[The continuing evolution of presence-evoking immersive technologies is enabling valuable use cases that enhance communication and users’ lives, as reported in this story from Futurism. See the original version for a different image, and for more details follow the link to the 14:28 minute video highlighted in the story. For more about Jenny and the Helping Hands community, see March 2022 coverage from Input.  –Matthew]

[Image: Source: Input]  

Sign Language in Virtual Reality Actually Looks Kinda Awesome

Meta’s new finger tracking tech is actually pretty impressive.

By Victor Tangermann
November 1, 2022

Virtual reality isn’t all about legless avatars and forgettable games.

Case in point, members of the deaf community are now taking advantage of modern headsets’ increasingly sophisticated hand tracking to use sign language in virtual reality.

It’s a compelling use case for the technology, allowing those who grew up with sign language as their first language, those who developed hearing problems later in life, and anyone else who speaks using gestures to communicate effortlessly inside virtual worlds.… read more. “Meta’s new finger tracking tech enables improved use of sign language in VR”

[This first-person report from Here is Oregon describes what sounds like a very rich multi-sensory presence experience at the Portland Art Museum; see the original story for four more pictures and for more details and images, see coverage from OPB (Oregon Public Broadcasting) and the Portland Tribune, and visit the website of the Dutch design collective Polymorf. –Matthew]

[Image: Participants take part in “Symbiosis,” an extended reality experience from Dutch design collective Polymorf that is making its international debut at PAM CUT in Portland. Credit: Ian Gillingham/Portland Art Museum]

Extended reality experience ‘Symbiosis’ makes international debut in Portland

By Jamie Hale | The Oregonian/OregonLive
November 12, 2022

My body bubbles up around me as I gaze up at the forest above, the air dark and misty, plants visible only by tiny glowing lights that make up their outlines cast in purple and blue.… read more. “In new extended reality experience ‘Symbiosis’ you’re a hybrid creature in climate-changed world”

[This story from Forbes reports on the first-place winner of the $10 million ANA Avatar XPRIZE competition, a team from the University of Bonn and their telepresence robot NimbRo; our colleague Jacki Morie is quoted extensively in the story. There’s more information in the EurekAlert! press release and especially on the NimbRo website, which features many pictures and videos. Coverage in SpaceNews provides this interesting context about the motivations for the competition sponsor, the largest airline in Japan:

“’When we think about the world that we live in right now, where only about 6% of the population can travel over long distances using airlines, there’s still quite a large gap that we have to fill to connect the world,’ said Kevin Kajitani, co-founder and chief operating officer of avatarin Inc., a startup that spun out of ANA Holdings Inc. in 2020.… read more. “Teleportation anyone? XPRIZE winner Is the closest you can get – so far”

[This BBC News story describes efforts to use presence-evoking VR to prepare students for job interviews with prospective employers (who may also use VR to conduct interviews). Coverage from Inavate includes this:

“Users get feedback on their answers, as well as how the answer was given, whether the interviewee is maintaining eye contact with the avatar as well as the participant’s posture throughout the interview.

The trial will see more than 10,000 learners accessing the experience, with findings due to be published in January 2023.

Sandwell College, a UK based school, took part in the programme, with 84% of participants reporting that they feel ‘more confident’ about interviews in a real-world environment.

Christophe Mallet, CEO, Bodyswaps commented: ‘We’re moving into a new phase for the development of immersive learning. For institutions it’s not about just showcasing innovation anymore, it’s about delivering tangible students outcomes cost-effectively.… read more. “Your next job interview could take place in virtual reality”

[A new company lead by ex-Google AI experts is bringing the latest chatbot technology directly to consumers so that they can experience medium-as-social-actor presence with a wide variety of personas, despite the inherent dangers of “bias, inaccuracy, and people’s tendency to ‘anthropomorphize and extend social expectations to nonhuman agents,’ even when they’re explicitly aware that they are interacting with an AI.” The details (and in the original version, examples and more images) are provided in this story from The Washington Post. See also the closely related Yahoo! News story “An Elon Musk chatbot tells Insider he wants to buy CNN, reinstate Trump on Twitter, and ‘show people how the sausage gets made.’” –Matthew]

[Image: Character.ai’s co-founders, Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas at the company’s office in Palo Alto, Calif. Credit: Winni Wintermeyer for The Washington Post]

‘Chat’ with Musk, Trump or Xi: Ex-Googlers want to give the public AI

The creators of Google’s LaMDA have launched the chatbot startup Character.ai,… read more. “‘Chat’ with Musk, Trump or Xi: Ex-Googlers want to give the public AI”