[This Time magazine story describes and assesses two virtual recreations of Martin Luther King delivering his 1963 “I Have A Dream” speech. Without using the terminology, it notes elements that enhance and detract from (or ‘break’) presence. The original version of the story includes a second image and a 27:41 minute video. See also a new 2:11 minute news report from NBC 4 in New York about how Long Island students experienced the speech in virtual reality for this year’s Martin Luther King holiday. For more context see the 2020 story “How TIME Re-created the 1963 March on Washington in Virtual Reality” and new stories from Time and CNN about the speech itself and how its themes and messages are often overlooked and misconstrued. –Matthew]

[Image: An avatar of Martin Luther King, Jr., as seen in the VR experience “The March 360”]

A New VR Experience Shows How The Demands of MLK’s ‘Dream’ Speech Are Still Unresolved

By Andrew R.… read more. “A new VR experience shows how the demands of MLK’s ‘dream’ speech are still unresolved”

[Rapidly evolving artificial intelligence tools are making it increasingly difficult for consumer to determine the extent and nature of the role of technology in the creation of images, text, voices, videos and now, as described in this story from Fast Company, presentation slides. See the original story for a one-minute video, a PR Newswire press release for more details and a 30-second video, and Tanya Smith’s getnoticedwithvideo TikTok account for a 2:30 minute demo video. –Matthew]

New generative AI tool instantly builds PowerPoints and presentation decks

Beautiful.ai launches a generative tool to help PowerPoint users overcome writer’s block and the daunting confrontation of a blank presentation.

By Danica Lo
January 13, 2023

Generative AI has become increasingly popular with content creators looking for a low-cost way to produce text and imagery—and now, it has been harnessed by web-based design companies to help users overcome both writer’s block and the daunting prospect of building a presentation from zero.… read more. “New generative AI tool DesignerBot instantly builds slide presentations”

[This story from MIT Technology Review describes a particularly powerful application of social presence, and illustrates how maximizing the level of perceptual realism should not always be the goal. Here are four key quotes from the story; see the original version for pictures of Claire and Ted Matte and Tom Nicel and his avatar:

• “’The lightbulb went off in my head—people feel like they’re really together in VR,’ [EvolVR founder] Jeremy [Nickel] says. That feeling of true presence, as if avatars were really sharing a room together, convinced him that a spiritual community could form among people wearing headsets.”
• “The people attending VR meetups like Death Q&A are test-driving a new type of 360° digital community: one much more visceral and consuming than Zoom or the online forums that came before, and untethered to the complex social network that grounds and creates tension in traditional, face-to-face experiences.”

[This CNET story provides an interesting first-person tour of the current (and likely future) options for providing haptic sensations that enhance presence experiences. See the original story for five more images and three videos.  –Matthew]

[Image: Trying out HaptX haptic gloves in Las Vegas: These are considered the best, but they’re absolutely huge. Credit: Scott Stein/CNET]

The Revelation I Got From Experiencing HaptX Is Wild

I tested gloves and buzzing things in Las Vegas to see where the future points.

By Scott Stein
January 9, 2023

I put my hands out flat and loaded them into a pair of gloves loaded with joints, cables, pumps and tightening straps. All of this was connected to a backpack-size box that helped pump pressure around my fingers and create sensations of touching things. I was about to play Jenga in VR using an $80,000 pair of haptic gloves made by HaptX.… read more. “First-person report: Haptics and presence at CES 2023”

[For more technical details about how it works, see coverage in Ars Technica, but this story from New Atlas captures some of the implications of the dizzying pace of progress in AI-generated images, videos and here voices, during these “interesting times.” See the original story for an embedded Tweet on the topic and visit Microsoft’s Vall-E website for many more details and to listen to examples. –Matthew]

[Image: “A robot stealing a human’s voice, in the style of Picasso.” Generated by DALL-E]

Microsoft’s new VALL-E AI can capture your voice in 3 seconds

By Loz Blain
January 10, 2023

Microsoft researchers have presented an impressive new text-to-speech AI model, called Vall-E, which can listen to a voice for just a few seconds, then mimic that voice – including the emotional tone and acoustics – to say whatever you like.

It’s the latest of many AI algorithms that can harness a recording of a person’s voice and make it say words and sentences that person never spoke – and it’s remarkable for just how small a scrap of audio it needs in order to extrapolate an entire human voice.… read more. “Microsoft’s new VALL-E AI can capture your voice in 3 seconds”