[It’s still limited to the wealthy and famous, but as technology improves and becomes less expensive, will the “presence after death” technology described in this story from The Guardian become common in the future? The story includes the two versions of the video Kardashian West tweeted, the first with the text, “For my birthday, Kanye got me the most thoughtful gift of a lifetime. A special surprise from heaven. A hologram of my dad. It is so lifelike! We watched it over and over, filled with emotion.” The second tweet reads “I can’t even describe what this meant to me…

[Although we rarely think of them that way, common eye glasses are a presence-evoking technology because they mediate our experience of the world and we quickly forget their role in changing how we see. As a person with a non-correctable vision impairment (due to congenital nystagmus) I especially appreciate the value of the more advanced presence-evoking technologies to improve vision described in this New York Times story (see the original for two more pictures). –Matthew] [Image: Ammad Khan, chief executive of IrisVision, with the company’s device to help those with low vision see better. It uses a smartphone, virtual reality…

[The project described in this story from the Stanford University School of Medicine represents a very positive application of presence-evoking technology that involves sharing knowledge and experience across the planet. –Matthew] [Image: A virtual-reality-enabled anatomy class that Stanford Medicine educators taught to high school students over the summer. Credit: Matt Hasel] Educators will use virtual reality to teach anatomy This fall, Stanford Medicine educators will teach anatomy to medical students in Kenya using virtual reality. The effort is part of a pilot project to educate medical students in under-resourced schools. October 16, 2020 By Mandy Erickson Later this fall, Luqman…

[This National Geographic story from September 2020 describes the increasing prevalence and acceptance of robots, including telepresence robots, because of the pandemic; see the original version of the story for three more (typically vivid National Geographic) images, and for more on Spot see coverage (including a 1:03 minute video) from IEEE Spectrum. –Matthew] [Image: Spot, a dog-like robot developed by Boston Dynamics, allows health workers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston to interact with patients—and even to measure their temperature, pulse, and oxygen saturation—from a safe distance. Credit: Screen capture from video by Farah Dadabhoy/Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Video…

[Facebook Research Labs is working on technology that makes typing while in virtual or augmented reality more natural and intuitive, as reported in this story from Virtual Reality Times. Note the reference to the technology’s use in future “‘always on’ … standalone Augmented Reality headsets that users might wear anywhere including in the car, at home, at work and anywhere else.” See the original story for three short demonstration videos; more information is in a Facebook blog post and a UIST 2020 research paper (at the link at the end of the story). –Matthew] Facebook Researchers Develop Invisible Finger-Tracking Keyboard…

[In these stressful times, the topic of this story from Medical News Today is particularly important. The story describes a new study that compared the positive effects of experiencing nature via TV, 360 video and VR, with interesting results regarding the role of presence. The full article is available without subscription from the Journal of Environmental Psychology. See also a related April 2020 ISPR Presence News post. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Donald Iain Smith/Getty Images] Virtual reality nature boosts positive mood Watching nature on an ordinary television relieves boredom and negative emotions, according to a study. But interacting with nature in…