[This story from The A.V. Club nicely captures some of the challenges of creating compelling presence experiences using virtual reality. The original story includes the trailer video for “Spheres: Songs Of Spacetime”; for more information about “Spheres” see UniFrance and for more on “Dinner Party” see that film’s website.  –Matthew] [Image: Robert Rodriguez’s The Limit. Credit: STX Financing, LLC.] A Robert Rodriguez virtual-reality film captures the push and pull between VR’s past and future Alex McLevy April 18, 2019 Unless your name is James Cameron, you’re probably a little skeptical of the recent surge in virtual reality as a medium…

[A computer scientist and a biologist are using presence to teach users about insects and environmental conservation; some of the details are in this press release from EurekAlert!. More information is in their article in Rethinking Ecology, and see the project’s Patreon page for a 2:21 minute video (also available via YouTube; an earlier 1:30 minute YouTube video is also available). –Matthew] Living room conservation: Gaming & virtual reality for insect and ecosystem conservation Players explore and search for butterflies using knowledge gained through gameplay News Release 18-Apr-2019 Pensoft Publishers Gaming and virtual reality (VR) could bridge the gap between…

[As this report from the TED2019 blog makes clear, immersive platforms that don’t rely on isolating headsets have important advantages in the creation of (social) presence experiences. The original story includes more images and  for more information Axios has a concise summary, GeekWire has a detailed story about a new interactive, haptic-enhanced game for the Holodome as well as an earlier report on the platform’s debut in Seattle, and a 1:00 minute video that includes viewer reactions is available via YouTube. –Matthew] [Image: Step up close to, and almost into, the work of Monet, a favorite artist of Vulcan founder…

[Here’s another example of the potential of presence to enrich and expand education. The story is from the Waco Tribune-Herald, where it includes two more images. For more information see an earlier story in Baylor’s Instant Impact and Amanda Gardner’s website. –Matthew] [Image: Baylor graduate student Amanda Gardner puts on the virtual reality goggles to experience a film shot in the Armstrong Browning Library’s salon room, a recreation of the living room of poets Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Credit: Rod Aydelotte.] Baylor virtual reality project puts viewers in Victorian poets’ living room By Carl Hoover April 11, 2019 Baylor…

[The VR installation described in this story from de zeen offers a version of an otherwise unavailable experience that offers new perspective, actual and metaphorical. If you’ll be in London before April 25, consider visiting. The original story includes more images. –Matthew] Antony Gormley’s Lunatick invites Londoners to moon walk Augusta Pownall April 15, 2019 Artist Antony Gormley has teamed up with astrophysicist Priya Natarajan on a virtual-reality experience that allows users to walk on a digital version of the moon created using data from NASA. The 15-minute immersive experience sees visitors don a virtual-reality (VR) headset to travel from…

[This recent Wired story from the magazine’s founding editor is a thoughtful and thought-provoking perspective on the evolution of technology that explains how and why presence illusions will increasingly occur via augmented reality, creating both important benefits and potential costs. The original version of the story is extremely long so it’s abridged here, but see the original for more information and detail. –Matthew] AR Will Spark the Next Big Tech Platform—Call it Mirrorworld Kevin Kelly February 12, 2019 EVERY DECEMBER, ADAM Savage—star of the TV show MythBusters—releases a video reviewing his “favorite things” from the previous year. In 2018, one…