[This press release from Airbus describes the five winning submissions by companies and individuals of the HeroX/Airbus Metaverse and the Future of Flight Challenge to envision “immersive, experiential ways in which a passenger can interact with the metaverse during the travel process” (quote from an April 2022 press release via PR Newswire). A search failed to reveal additional information about most winners but for more on Imirsifi’s entry see that company’s website. –Matthew] Exploring virtual reality’s future in air travel September 13, 2022 Imagine a future airline in-flight experience where travellers can enter a virtual environment via the Metaverse without…

[A new tennis simulator for virtual reality, with haptic feedback and both physical and mental training routines, will be available to the public starting in October; this story from Forbes (where the original includes two more pictures and three videos) provides the details. Key quote from Martina Navratilova: “The ball is coming at you a 100 miles per hour, you better be ready… It’s not the real deal, but it’s as close as you can get. All things being equal, of course you want to be on the court, but this is the best substitute.” –Matthew] Martina Navratilova-Backed Virtual Reality…

[Ars Technica has two stories about fast-evolving AI-based technologies that enable image and voice manipulation. The story below is about the latter – follow the links for the mentioned demonstrations and to create your own. The longer one is “With Stable Diffusion, You May Never Believe What You See Online Again. AI Image Synthesis Goes Open Source, with Big Implications” and includes these observations: “Stable Diffusion and other models are already starting to take on dynamic video generation and manipulation, so expect photorealistic video generation via text prompts before too long. From there, it’s logical to extend these capabilities to…

[Disney is experimenting with a new use of augmented reality to engage viewers in stories by evoking spatial presence, as described in this story from TechCrunch. The story also mentions related uses of AR by entertainment companies. See the original version for three more images and disney.com/remembering for more information, videos and images. –Matthew] Disney+ releases its first AR-enabled short film, ‘Remembering,’ starring Brie Larson By Lauren Forristal September 8, 2022 Today is Disney+ Day, and, as part of its perks, the company is offering Disney+ subscribers a new AR experience in conjunction with the short film “Remembering,” starring and…

[We’re used to watching movies and TV shows on high-definition screens and understanding but not consciously acknowledging (except perhaps during the credits) that large groups of people with a wide variety of specialized skills worked for months or years and spent large to huge amounts of money and used sophisticated, specialized technologies to construct every element of our (presence) experience. But a new project described in this story from PC Magazine suggests that in the future “everyone” will be able to merely describe their vision of a movie’s form and content to an AI-based technology that will then create the…

[Here is a thought-provoking essay from January about the potentially perilous effects of the growing “immersive entertainment industry” on both individuals and culture. It’s from the UKs leftist Tribune (its “About” page notes that George Orwell was a literary editor and HG Wells and Upton Sinclair were writers there). See the original essay for five more images. –Matthew] The Metaverse Is Just the Latest Step in Immersive Capitalism Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse is part of a much broader ‘immersive entertainment industry,’ which hopes to atomise popular culture – and force society to submit to its senses. By Adam Stoneman January 22,…