[It’s easy to forget how quickly technologies, including media technologies that evoke presence, have evolved and changed our daily lives. We can’t know exactly what will happen next, but as this story from Vanity Fair safely predicts, “a decade from now, on the eve of 2030, we’ll look back at today in astonishment at how primitive life was in 2019.” –Matthew] [Image: From the Everett Collection.] “IT WON’T BE PRETTY”: HOW THE NEXT DECADE’S TECHNOLOGICAL TSUNAMI WILL CHANGE LIFE AS WE KNOW IT Self-driving cars, iPads, Uber: The technological advances of this decade have happened so quickly that their breadth…

[For a touching example of presence, watch the viral video of Lee Loechler’s creative December 30 wedding proposal as described in this story from CNN. The original story includes more pictures and the full 3:23 minute video is available on YouTube. For more information, see coverage in Boston Magazine and Yahoo! –Matthew] [Image: Source: Good Morning America] A man re-animated ‘Sleeping Beauty’ to create an unforgettable wedding proposal By Mallory Hughes, CNN January 11, 2020 An illustrator, a self-described hopeless romantic and a room full of Redditors made one man’s proposal to his high school sweetheart quite literally picture perfect.…

[It may be necessary to watch the 1:14 minute video from the story below (or via YouTube) to appreciate the likelihood that the new “robot cat waiter” BellaBot will evoke medium-as-social-actor presence. The short story from YellRobot is followed by excerpts from a press release from the company that created her, er, it. –Matthew] BellaBot is a Cat-Like Robot Waiter January 12, 2020 We’ve seen robot waiters before. Whether a novelty to get more customers or a necessity to battle staff shortages, robots have been becoming increasingly more common in the restaurant industry. The newest robot waiter from Shenzhen, China-based…

[This article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is full of inspiring personal stories about different uses of presence-evoking technology to improve the lives of paralyzed military veterans. See the original version for four more pictures. –Matthew] [Image: Recreational therapist Matt Luitjohan, center, helps veteran Mike Erbe use a virtual reality head set in the Recreational Therapy Department of the Spinal Cord Unit at the Jefferson Barracks Division of Veterans Affairs in St. Louis on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2020. Credit: David Carson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch.] Skydiving, kayaking, fly fishing: Virtual reality therapy is taking paralyzed veterans to new places Michele Munz…

[There are still many challenges ahead but a company called Mojo Vision is developing technologies that increase the prospect of practical and safe contact lenses that augment our view of the world with virtual images, as described in this story from Fast Company (where it includes seven more images). Note that it’s not just the user of the AR lenses that would experience presence illusions but the people who interact with the user and aren’t aware of the technology-based source of that person’s augmented perception and knowledge. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Mojo] The making of Mojo, AR contact lenses that give…

[The Japan Times reports on reactions to a televised New Year’s Eve performance of a new song by an AI-based holographic simulation of a famous singer who died in 1989. The reactions raise complex questions about both the presence illusions and the ethics involved in these efforts. For more on the technology behind the simulation see a story in audioXpress (based on a press release available from Business Wire); here’s an excerpt: “Yamaha Corporation announces that it has succeeded in reproducing the singing of the late Hibari Misora, a legendary Japanese vocalist, using its own VOCALOID:AI singing synthesis technology in…