An usually high-tech form of pseudo-theft, executed by a pair of artists, has resulted in a high-resolution scan of the famous Queen Nefertiti statue at the heart of a dispute between Germany and Egypt. Avoiding the watchful gaze of four guards at the Neues Museum in Berlin, Nora Al-Badri and Jan Nikolai Nelles painstakingly scanned the 3,500-year-old bust over the course of three hours using a Kinect.

Technically, nothing was taken, but the exact contours of the bust are now publicly available, open-sourced by the artists in question.

Their work, itself a sort of art project, is in part a commentary on the question of art ownership and accessibility. The statue in question has been in Germany for over 100 years, but the Egyptian government has been lobbying to get it back.

Since the release of their data dump, thousands of people have downloaded a virtual copy of the statue either to examine or 3D-print a copy. While this is not the same as preservation, it does add layers of redundancy for future researchers should something ever happen to the original figure. Many galleries are already making high-resolution images of famous paintings and drawings available on the web, and there is no reason a similar tactic could not be taken with three-dimensional works as well.

Using a series of networked camera-and-projector units, this working demonstration turns an entire living room into and interactive gaming environment. Dubbed RoomAlive (a successor to IllumiRoom, featured previously), this augmented reality expansion from Microsoft could transform not just the way we game but ultimately the way to interact with everyday spaces both private and public.

Existing objects and furniture within the space are automatically mapped and integrated into a given game or experience. The constituent procam units are auto-calibrating and can self-localize so long as there is some overlap in their fields of view. The entire array is designed to be simple to install and use – it effectively sets itself up once you put the technology in place.

The system creates a depth-aware 3D model of the room, identifying vertical and horizontal surfaces, which is plugged into a Unity gaming engine. It then populates the space with whatever the user desires, from passive environments to active games. Virtual characters can navigate along the floor then up along the walls, for instance, but users can also dodge and shoot, interacting as characters themselves. Items in the room can also become props, toys or tools within a programmed scenario.

This particular demo integrates six Kinect cameras to show various scenes and scenarios – just the tip of the iceberg. These could, of course, also be deployed in other settings to turn public or institutional spaces into fully interactive environments. For now, this is just a demonstration, but as these technologies become less expensive and more accessible it is easy to imagine commercial applications of all kinds.

From from the Microsoft development team: “RoomAlive is a proof-of-concept prototype that transforms any room into an immersive, augmented entertainment experience. Our system enables new interactive projection mapping experiences that dynamically adapts content to any room. Users can touch, shoot, stomp, dodge and steer projected content that seamlessly co-exists with their existing physical environment.”

“The basic building blocks of RoomAlive are projector-depth camera units, which can be combined through a scalable, distributed framework. The projector-depth camera units are individually auto-calibrating, self-localizing, and create a unified model of the room with no user intervention. We investigate the design space of gaming experiences that are possible with RoomAlive and explore methods for dynamically mapping content based on room layout and user position. Finally we showcase four experience prototypes that demonstrate the novel interactive experiences that are possible with RoomAlive and discuss the design challenges of adapting any game to any room.”

Don’t think technology has an effect on what you wear? It turns out that our outfits, the way we shop for clothes, and even the way we wear our clothes have all been altered by the constant onward march of technology. These concepts consist of the real and the anticipated – all designed to change and enhance the way we wear our threads.

For ladies, a night on the town in that cute little black dress means either carrying a purse (not always safe) or leaving the cell phone at home (also not so safe). But the M-Dress concept from CuteCircuit actually integrates the phone into the dress. The wearer is free to enjoy her evening knowing that help or a ride is just a phone call away. She’d better have a very good friend in mind, though: the conceptual dress can only be programmed with one phone number.

The monitoring equipment in hospitals is necessary, but often keeps patients bedridden who might otherwise be at least partially ambulatory. What if patients could wander to their hearts’ content and still remain hooked up to the important monitors? A “smart shirt” under development at Spain’s Universidad Carlos III de Madrid would do just that, relaying information about patients to a control center manned by nurses and doctors. The shirt would also come with a GPS and an accelerometer, allowing hospital staff to both find a wandering patient and see with a glance at a monitor whether she is standing, walking or lying down.

This dress is able to change its shape as quickly as its wearer changes her mind. The Mechapolypse dress is controlled by brain waves which are detected and amplified by the matching hat. With little more than a few moments of intense concentration, the wearer can completely change the look and shape of her outfit.

It isn’t enough to just have and wear a cool shirt. In today’s high-tech world, shouldn’t your clothing actually do something? This one from designer Marc Stromberg entertains its wearer by playing a weird augmented reality game of rock, paper, scissors. The wearer just stands in front of a webcam while wearing the shirt, points his browser at the game’s webpage, and gets ready to witness a freaky hand bursting from his chest.

Guys who frequently forget to take care of themselves might find these whitey tighties very handy dandy. They are fitted with flexible biosensors which would keep track of the user’s stress levels, alcohol consumption, chemical levels and other matters of well-being. The waistband of underwear seems to be the ideal place to put these sensors since it is a part of the clothing that is right up against the skin all day. The wearer’s sweat carries all kinds of health information which can be analyzed daily to tell the wearer what he needs to change in order to stay healthy.

No matter what your body shape is, shopping for clothes can be a harrowing experience. Different companies often size garments differently, and clothes sometimes just don’t fit like you expect them to. The virtual dressing room concept from a company called FaceCake could soften the experience by letting you do it from the comfort of your living room. Based around a Microsoft Kinect platform, the concept allows shoppers to select and “try on” items based on the shopper’s individual measurements and body shape.

Always wondering whether your outfit is in fashion or not? The “like counters” on the hangers at Brazilian clothing store C&A let shoppers weigh in on their favorite garments via Facebook. For every “like” received by a particular piece of clothing, the screen on that item is updated in real time with the number of people who “like” that garment. Even if you can’t take a fashion-savvy friend along on a shopping trip, at least you’ll have the opinions of hundreds of strangers to count on.