[This AppleInsider report about a newly revealed patent application doesn’t focus on the implications for presence, but the incorporation in Apple products of lenticular displays that create the illusion of three-dimensional objects certainly would enhance the presence experiences of a large group of consumers. See the original version of the story for a second image. –Matthew]

Apple wants to bring Spatial Computing to regular monitors

By William Gallagher
April 4, 2024

Amplifying work and media it has developed for the Apple Vision Pro headset, Apple is developing technology so your MacBook Pro or desktop monitor can display 3D environments without special glasses.

Perhaps this is Spatial Computing or maybe it just looks like it. For a future MacBook Pro, Studio Display — or even, unbelievably, an Apple Watch — may come with a flat screen showing 3D images.

Arguably, that’s exactly what we’ve got now with the 3D features of the Apple Vision Pro.… read more. “Apple wants to bring Spatial Computing to regular monitors”

[Here is another insightful essay from Mike Elgan in Computerworld. This one echoes classic social presence scholarship in arguing that we should base our decisions about which (if any) communication technologies to use on both the degree to which they evoke a sense of being physically together and the purpose and emotional tenor of the expected communication. Note especially the optimistic section below titled “Augmented or virtual meeting spaces?” –Matthew]

[Image: Credit: Metamorworks / Getty Images]

Kill meetings (before meetings kill your company)

Meetings waste time, destroy solitary deep work and make a mockery of flex work and a globally distributed workforces.

By Mike Elgan, Contributing Columnist
April 1, 2024

Meetings have been problematic for decades. They’re often used as a catch-all solution to unresolved problems. And a chronic lack of meeting discipline means that, for all the time spent getting people together, little is accomplished.… read more. “Kill meetings: Remote (and all) workers feel disconnected, but the answer is better choices of presence-evoking technologies”

[A new artificially intelligent robot is being used to teach school children in India, as reported is this story by New Indian Express. An excerpt from coverage in Interesting Engineering that follows provides optimistically framed context. The Times of India has a three minute video report (also available on YouTube). For a first-person report from the robot’s creator (and more pictures), see a story in Rediff.com (an excerpt about the origins of the robot’s name and responses to ‘her’ debut is also below). For more on the mentioned AI teacher Beatrice, see a story in Campus Technology. All of this news may remind some of the recent controversy regarding the suggested use of AI during a graduate student strike at Boston University, as reported by GovTech. –Matthew]

[Image: Source: Rediff.com]

Meet Iris, Kerala’s first AI teacher’s class has zero absentees

Named Iris, the creation is a product of Atal Tinkering Lab, MakerLabs and KTCT school.… read more. “India’s first sari-donning AI humanoid robot teacher starts teaching”

[As this story from the University of Pittsburgh reports, Pharmacy students there are using an expanding variety of presence-evoking technologies to enhance learning, and a new dedicated Lab will open there this fall. In addition to the Anatomage Table pictured below, two images in the original version of the story feature the HoloLens 2 AR. –Matthew]

[Image: James Coons watches his student explore life-sized cardiac and circulatory anatomy on an Anatomage Table. Credit: Lawrence Kobulinsky]

Transforming Learning at Pitt Pharmacy with Augmented and Virtual Reality

By Phoebe Ingraham Renda
March 6, 2024

From Oculus gaming systems to Apple’s Vision Pro, Pitt students are no strangers to virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies. However, for the first time in fall 2023, 115 School of Pharmacy students used this technology to step into their studies during their Pharmacotherapy of Cardiovascular Disease course.… read more. “Transforming learning at Pitt Pharmacy with augmented and virtual reality”

[This essay from Medium makes the case for when designers should, and should not, give AI-powered digital humans the characteristics that will evoke medium-as-social-actor presence. See the original version for a second image. –Matthew]

[Image: UneeQ’s Sophie is a flesh-and-bones digital human. Credit/Source: Digital Humans]

Digital humans: Do we really need this?

Anthropomorphic AI assistants promise the best interaction experience. But only because it’s technically possible to create digital humans and make them work online 24/7 doesn’t mean we should.

By Ilja Naumenko, UX Collective
April 2, 2024

The promise of human-like interaction with computers

We need to admit that the idea behind digital humans is fascinating. It has already been introduced on UX Collective with anticipation of how they will revolutionise human-machine interaction and improve UX.

Technology has reached the point where it has become possible to arrange an interaction with a machine that resembles the conversation with a real person on a level that was not achievable before.… read more. “When should anthropomorphic AI assistants be less human?”