[This story from Bustle highlights the use of presence for social action and change. If you’re eligible, please vote today in this critically important election. –Matthew]

[Image: Source: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images]

MTV’s “Open Your Eyes” Virtual Reality Art Show Brings To Life Everything That’s At Stake In The 2016 Election

By Suzannah Weiss
November 7, 2016

If you think politics are a dry subject matter, MTV’s “Open Your Eyes” virtual reality art show might change your mind. Through digital art created through the 3D painting program Tilt Brush, 18 artists have brought the most important political issues of our time to life. The colorful pieces address rape culture, immigration, and other topics relevant to this election in a creative and enthralling way.

“In an election year dominated by personalities over policy and scandal over substance, we’ve brought together over a dozen artists to express the issues they’re most passionate about, from climate change and gun violence to social justice and beyond, using virtual reality,” the show’s website reads.… read more. “MTV’s “Open Your Eyes” virtual reality art show brings to life everything at stake in 2016 election”

[The evolution from Second Life to persistent virtual worlds for VR raises important possibilities for presence. This story is from Variety from earlier this year and for more see recent coverage by CNBC. –Matthew]

HelloVR Is Creating A 10,000 Square Mile Virtual Reality World

Janko Roettgers, Senior Silicon Valley Correspondent
July 20, 2016

Never mind the foosball table: One of the perks of working for San Francisco-based virtual reality (VR) startup HelloVR is a 24-hour campfire — a digital campfire, to be precise. It’s part of MetaWorld, the virtual world that HelloVR has been building over the past several months.

MetaWorld consists of 10,000 square miles of virtual environment, complete with meadows, trees, mountains, lakes, and yes, campfires, that will be made available to early adopters through a “Pioneer Edition” program for high-end VR headsets like the HTC Vive later this year.… read more. “HelloVR, a 10,000 square mile persistent virtual reality world”

[This story from New Scientist considers a future in which we use telepresence to embody not just a single robot but many of them, both human-like and non-human-like. The prospects raise lots of intriguing research and philosophical questions. The original story includes a different image and a 2:54 minute video. –Matthew]

[Image: Source: YouTube]

What is it like to be a bot? The strange world of telerobotics

Not Like Us is Aviva Rutkin’s monthly column exploring the minds of intelligent machines – and how we live with them

By Aviva Rutkin
2 November 2016

“What is it like to be a bat?” the philosopher Thomas Nagel wondered in 1974. You’d flap around, echolocating, eating bugs, hanging out upside-down in someone’s attic. But something essential about the experience was off limits to his imagination. “I am restricted to the resources of my own mind, and those resources are inadequate to the task.”… read more. “What’s it like to be a bot? Embodying multiple, different human-like and non-human-like bodies”

[Microsoft is advancing the state-of-the-art in adding a sense of touch to presence experiences; see the original version of this story from SiliconANGLE for a 3:25 minute video. –Matthew]

Microsoft Research paper points to touch-sensitive VR interfaces

by Kyt Dotson | Oct 17, 2016

Virtual reality headsets made by Oculus, HTC, Sony and others can drive powerful audio-visual immersion, but one aspect of immersive user interfaces is still literally out of reach. That’s what Microsoft Research aims to change.

This week, Microsoft Corp.’s research arm is publishing a white paper on a pair of new prototype systems that provide “haptic feedback” or touch feedback about virtual reality. Researchers there have produced two prototype controller systems that “push back” when a person interacts with a virtual object, according to the paper, which will be presented at the Association for Computer Machinery’s User Interface Software and Technology Symposium this week in Tokyo.… read more. “Microsoft Research advances touch-sensitive VR interfaces”

[Here’s another interesting application of VR and presence – and note the explicit use of the term in this story from VentureBeat. More information can be found in coverage by Fast Company. –Matthew]

L’Oréal launches virtual reality hair education for salon stylists

Dean Takahashi
November 1, 2016

Salon stylists may not be known as early adopters of new technology, but L’Oréal is targeting them with its virtual reality hair education program in a partnership with 8i and hair care brand Matrix.

The move is a recognition that consumers aren’t the only target for VR, which is expected to be a $30 billion market by 2020, according to Digi-Capital. To get there, business-to-business and educational applications will have to take off. In this case, L’Oréal hopes hair stylists will be able to avoid expensive training trips by using the VR app.… read more. “L’Oréal launches virtual reality hair education for salon stylists”