[Lots of press coverage in the last 24 hours cites the first-person report in Rolling Stone on Magic Leap’s reveal of the company’s first consumer mixed reality product. The abbreviated version of the original story below focuses on the author’s experience using the new technology – note the many indirect mentions of presence factors; see the original story for much more information, several images and a very short video. –Matthew]

Magic Leap: Founder of Secretive Start-Up Unveils Mixed-Reality Goggles

Rony Abovitz talks with Glixel about the tech and ambitions behind new MR Goggles

By Brian Crecente
December 20, 2017

Magic Leap today revealed a mixed reality headset that it believes reinvents the way people will interact with computers and reality. Unlike the opaque diver’s masks of virtual reality – which replace the real world with a virtual one – Magic Leap’s device, called Lightwear, resembles goggles, which you can see through as if you’re wearing a special pair of glasses.… read more. “Magic Leap reveals MR headset, aims to change how we interact with reality”

[Even if I wasn’t one of the many Americans horrified by the nation’s current president, I’d agree with the negative assessments of Disney’s new animatronic version. This story from Quartz (which includes tweets, more images and two videos) reviews the long history of the Hall of Presidents attraction and other failed attempts to produce satisfying, realistic replications of the 45 famous men despite the evolution of technology. –Matthew]

Donald Trump and the Hall of Presidents would like to welcome you to your nightmares

By Molly Rubin
December 19, 2017

Yea, though we walk through the shadow of the uncanny valley, we shall fear no presidential robots.

After months of renovations, Disney World on Tuesday (Dec. 19) unveiled the latest addition to its Hall of Presidents: a terrifying version of the 45th president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.

The unsettling animatronic Trump features the president’s signature hairstyle and low-hanging tie.… read more. “Donald Trump, Disney’s Hall of Presidents and the Uncanny Valley”

[The feature described in this widely-cited story from Gizmodo should make Siri seem more human and thus evoke more medium-as-social-actor presence. The original story includes the patent document, also available from the US Patent Office. Developers can already make Amazon’s Alexa whisper and use other speech skills that make “her” seem more human, as reported earlier this year by TechCrunch (The Verge has a 0:42 minute sample). –Matthew]

Apple Wants to Patent a Voice Assistant That Knows When to Whisper Back

By Harrison Weber
December 14, 2017

Sometimes it feels like we’re inching closer to a future like the movie Her, where humans spend their time wandering around, constantly chatting to their own personal AI assistants. Today, services like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant are getting better at responding to some types of requests, but because they can misunderstand questions and aren’t cognizant of their surroundings, they’re often super awkward to use in public spaces around other people.… read more. “Apple files patent for virtual assistant to detect and respond in discreet whispers”

[This story from Quartz highlights our desire to bring realistic simulated versions of objects and stories from popular fiction into our reality via presence-evoking technologies. The original story includes more information, more images and three videos. The reviews of the Lenovo Star Wars: Jedi Challenges AR headset (available from Best Buy) have been positive, for example see the detailed review from Extreme Tech. –Matthew]

Bringing the lightsaber from Star Wars—the ultimate toy—to life

By Ashley Rodriguez
December 15, 2017

Like many American children of his generation, Mike Goslin grew up watching Star Wars. He saw the first movie in theaters when he was a boy, and remembers the seminal moment in A New Hope when Obi-Wan Kenobi introduced the lightsaber. As Kenobi described it to Luke Skywalker: “This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight. Not as clumsy or random as a blaster.… read more. “Augmented reality brings the Star Wars lightsaber to life”

[The 17 minute documentary included in this story from Discover (and available directly from MEL Films) is a compelling exploration of how virtual reality has helped convict one Nazi War criminal and will be a valuable tool in future trials and the broader task of preserving cultural memory. –Matthew]

Virtual Reality Can Help Convict Nazi War Criminals

By Jeremy Hsu | December 14, 2017

During World War II, Reinhold Hanning served as a guard at the Auschwitz concentration camp where more than 1.1 million people were killed by Nazi Germany. More than 70 years later, a virtual recreation of Auschwitz helped German prosecutors convict Hanning of being an accessory to the murder of 170,000 people. Now a new documentary film explores how the virtual model of Auschwitz can be viewed through virtual reality headsets in future court cases involving the last surviving Nazi war criminals.… read more. “New short documentary explores how VR can help convict Nazi War criminals, preserve cultural memory”