[This story from NorthJersey.com describes how a New Jersey school is using virtual reality and presence to prepare students with autism for the stress of preparing for a flight at an airport. See the original version for a 16-image photo gallery. –Matthew]

[Image: Mar 27, 2024; Nutley, N.J., United States; The Phoenix Center is using VR to desensitize kids on the autism spectrum before they travel for spring break. Kaito M. uses the VR headset to simulate an experience at the airport. Credit: Anne-Marie Caruso-NorthJersey.com]

How NJ school uses virtual reality to help kids with autism prepare for airport stress

By Gene Myers, NorthJersey.com
April 2, 2024

If you think a TSA checkpoint is stressful, imagine how anxiety-producing it can be for a child with autism.

With spring break season upon us, it’s a problem facing many families in New Jersey, the state with the highest rate of autism in the country.… read more. “How NJ school uses virtual reality to help kids with autism prepare for airport stress”

[This EurekAlert! press release from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne or EPFL) describes new research that explores an intriguing type of presence illusion (or hallucination). In this illusion, which occurs outside the context of media use, the person perceives another human or other social entity who is not actually there (this has been labelled “para-presence”). The researchers found support for the idea that the illusion is connected to the common tendency to “overcount potentially harmful agents and predators.” Because heightened experience of the illusion is a marker for Parkinson’s disease, the researchers developed a technique using virtual reality and robotics to evoke the phenomenon and thereby measure a person’s susceptibility to experiencing it. The researchers’ work has been published in the journal Nature in the article titled “Numerosity estimation of virtual humans as a digital-robotic marker for hallucinations in Parkinson’s disease.”… read more. “The surprising effect of presence hallucinations on social perception”

[This link-filled essay from CNN argues that a series of recent technological advancements make it more likely that we’re living in a “computer generated” reality, the ultimate collective presence illusion. Whether we are or not, the increasingly common notion suggests the importance of, and concern about, simulations and deception in our society. –Matthew]

[Image: Credit: Warner Bros./Village Roadshow Pictures/Groucho Film Partnership]

Opinion: 25 years later, ‘The Matrix’ is less sci-fi than tech reality

By Rizwan Virk, who founded Play Labs @ MIT and is the author of ”The Simulation Hypothesis: An MIT Computer Scientist Shows Why AI, Quantum Physics and Eastern Mystics Agree We Are in a Video Game” and ”The Simulated Multiverse.” He is currently at Arizona State University’s College of Global Futures in the Center for Science and the Imagination. Follow him on X @rizstanford, on Instagram @rizcambridge and at zenentrepreneur.com… read more. “Opinion: 25 years later, ‘The Matrix’ is less sci-fi than tech reality”

[The original version of this story from the U.S. Argonne National Laboratory about a new, sophisticated teleoperation system developed for the remote clean-up of hazardous materials highlights the importance of presence with a prominent repetition of this quote from later in the text:

“Our first aim in telerobotic system design is to facilitate a ‘telepresence,’ to make the operator feel as though they are present within the hot cell, able to manipulate the objects with both hands, and to experience multimodal sensory feedback in a direct, natural way.” – Young Soo Park, leader, Argonne’s Robotics and Remote Systems Program in the Applied Materials division

For more details, see a 4:25 minute segment from the January 2024 Energycast report from the U.S. Department of Energy – Oak Ridge. –Matthew]

Argonne’s new dual-armed telerobotic system for hazardous waste clean-up successfully demonstrated; has potential for other applications

Revolutionary technology was designed to improve hazardous waste clean-up at nuclear sites

By Beth Burmahl
March 18, 2024

Because they can go where humans can’t, robots are especially suited for safely working with hazardous nuclear waste.… read more. “New dual-armed telerobotic system with human-like capabilities could revolutionize hazardous waste clean-up”

[According to this story from The Guardian, a new 40-minute virtual reality experience at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris was meticulously researched and designed to take visitors back to the time and place of the birth of Impressionist art. See the original version of the story for a second image. –Matthew]

[Image: Visitors take part in a virtual reality experience at the exhibition Paris 1874 Inventing Impressionism at the Musée d’Orsay. Credit: Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images]

Historic meeting of French impressionists recreated in Paris exhibition

Immersive tour at Musée d’Orsay takes visitors back to 15 April 1874 – the moment that marked the movement’s birth

By Kim Willsher
March 23, 2024

In a lush red-and-gold carpeted photographer’s studio in northern Paris, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Edgar Degas are adding the final touches to the hanging of their paintings, while fellow artists Berthe Morisot and Camille Pissarro lament the lack of recognition for their work and Claude Monet bemoans being mistaken for Édouard Manet.… read more. “Immersive VR tour at Paris exhibition takes visitors back to 1874 birth of Impressionism”

[This story from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney describes the origins and positive impacts of a presence-evoking artificially intelligent companion for people with dementia. See the original version for a second image; for more information, listen to and/or read the transcript of a 6:41 minute audio report from SBS News. –Matthew]

[Image: Viv – an AI character who embodies a range of symptoms and experiences associated with dementia – is based on a ground-breaking collaboration between artists and psychologists. She is pictured here with Professor Jill Bennett and Dr Gail Kenning of the fEEL ARC Laureate Lab at UNSW. Credit: Maja Baska]

Meet Viv: an AI character fostering companionship for people with dementia

With a view to improving the lives of people living with dementia, UNSW researchers have come up with a world-first: an AI driven companion.… read more. “Meet Viv: an AI character fostering companionship for people with dementia”

[Here’s an entertaining ‘review’ of the fictional presence-evoking technology in a new Netflix adaptation of the Liu Cixin science fiction trilogy 3 Body Problem. It’s from The Verge, where the original includes a short trailer (also available on YouTube). You can find critic and audience reviews here. –Matthew]

3 Body Problem VR headset review: Magical tech in need of more apps

The device is far more advanced than an Apple Vision Pro, but it needs more than one game to justify the purchase (once you can actually purchase one, that is).

By Andrew Webster
March 23, 2024

Arthur C. Clarke famously said that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” and that’s never been more true than with the 3 Body Problem VR headset. It’s so far ahead of everything else on the market that it doesn’t seem possible.… read more. “3 Body Problem VR headset review: Magical tech in need of more apps”

[As Phillyvoice, reports, Netflix is planning to open large brick-and-mortar venues that combine permanent immersive experiences based on its film and television properties with dining, retail and other activities. The first tentative announced location is in the King of Prussia mall in Philadelphia (the third largest mall in the U.S.). The Bloomberg story linked in this report is behind a paywall, but Smithsonian Magazine has similar details and includes this: “We’ve seen how much fans love to immerse themselves in the world of our movies and TV shows, and we’ve been thinking a lot about how we take that to the next level,’ Josh Simon, Netflix’s vice president of consumer products, tells Bloomberg.” –Matthew]

[Image: Sign on roof at Netflix’s campus in Hollywood, California. Source: Smithsonian Magazine. Credit: Aaron P / Bauer-Griffin / GC Images]

Netflix House, a restaurant and event space, could open at King of Prussia Mall

The company is seeking to convert the former Lord & Taylor into one of its planned retail, dining and entertainment concepts.… read more. “Netflix House venues (including in Philadelphia) to let fans immerse themselves in entertainment worlds”

[Although they don’t address the important questions about how humanoid robots will evoke medium-as-social-actor presence perceptions and social responses on their way to being integrated into human society, experts are predicting a huge market for the robots in both industrial and consumer sectors, as reported in this story from Inc. See also “The Rise of Humanoids, Explained” from Fund management company Global X ETFs (where the report includes some intriguing charts and other graphics). –Matthew]

[Image: Source: Peter Diamandis blog]

Peter Diamandis Predicts ‘Millions, Then Billions’ of Humanoid Robots Are Coming

The entrepreneur and futurist expects advancements in AI and lidar technologies to fuel a trillion-dollar market for humanoid robots.

By Chloe Aiello, Reporter
February 26, 2024

Robot people aren’t just for science fiction movies anymore.

XPrize Foundation founder Peter Diamandis predicts that millions or even billions of robots that look and move like people could integrate into consumers’ homes and workplaces, thanks to technological breakthroughs including artificial intelligence and a looming labor shortage.… read more. “Expert prediction: ‘Millions, then billions’ of humanoid robots are coming”

[Despite remaining challenges, this IEEE Spectrum update about the quest for improved visual resolution, and thus perceived realism and compelling presence experiences, includes this key quote: “[T]he latest headsets with the best display technology are close to achieving what [Varjo Chief Product Officer Patrick] Wyatt calls the ‘human resolution bar’—the limit past which a person with 20/20 vision will no longer see an improvement. Future displays will eventually exceed it.” –Matthew]

[Image: Varjo’s XR-4 headset features a resolution nearing 4K per eye—which approaches the equivalent of 20/20 vision. Credit: Varjo]

VR Headsets Are Approaching the Eye’s Resolution Limits

Some manufacturers want to go beyond that

By Matthew S. Smith
March 15, 2024

The Chinese consumer electronics company TCL Technology recently unveiled a monstrous, 163-inch 4K Micro-LED television that one home theater expert described as “tall as Darth Vader.” Each of the TV’s 8.3 million pixels is an independent, miniscule LED, a feat for which TCL charges over $100,000.… read more. “VR headsets are approaching the eye’s resolution limits”