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Google has released a new software framework that aims to give programmers the ability to create interactive experiences in physical spaces. It could potentially be used to build interactive art installations or games that involve physical interaction.

"A brain-to-brain interface (BTBI) enabled a real-time transfer of behaviorally meaningful sensorimotor information between the brains of two rats. In this BTBI, an "encoder" rat performed sensorimotor tasks that required it to select from two choices of tactile or visual stimuli. While the encoder rat performed the task, samples of its cortical activity were transmitted to matching cortical areas of a "decoder" rat using intracortical microstimulation (ICMS). The decoder rat learned to make similar behavioral selections, guided solely by the information provided by the encoder rat's brain. These results demonstrated that a complex system was formed by coupling the animals' brains, suggesting that BTBIs can enable dyads or networks of animal's brains to exchange, process, and store information and, hence, serve as the basis for studies of novel types of social interaction and for biological computing devices."

"Learning methods have come a long way from students just sitting in class and writing down notes while a lecturer reads off his/her notes. It has come to the point where students can learn from their lecturers via the internet, such as accessing course materials on "Blackboard" websites, and even online classes (heck, there are even online degrees for those interested!), but conducting a class through Minecraft? Well that admittedly takes the cake as far as interactive learning is concerned! This was made possible thanks to a lecturer at the Bond University in Australia who decided to conduct his class through Minecraft as the university was closed due to the recent bout of floods experienced in Australia's east coast. Professor Jeffrey Brand launched the MinecraftUni project after hearing about how the game was used as part of the United Nation's Block by Block program."

n 1961, IBM commissioned Charles and Ray Eames to create an exhibition for the California Museum of Science and Industry.  The resulting exhibition, called Mathematica: a World of Numbers, is a founding document of interactive STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) exhibitions.

We are living a unique moment in history. The development of communication technologies has produced a change in the modes of interaction of society, creating new forms of relating which are fundamentally different from those before. These new ways of relating and technologies have contributed to the emergence of new social and political movements. These movements, as exemplified by the Arab Spring, the democratisation movement in Iceland, and the 15M / TakeTheSquare / Occupy movement, are the most strinking examples of the potential of this new phase (together with other phenomena such as Wikileaks and Anonymous).

The aim of the Askemos project is to enable reliable and justiciable data processing, with the goal of producing "Software that can last 200 years." The first implementations of an Askemos peer can be obtained from ball.askemos.org. The Askemos web site itself is served from the Askemos/BALL development network. Follow here for more details. Note that Askemos concerns the abstract specification exclusively; including data formats, protocols, service interfaces etc. - not the actual implementations. Askemos combines incorruptible privilege delegation and non-repudiable replication of communicating processes into a trustworthy network. Physical machines under control of their operators execute applications processes under permanent multilateral audit. The network's honest majority of hosts provides users with exclusive control, and thus real ownership of processes. Askemos models a kind of "virtual constitutional state" where physical hosts bear witness to the interactions of virtual agents (akin to citizens). Self verifying identifiers can confirm that original documents have not beentampered with. The real potential for using Askemos is for identity and time stamp services, informationmanagement in public administration and libraries attaching metadata and archives, with the goal of establishing robust systems that can endure for centuries. German tax law, for instance, has storage requirements, which makes Askemos interesting even for private, individual use. Also Activist groups, non-profits and people who desire privacy and reliability in a chaotic and unpredictable world have much to gain from this software.

In addition to a high-tech grocery cart and an augmented-reality mirror, one of the futuristic projects on display at Microsoft's TechForum event earlier this week was a research project exploring the possibilities for using a transparent LCD display in conjunction with a Kinect sensor to let people interact with virtual objects in a 3D space by moving their hands around behind the screen.

Justin Nichol sez, "Black Flag Games is currently running a Kickstarter to produce a radical boardgame project called 'A Las Barricadas'. It is a boardgame about conflict between state police and anti-authoritarian demonstrators. It is a two-player game with each player representing one of these social forces. The theatre of the conflict is street demonstration. It has been designed to inspire tactical consideration and conversation and is being developed and designed by the Black Flag Games Collective, committed to the idea that games and interactive media can have an impact in the struggle for a free and cooperative world. We are also committed to the ideals of free culture and aim to deliver professional play experiences that enrich a participatory entertainment culture."

Say goodbye to your mouse and keyboard. Leap represents an entirely new way to interact with your computers. It's more accurate than a mouse, as reliable as a keyboard and more sensitive than a touchscreen.  For the first time, you can control a computer in three dimensions with your natural hand and finger movements. This isn't a game system that roughly maps your hand movements.  The Leap technology is 200 times more accurate than anything else on the market - at any price point. Just about the size of a flash drive, the Leap can distinguish your individual fingers and track your movements down to a 1/100th of a millimeter. This is like day one of the mouse.  Except, no one needs an instruction manual for their hands.

ArduGate: a web gateway for Arduino that makes possible to use JavaScript inside the web browser to interact with Arduino. Currently available just for Windows,  however, release for Linux and MAC OS X will be available soon.

Results from FIA Aalborg: The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the most important fundaments for the smart cities, and is becoming slowly but steadily one of the core elements of the Future Internet (FI). In fact, various architectures and approaches from Future Internet such as Cloud Computing (Software as a Service - SaaS), which are being linked with the Web of Things, which is also allowing to define Sensors as a Service (SaaS) are clear examples of this relation between Future Internet and IoT architectures. At this particular point, where the IoT is a reality, where several IoT-based high scale deployments are being carried out such as Rome, and Santander. It is essential to discuss what are the IoT-specific aspects that the FI architecture has to take into account, in order to efficiently map the IoT architectures into an overall FI architecture, and particularly, how to manage rights of the individual (i.e. privacy) and its interaction with IoT objects taking into account aspects like delegation, access control as key aspects in the inclusion of the Internet of Things in the common lives with its total inclusion in the city of the future.

Each month Seattle-based Olson Kundig Architects' studio gets a makeover and the latest installation to be unveiled is a tented experimental mushroom farm! Design team CityLab7 collaborated with the architects to create an educational and interactive space that displays 215 oyster mushroom growbags, giving an example of how small-scale urban farming really works. As an homage to a city renowned for its coffee culture, visitors to the space will also see how coffee grounds donated from local cafes can be recycled into compost, becoming an essential component of city agriculture. Read more: Urban Mushroom Farm Pops Up in Olson Kundig Architects' Seattle Storefront | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World 

Salman Khan's simply narrated, faceless home videos on everything from algebra to French history have been viewed half a billion times. Last year, a number of schools began "flipping" their classrooms, having students study Khan videos by night and do homework with teachers by day. His staff has been ramped up to 32, including the recent high-profile addition of Google's first hired employee, programming ace Craig Silverstein. The staff's immediate mission is to further broaden the site's content and improve assessment and feedback features so the Khan Academy experience becomes more interactive.