PopSci: “Tokyo Scientists Create Touchable Hologram.” “Using ultrasonic waves to provide the resistance and tactile presence, the hologram simulates the sensation of rain drops or a small ball, all without interfering with the projected 3-D image. A couple of Wiimotes provide the tracking, and the programing provides the fun.”

ReadWriteWeb: “Prepare Yourselves: Augmented Reality Hype on the Rise.” “Augmented reality — or the addition of a layer to the world before your eyes (aka the “real world”) using technology — is the next big tech trend. Already making its debut in everything from mobile apps to kids toys, ‘AR’ will clearly soon be talked about by everyone the way they used to talk about “social media” and “Web 2.0″ before that. While augmented reality has its uses — although many of them just involve oohing and aahing at nifty apps — this trend is already in danger of being over-hyped, even though it has barely gotten off the ground.”

Switched: “Can Artificial-Intelligence ‘Ninjas’ Find the Best Price on the Web?” “Aroxo, a shopping site, will debut a program called ‘Negotiating Ninjas’ this Fall, BBC News reports. Designed by researchers at Southampton University, the ‘Ninjas,’ which will be fully operational by Christmas, function as artificial-intelligence ‘agents’ for shoppers and sellers, negotiating the best prices possible for both. In order to reach a middle ground, a shopper and seller answer a number of questions — from how much they’re willing to pay to how eager they are to sell a product. Then, an ‘agent’ uses heuristics — a set of rules used to find the best answer in situations where there’s no single ‘correct’ one — to make offers until the item is sold or someone leaves the negotiations.”

Wired: “New Use for Your iPhone: Controlling Drones.” “The iPhone bot controller is basically just an app, like any other. It relies on only the iPhone’s existing gear, and the phone can still be used for regular calls, web-browsing, texting, etc. HAL’s bot-wrangling app sends GPS coordinates to the robot, which navigates around using its own, built-in ’sense-and-avoid’ capabilities. Along the way, the bot can stream video or snapshots back to the iPhone.”