[Happy New Year and best wishes for a safe, healthy, productive 2016 filled with wonderful (nonmediated and telepresence) experiences! The story below from VR Focus highlights one option for celebrating within VR (see the creator’s 3:16 minute descriptive demo video on YouTube), and this and other virtual fireworks options are featured in a story at UploadVR. –Matthew] New To VR: Make Celebrations Go With a Virtual Bang In Firework Factory VR June 27, 2015 Kevin Eva It’s not just the Oculus VR Share and WEARVR platforms that get all the new content and we begin the weekend with the New…

[This piece from Motherboard covers some fascinating presence work and history, and includes some key terminological distinctions; see the original story for many more pictures and a 4:52 minute video. –Matthew] The Japanese Professor Who’s Spent Three Decades Perfecting a Human Avatar Written by Emiko Jozuka December 23, 2015 When Susumu Tachi made his first prototype telexistence machine in 1981, he was amazed at what he saw. As he peered through the contraption, he glimpsed another version of himself from behind, looking through the very same prototype device. The effect induced a curious out-of-body sensation. Excited, he called his lab…

[The power, promise and peril of presence are all illustrated in this story from Inverse, which features two more images. –Matthew] The VR Pornstar of the Future Will Play Therapist, for Better and Worse Virtual reality intimacy is going to be a growth industry, but is emotionally empowering sex workers in transactional relationships really a good idea? Yasmin Tayag November 9, 2015 According to Ela Darling, porn’s potential as a tool for emotion growth and counseling is often overshadowed by a popularly imagined seediness or the immediacy of the thing. Darling, an adult performer who co-founded the virtual reality porn…

[This story about a climbing simulation provides more insights regarding how to best evoke (spatial) presence, including the roles of narrative, photorealism and natural mapping; it’s from The Guardian, where it includes another image. –Matthew] [Image: The Climb uses the Oculus Rift’s motion-controller technology to let the player control the hands of the protagonist. Photograph: Crytek] The Climb – the most head-spinning virtual reality experience yet Crytek’s new project for the Oculus Rift shows us exactly where VR gaming is going – towards heady and experiential gameplay Keith Stuart Thursday 24 December 2015 Above you, the craggy face of the…

[An inexpensive and increasingly common presence technology helps save a life; the story is from the Miami Herald, where it features a 4:02 video and several more images. –Matthew] [Image: Dr. John F. Rhodes, left, looks towards Dr. Redmond P. Burke, center, as he holds the Google Cardboard virtual reality device and explains its use in the cutting-edge medical procedure with Dr. Juan Cuarlos Muniz, right. On Tuesday, December 22, 2015 doctors at Nicklaus Children Hospital and the Lexcen family held a press conference on life-saving heart surgery performed on Teegan Lexcen at Nicklaus using a new procedure, virtual reality…

[The term isn’t used, but there are lots of presence-related observations in this story about a new interactive, non-linear, 360 degree animated video story with a Christmas theme, designed to be viewed with smartphones or tablets, or with Google Cardboard. The story is from The Verge, where it features the 4:14 minute video and several more images. –Matthew] Rear Window at Christmas: Behind Google’s new interactive animated short A team-up with the creators of Wallace and Gromit is the latest step for Google’s Spotlight Stories By Adi Robertson on December 22, 2015 The scene is a snowy apartment building out…