On (most) Fridays I post here a roundup of interesting things I’ve read and/or posted on social media since my last roundup, generally stories about emerging technologies, experiential activations, interactive art, advances in scientific research, and other things I find interesting.
Featured Image: IBM

Blue Vision Labs, an augmented reality startup that builds ‘collaborative’ AR, has emerged from stealth mode with $14.5M round:

Image: Blue Vision Labs

Sony used virtual reality projection mapping technology in a music video to close out its activation at SXSW:

Image: Christina Chi Craig

IBM created a computer smaller than a grain of salt and made for less than 10 cents, for use as a “cryptographic anchor” that can be embedded in everyday objects to monitor, analyze, communicate, and even act on data:

Image: IBM

Urban Rivers plans to built a robot that anyone can control online as it trawls the Chicago River picking up trash:

Image: Urban Rivers/Digital Trends

South Korean researchers created a drone with retracting arms that allows it to pick up trash, and other objects:

Image: Science Robotics

NatGeo created immersive ‘Astronaut Reality Helmets’ to give viewers an astronaut’s view of space and promote Darren Aronofsky’s ‘One Strange Rock’:

Image: National Geographic/AdAge

Georgia Tech researchers made a prototype 3D-printer that combines four different printing techniques into one machine, allowing for efficient printing of complex products (like robots and phones) using multiple materials:

Image: Craig Hamel and Conner Dunn

MIT’s CSAIL unveiled “SoFi,” a soft robotic fish that can independently swim alongside real fish in coral reefs:

Image: MIT CSAIL

UK researchers have built a new wearable, portable brain scanner that could generate imaging similar to fMRI machines but allow the subject to move around:

Image: University of Nottingham

To see stories like this as I find them, follow me on Twitter: @josiah17