[In this story from The Conversation, Denise Quesnel, a doctoral student at Simon Fraser University, describes her experiences conducting research on the potential of VR (and presence) to promote positive experiences; she captures the sense of enthusiasm I’ve felt since grad school for advancing our understanding and use of presence to improve people’s lives. The original story includes more images and a 1:24 minute video. –Matthew] [Image: Individuals wearing virtual reality headsets often look isolated. But research shows they can experience profound emotions such as awe, which enhance their feelings of social connection and wellbeing. (Credit: Shutterstock)] Inspired, magical, connected:…

[The prospect of robots being used to care for elderly patients suggests many benefits but also raises a variety of concerns including of course those of the people who would receive the care. This story from Slate’s Better Life Lab blog provides a review; see the Pew Research Center study, and a related story in VC Daily, for more information. –Matthew] [Image: Photo illustration by Lisa Larson-Walker.] In the Midst of a Coming Elder Care Shortage, the Case for Robot Caregivers By Amanda Lenhart November 11, 2017 An elderly woman nestles a white, fluffy baby seal in her arms.…

[This story from EdTech: Focus on K-12 reports on the use of VR and presence at SUNY Buffalo to train teachers for the classroom; coverage from UBNow includes more information and a 2:10 minute video and more details from a presentation by Richard Lamb and his colleagues are available from SlideShare. Presence is being used elsewhere too: A story in University Business highlights the use of TeachLive at the University of Wyoming and Penn State University’s First Class. –Matthew] VR Gives Student-Teachers a Taste of the Classroom A University at Buffalo virtual reality training program lets educators deepen their pre-service…

[Presence has long been used to ease our longing for those who have died (see Lombard and Selverian, 2008); the project described in this first-person report from The Next Web uses it to ease our anxieties about what will happen when we die, and to prompt a discussion about what we should do for people at the end of life. The use of a tapping hammer to simulate the user’s heartbeat mentioned here has now been refined and added to the experience, as reported in new coverage from De Zeen. Both stories include many images and the De Zeen story…

[As noted at the end of this press release from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, the finding that presence-evoking technologies can modify our evaluations of foods just as our non-mediated eating environment can, raises potentially important prospects for the promotion of healthy (and unhealthy) foods. See the original for more photos and a video. –Matthew] [Image: Source: VTT] VTT: Virtual and augmented reality technologies influence consumers’ eating experiences November 22, 2017 Could health-promoting foods be made more appealing by using digital tools to enhance consumers’ eating experiences? VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has used Virtual Reality (VR) to…

[This long story from Forbes is a useful review of industry efforts to create effective and practical social presence illusions (it uses a technology-based definition of telepresence vs. the psychological sense of “virtual presence”). Read the original version of the story to see many images and videos that illustrate the different technologies. The author also has an upcoming book about AR and VR. –Matthew] [Image: Author Charlie Fink apparently in same room with a DVE hologram] The Trillion Dollar 3D Telepresence Gold Mine Charlie Fink, I’m a former tech executive covering VR, AR and new media for Forbes. November 20,…