[A major competition has been launched to accomplish a “grand challenge” for presence, as reported in this story from Fast Company. For more information see an interview with the XPrize founder in Fortune, and of course the website for the Avatar XPrize. –Matthew]

The Latest XPrize Is For Building Remote-Controlled Humanoid Robots

From caring for distant parents to entering burning buildings, there are lots of ways that people might use robot avatars to be in places they can’t go themselves. The XPrize Foundation is offering $8 million if someone can build one by 2021.

By Ben Schiller
March 12, 2018

Imagine that your parents are aging and need help doing chores around the home. You desperately want to help, but you live a thousand miles away in another city with your own family. So you put on a haptic sensory suit (which gives you the sense of touch through a remote device), some VR googles, and you control a robot installed in your parents’ home.… read more. “New $10 million Avatar XPrize is for building remote-controlled humanoid robots”

[Light field cameras aren’t new (see The Verge) but Google may be the company that brings them affordably to VR. This story is from MIT Technology Review, where the original includes more images. For more information see the Google blog post by Paul Debevec. –Matthew]

VR is still a novelty, but Google’s light-field technology could make it serious art

A new VR app lets you explore worlds with surprising depth and detail.

by Rachel Metz
March 14, 2018

I recently got a private tour of a NASA space shuttle’s cockpit, a quirky mosaic-covered LA home, and a peaceful chapel with light streaming through ornate stained-glass windows—all without leaving my chair.

That chair was in an office at Google’s Silicon Valley headquarters, and I was wearing an HTC Vive virtual-reality headset on my face. But because these places were filmed with a high-resolution prototype camera that reproduces some of the key cues we use to understand depth in the real world, it felt more like actually being there than anything I’ve experienced with any other live-action VR.… read more. “Google light field camera, app provide glimpse of truly immersive and lifelike VR”

[In most cases organizations use a presence-evoking technology for a single purpose, for example for entertaining consumers or for training employees; this story from The Asahi Shimbun describes an interesting case in which the same technology is used for both. The original version of the story includes a second image. –Matthew]

[Image: Wearing VR headsets, riders prepare for a horror-filled ride at the Toshimaen amusement park in Tokyo. Credit: Odaka Chiba]

Virtual reality horror ride could help train actual railway workers

By Odaka Chiba/ Staff Writer
March 11, 2018

The Seibu Group has devised two virtual-reality (VR) projects with entirely different purposes. One is to scare the pants off train riders. The other is to ensure that passengers never have to experience such frights.

The group’s Toshimaen amusement park in Tokyo’s Nerima Ward has converted its haunted house into an attraction called “Onryo Haisen VR” (Vengeful spirit, deserted railroad VR).… read more. “Virtual reality horror ride could help train actual railway workers”

[A recent series of reports of Amazon’s Alexa spontaneously laughing has raised questions about whether machines should be designed to emulate humans. This story from Popular Science argues yes. A counter view can be found in “Alexa’s Creepy Laughter Is A Bigger Problem Than Amazon Admits” in Co.Design:

“Alexa’s recent case of the ‘Ha Ha Has’ underlines the uncanny valley between Amazon’s Alexa and any real human. It’s why Star Trek poked at the inabilities of the logic-based aliens known as Spock and Data to understand humor. Humor is an insanely complicated topic considered intrinsic to human evolution. It’s why knowing if to laugh and when to laugh, even with a close friend, can still be challenging at times for any of us!

In 10 or 20 years, maybe chatbots will master these social graces. But until they do, Amazon could have avoided its weird laughing problem entirely simply by positioning Alexa’s own personality as a computer you can talk to, rather than a cyborg bestie.… read more. “After creepy laughing episodes, should Alexa be a computer or a person?”

[Museums are still figuring out how to best utilize, and fund, virtual reality and the presence experiences it creates, but are impressed with its wide appeal. The director of HTC’s VIVE Arts “says VR will soon be just as important to a museum as its website.” This story is from The New York Times – see the original for several more images. –Matthew]

[Image: A staff member at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris demonstrating a new permanent virtual reality installation about evolution. Credit: Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times]

European Museums Get Adventurous With Virtual Reality

By Jake Cigainero
March 12, 2018

PARIS — At the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, visitors can take a trip to an ice blue celestial plane surrounded by an aurora borealis. There, a branching orb traces 460 species, including humans, back to the last universal common ancestor, or LUCA, a small single-celled organism thought to be the common origin of all current life on earth.… read more. “European museums get adventurous with virtual reality”