coming to your living rooms soon courtesy of some hot new Blu-ray pressing, but one of the most compelling pieces of the technology shown on that series still remains elusive: the holodeck. Don't get down, sunshine, because we might soon be making our first, tentative steps into a virtual courtesy of Project Holodeck. It's underway at USC's School of Cinematic Arts as well as the Viterbi School of Engineering and starts out with a pair of Project Oculus glasses. These glasses, which were shown off at E3 by none other than John Carmack, cram a 1,280 x 800 display into a pair of glasses that present a wide, truly immersive field of view. Pair that with a PlayStation Move for head tracking and a Razer Hydra controller and you have the beginnings of a proper virtual reality environment.

Have you checked all the power strips in your home or office to make sure they're not spying on you? Pwnie Express have an upcoming product called the Power Pwn that could sit unnoticed in a home or work environment and yet be spying on an entire network

If you've visited the LVL1 Hackerspace lately there's a good chance you've found yourself talking to an entity who speaks in a somewhat eerie female voice and goes by the name of MOTHER. You also may have found yourself engaging in "google talk" conversations with MOTHER in order to find out what members are present at the space, or what items are on the spaces grocery list; or perhaps you noticed that the overall environment of the hackerspace seems to completely change when a specific member walks through the door.

UNU Media Centre head Brendan Barrett shares insights derived from a UNU Institute for Water, Environment and Health conference that focused on K* (K-Star) - a spectrum of ideas that covers research communication, science push, knowledge translation, adaptation, transfer and exchange, knowledge brokering and mobilization, and policy pull. * * * To sum up the underlying need for the recent K* Conference 2012, I borrow the words of a co-participant who explained that "as we are seeing with the climate debate and other 'wicked problems', it is not sufficient to assume that scientific consensus about the facts will be influential in policy or the wider community".

In the past few years, digital technologies have revolutionized everything from the way we work to the way we educate, inform and entertain ourselves. In fact, millions of engaged citizens are using the Web to connect and collaborate around shared concerns and opportunities in their communities and in international forums and institutions. Now, as Canada readies itself to host the World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT2012) in Montreal this October, we have a unique opportunity to mobilize large numbers of connected citizens to participate in a global, online conversation designed to elicit new ideas and innovations that could help address some of the world's most urgent challenges.

"Climate change could severely reduce the areas suitable for wild Arabica coffee before the end of the century. That is the conclusion of work by a UK-Ethiopian team published in the academic journal Plos One. It supports predictions that a changing climate could damage global production of coffee - the world's second most traded commodity after oil. "

Reuters photographer Carlos Barria spent time documenting Mongolian neo-Nazi group Tsagaan Khass, one of several ultra-nationalist groups that have expanded in the country. The 100-plus members of Tsagaan Khass have recently shifted their focus from activities such as attacks on women it accuses of consorting with foreign men to environmental issues. The group is rebranding itself now as an environmentalist organization fighting pollution by foreign-owned mines, seeking legitimacy as it sends Swastika-wearing members to check mining permits

If the pictures of those towering wildfires in Colorado haven't convinced you, or the size of your AC bill this summer, here are some hard numbers about climate change: June broke or tied 3,215 high-temperature records across the United States. That followed the warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere - the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe.

A report in the New Journal of Physics shows how the quest for an invisibility cloak is leading to cleverer ways to use and manipulate light. The trick could aid the analysis of complex samples or even communications.

A refrain running through the debate over global warming suggests we need to nothing to slow it, because after all, the climate science predicting more warming could turn out to be wrong. Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake, and Galileo almost was, for objecting to the scientific doctrine that the Sun revolves around the Earth. For two thousand years people believed in systems of physics and astronomy that turned out to be incorrect. And for a few more centuries after that they held to a new celestial mechanics only to see it displaced by relativity theory.