[As the first, short story below from UploadVR reports, four VR experiences are nominated for Emmy Awards (from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences) this year. One is the particularly timely “The Messy Truth VR,” the focus of the second story, from Yahoo Entertainment. Note the comments of actor/producer Brie Larson about VR as “a step further” beyond film’s ability to create what sounds like presence. The original Yahoo story includes a 2:58 minute trailer and a 5:09 minute interview, and for more information see USA Today for a different short video and Deadline for another interview (which includes discussion of the need to be careful not to create a VR experience that is too intense and traumatizes the audience). For information about the ambitious plans for the virtual Emmy Award ceremony on September 20, see coverage in Variety.… read more. “Emmy-nominated “The Messy Truth VR Experience” builds empathy on social and political issues”

[This summary of how the pandemic has accelerated the “virtual experience economy,” which relies in great part on presence, comes from CNBC. Note: I’ve corrected a few typos and added some of the links. –Matthew]

Op-ed: The “Experience Economy” is dead, driving a boom in virtual reality

August 27, 2020
By Vikas Gupta, co-founder and CEO of the augmented reality company AVARA Media and a member of YPO

It wasn’t long ago that many companies were doubling down on the “Experience Economy.” There was plenty of money to be made helping people check off items on their bucket list. Seventy-six percent of consumers said they would rather spend their money on experiences than on material items in a 2019 survey by Momentum Worldwide.

But the coronavirus wiped out what we knew of the “Experience Economy” overnight. For obvious reasons, today’s consumers are staying closer to home and avoiding in-person contact with people they don’t know and trust.… read more. “The “experience economy” is dead, driving a boom in virtual reality”

[A new program based on virtual reality (and presence) is being launched to help women during their third trimester and the first two months after their baby is born. This story about it is from MobiHealthNews; the press release (“statement”) it refers to is available from Business Wire, and more information including a 1:19 minute video (also available via Vimeo) is available from the BehaVR website. –Matthew]

Hoag Memorial Hospital and BehaVR launch VR program for expecting mothers

NurtureVR was designed to be used at home as future moms enter their third trimesters to receive prenatal education, pain and stress management, and postpartum support.

By Mallory Hackett
August 26, 2020

Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian and BehaVR have teamed up to offer moms-to-be NurtureVR, a virtual reality program that supplies prenatal education, pain management, mindfulness strategies and support after giving birth.… read more. “NurtureVR launched for prenatal education, pain and stress management, and postpartum support”

[The US Army is developing technology to create robot-soldier teams for the battlefield; this story from the Army describes research on how an autonomous robot can detect changes in the environment and communicate them to a soldier via augmented reality. SyFy’s coverage summarizes it this way:

“In a move that could’ve been cribbed straight from Hideo Kojima ‘s Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, the U.S. Army is exploring a human-robot buddy system that, like Snake’s setup in MGS4, will let soldiers voyeuristically spy from afar the more immediate dangers that lurk around their robot sidekick’s next corner.”

For a related project see the USC Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) story “U.S. Army Research Enables Conversational AI Between Soldiers, Robot.”

–Matthew]

Army robo-teammate can detect, share 3-D changes in real-time

By U.S. Army CCDC Army Research Laboratory Public Affairs
August 24, 2020

ADELPHI, Md.… read more. “US Army robo-teammate can detect, share 3-D changes in real-time using AR”

[This Global News story explains why designer and engineer Ross Atkin created a new, inexpensive, build-it-yourself telepresence robot; the original story includes a second image and a 2:17 minute news report. Tom’s Hardware adds these details about the robot:

“Smartipresence is a cardboard chassis robot that uses rubber bands and screws for a simple yet robust construction. Place your smartphone into the articulated holder and then connect it to the Smartibot NRF 52 series ARM Cortex-M4F control board via Bluetooth. Remote control is achieved by sending a ‘pilot link’ to another device and then we can stream video from the pilot device, to the Smartipresence. Control is achieved using on screen buttons, we can move the robot in any direction and control the angle of the arm.

Writing code for the robot is made possible thanks to a version of JavaScript for microcontrollers called Espruino.… read more. “Smartipresence: Pandemic-inspired inexpensive build-it-yourself telepresence robot”