[With all the too-often avoidable turmoil and tragedy of the last many months, I think many of us would benefit from the application of presence described in this story from Tatler Hong Kong. See the original version for three more images, and for more details see the SpaceVR website, particularly the FAQ page. –Matthew]

Float Co. Mid-Levels Introduces Asia’s First Virtual Reality Space Experience

By Zabrina Lo
January 7, 2021

With a VR headset and a sensory deprivation tank, aspiring cosmonauts can experience the thrill of being in orbit without having to leave planet Earth

I have alway7s wanted to travel to space. But unless I suddenly find a hidden talent for engineering or Russian, floating in a darkened pod of ultra-salty water is probably the closest I’ll ever come to feeling completely weightless. More than 14,000 kilometres away from Nasa‘s rocket launch site at Cape Canaveral, a sensory deprivation tank in Hong Kong is my portal to the cosmos for an afternoon.… read more. “Restorative presence: SpaceVR’s “float therapy” simulates astronauts’ Overview Effect experience”

[This PC Magazine story describes what it’s like to set up and use an AI driven digital human that can carry on emotionally engaged conversations with customers and others, the next step in chatbot technology: it includes this quote from an expert: “Digital humans are considerably more valuable than any alternative [since] they aren’t just transactional, they are ‘interactional.’” See the original story for three more images and a video. –Matthew]

One Step Closer to SkyNet: Your Next Help Desk Chat Might Be With a Digital Human

AI company UneeQ seeks to take the next step in the evolution of intelligent chatbots: Enter the Digital Human.

By Gadjo Sevilla
17 Dec 2020

While chatbot and conversational artificial intelligence (AI) technology is now found in a wide range of consumer solutions—smart speakers, smart TVs, various apps and software experiences—many advances in the technology continue to be driven by the sales and help desk markets.… read more. “AI-based digital humans are next step in evolution of intelligent chatbots”

[This Debugger story explains the promise of and our progress toward effective and commonly available holograms (actually volumetric images); our colleague Frank Biocca is one of the experts quoted and the original story includes three videos and an additional image. For related news see USA Today’s story about IKIN’s new RYZ, “the first personal hologram platform”; Digital Trends’ story about Looking Glass Factory’s 3D holographic display and software that transforms any 2D image into a 3D one; and a short Bloomberg video about the Swiss company Inverse’s 3D hologram meeting technology that just won a CES 2021 Best of Innovation Award. –Matthew]

[Image: Credit: Janet Mac]

We’re ‘Maybe Five-ish’ Years Away From Princess Leia Holograms

Or to be more precise, volumetric Princess Leia images

By Angela Lashbrook
January 12, 2021

You’re sitting at your dining room table, drinking wine and chatting with your closest friends and family.… read more. “We’re ‘maybe five-ish’ years away from Princess Leia holograms”

[Digital Trends reports on the development of a novel exosuit designed to make virtual experiences “indistinguishable from real life”; the original story includes a one minute video and three different images. Coverage in New Atlas adds these details:

Reese has been testing it at a simulated 1/20th of normal Earth gravity, making walking around and jumping less laborious than in real life while still giving a user a sense of force and balance. Currently, there are motors only at the hip and knee joints, but future plans would extend this to five motors on each leg, with more on your arms, hands and back. […]

Reese has built and coded this prototype with just €55,000 (US$67,000) of funding, to the point where he and his collaborators have got it up and running with a few applications. One lets you climb stairs, one simulates being hit with a heavy ball, one lets you balance on a skateboard across rough terrain, one has you walking across a series of moving stones, another has you bouncing on a springy platform. … read more. “Holotron is a robotic exosuit that could transform the way we use VR”

[A January 4, 2021 item in The Ghost Howls blog highlights an interesting and potentially valuable resource, an interactive compilation and classification of over 100 different methods of locomotion in virtual environments. –Matthew]

Discover all the available VR locomotion methods

Some amazing researchers have collected and classified all the known VR locomotion methods, for a total of more than 100! There are all the most common solutions, like smooth movement and teleporting, but also some crazy ones like changing the gravity of the world using your fingers.

All the data is available for free to everyone on GitHub, so if you are doing some research in XR, feel free to use it!… read more. “Locomotion Vault compiles and classifies all known VR locomotion methods”

[The terminology for presence is different, but this story from Hackaday provides a valuable review and assessment of our progress toward compelling presence experiences. See the original version for an additional image. –Matthew]

All the Good VR Ideas Were Dreamt Up in the 60s

By Donald Papp
January 4, 2021

Virtual reality has seen enormous progress in the past few years. Given its recent surges in development, it may come as a bit of a surprise to learn that the ideas underpinning what we now call VR were laid way back in the 60s. Not all of the imagined possibilities have come to pass, but we’ve learned plenty about what is (and isn’t) important for a compelling VR experience, and gained insights as to what might happen next.

If virtual reality’s best ideas came from the 60s, what were they, and how did they turn out?… read more. “All the good VR ideas were dreamt up in the 60s”