[As this and other articles on the artist’s work note (without using the term), it’s hard to suppress a presence response to these realistic dolls. The story is from the Huffington Post and features more pictures; for a recent update on research on the Uncanny Valley, see coverage in Slate. –Matthew]

Don’t Blink! These Russian Dolls Are So Lifelike They Could Move

Captivating videos show Michael Zajkov eerily whittling away blocks of clay into lifelike human beings.

01/21/2016
Nina Golgowski Trends reporter, The Huffington Post

When it comes to dolls, Michael Zajkov is not playing around.

The Russian artist’s collection of handmade dolls is captivating viewers around the world with them appearing so realistic that if you blink, you may wonder if they moved.

On his Instagram page, where he has more than 70,700 followers, several videos show him delicately smoothing and painting pieces of clay into perfectly formed faces, hands and feet with chilling precision.… read more. “Artist creates eerily realistic, presence-evoking Russian dolls”

[This discussion from The New Yorker is full of incomplete but provocative ideas about the nature of our experience of both reality and mediated/virtual reality. –Matthew]

[Image: Credit Sarah Lee / eyevine / Redux]

Werner Herzog Talks Virtual Reality

By Patrick House
January 12, 2016

“I’m a skeptic of 3-D, but when I saw the paintings I knew I had to use it,” Werner Herzog told Judith Thurman in 2010, after the New York première of his documentary “Cave of Forgotten Dreams.” The film examines some of the world’s earliest known paintings, which cover the walls of the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave, in France. For Herzog telling a story about the Paleolithic required the technology of the Anthropocene. Recently, I spoke with him about how the rules of cinema might translate to yet another new form—virtual reality. His next film, “Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World,” which is about the Internet, will première at the Sundance Film Festival later this month, along with more than thirty V.R.… read more. “Werner Herzog talks virtual reality”

[Even inexpensive VR gear is becoming more realistic and likely to evoke presence; this is from Motherboard. –Matthew]

[Image: Screenshot from Google’s sample app for audio spatialization.]

3D Sound Is Coming to Google Cardboard to Make Virtual Worlds More Real

Michael Byrne, Editor
January 14, 2016

Google’s goofy but cool Cardboard virtual-reality platform is getting an audio upgrade. On Wednesday, Cardboard project manager Nathan Martz announced via the Google Developer’s Blog that software development kits (SDKs) for both the Java-based (Android) and Unity-based (iOS) implementations of the VR headset API would be getting support for audio spatialization. Now, Cardboard apps will be able to “produce sound the same way humans actually hear it.”… read more. “3D sound is coming to Google Cardboard to make virtual worlds more real”

[This Panasonic prototype seems to evoke presence in multiple ways (the headline in The Verge is “Panasonic’s transparent display is hard for your eyes to believe”); the story below is from Digital Journal, where it features a different image and the 2:05 minute video from YouTube. For a nice summary of this and a wide variety of other presence-related tech at CES 2016 see coverage in CNN Money. ––Matthew]

[Image: Source: CNN Money]

Panasonic’s transparent TV disappears when you wave at it

By James Walker
Jan 12, 2016

As part of its demonstrations during CES 2016 last week, Panasonic unveiled a new television that goes completely transparent at the wave of a hand. The TV can effectively disappear from view, revealing whatever is positioned behind it.… read more. “Panasonic’s transparent TV disappears when you wave at it”

[Without using the term, this story from Engadget covers key current challenges and future prospects for designing effective presence illusions; for more details see coverage in The Verge. –Matthew]

[Image: Source: The Verge]

Fox pushes virtual reality to the limit with 30 minutes on Mars

Being Matt Damon has never been easier.

Joseph Volpe
January 08, 2016

I wasn’t prepared for The Martian VR Experience. All I’d known before sitting down in a padded seat in a near-pitch-black booth, tucked away in the Library bar at Vegas’ Marquee nightclub, was that I’d be enveloped in virtual reality for up to 30 minutes. And I was worried about that. Bad virtual reality — VR that lasted up to two minutes — has sidelined me in the past, leaving a lingering nausea I’d prefer to never revisit. But by going all in with its first commercial experience, 20th Century Fox has made an expensive bet that pays off: It’s created comfortable long-form VR.… read more. “Fox pushes VR to the limit with 30 minutes on Mars”