[The stories from The New York Times and SoraNews24 below contain different details about a new, popular presence illusion outside a busy subway station in Tokyo. Each story contains short videos of the giant “Shinjuku east exit cat” along with some other examples of illusions created the billboard display technology. –Matthew]

A Digital Cat Is Melting Hearts (and Napping a Lot) in Japan

The calico prances and dozes on a 26-by-62-foot LED billboard in Tokyo. It has drawn crowds in real life and sparked joy on social media.

By Hikari Hida and Mike Ives
July 8, 2021

Ryoko Kikuchi was strolling home from a Tokyo movie theater when she saw a cat the size of a yacht strutting high above the sidewalk, coyly licking its paws.

“The way it was meowing was too cute to bear,” she said.

A lot of people in Tokyo feel the same way, no matter that the cat is just a bunch of pixels on a billboard.… read more. “Giant ‘lifelike’ cat appears on new 3-D billboard outside Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station”

[Below is an abbreviated version of a long but compelling story from The New Yorker about how robot pets evoke, and how older users experience, medium-as-social-actor presence that combats loneliness. If you have time, it’s well worth reading the full version (or listening to the included audio version). –Matthew]

[Image: Credit: Illustration by Grace J. Kim]

What Robots Can—and Can’t—Do for the Old and Lonely

For elderly Americans, social isolation is especially perilous. Will machine companions fill the void?

By Katie Engelhart
May 24, 2021

It felt good to love again, in that big empty house. Virginia Kellner got the cat last November, around her ninety-second birthday, and now it’s always nearby. It keeps her company as she moves, bent over her walker, from the couch to the bathroom and back again. The walker has a pair of orange scissors hanging from the handlebar, for opening mail.… read more. “What robots can – and can’t – do for the old and lonely”

[We’ve seen individual stories here about some of the innovations covered in this article from Freethink but this is a nice summary of many of the ways presence-evoking technology is improving surgery. See the original version for three videos. –Matthew]

[Image: The HipInsight system projects holograms on AR glasses that effectively give surgeons x-ray vision, so they can see what they need to see, when they need to see it, right inside the patient’s body. Source: Surgical Planning Associates via PR Newswire]

The Augmented, Virtual, Human-Machine Future of Surgery Is Here

Advancements in XR technologies are rapidly integrating into the operating room.

By Jesse Damiani
June 26, 2021

Dr. Stephen Murphy had conducted countless hip replacement operations before, but this one was different. In this one, he and his team could see a 3D hologram overlaid on the patient — a digital model of the patient’s body that existed directly in his line of vision.… read more. “The augmented, virtual, human-machine future of surgery is here”

[The public can now experience famous prehistoric paintings in the Lascaux caves in France via virtual reality, as reported in this short Reuters story. See the original story for a one-minute video and see WION for a 3:09 minute video report. For more on this topic see “Did art peak 30,000 years ago? How cave paintings became my lockdown obsession“ in The Guardian and a February 2020 Engadget story that says a new Google “exhibit is the closest you’ll ever get to standing inside” France’s Chauvet Cave. –Matthew]

[Image: The Lascaux caves in south-western France. Credit: Tuul & Bruno Morandi/Getty. Source: “‘Humans were not centre stage’: How ancient cave art puts us in our place” in The Guardian]

Virtual reality brings prehistoric Lascaux caves back into view

June 25, 2021
Reporting by Lea Guedj; Editing by Richard Lough and Andrew Heavens

PARIS, June 24 (Reuters) – Nearly six decades after France’s prehistoric Lascaux caves were made off-limits, visitors will be once again be able to tour the site – only this time in virtual reality.… read more. “Virtual reality brings prehistoric Lascaux caves back into view”

[The curators of a new augmented reality art exhibition in New York City are experimenting with the possibilities for creating, displaying and experiencing art; see the original version of this story from The New York Times for more pictures and a short video. See also the related July 1, 2021 Artnet story “Botanical Gardens Around the World Are Hosting Augmented Reality Artworks by Ai Weiwei, El Anatsui, and Other Artists This Fall” in which a co-curator of the ‘Seeing the Invisible“ exhibition says the goal is to break down “the binary between what is often considered ‘natural’ versus ‘digital.’” –Matthew]

[Image: Precious Okoyomon’s augmented reality piece, “Ultra Light Beams of Love” (2021), offers colorful flowers with faces that recite Okoyomon’s poetry. Credit: George Etheredge for The New York Times]

Now You See the Art in A.R. Now You Don’t.

In their first collaboration, the High Line and the Shed invite the public to a sculpture hunt, in augmented reality.… read more. ““The Looking Glass” ‘secret’ art exhibition experiments with augmented reality”