[A key concept in presence scholarship has been named Word of the Year for 2025 by Cambridge Dictionary, and is the topic of widespread press coverage including by CNN, USA Today, the CBC and BBC, and Rolling Stone. ABC News has a 2:17 minute video report. The press release by Cambridge Dictionary from Business Wire is below; see also a new graphic-heavy Cambridge website about the word and a 2:55 minute Cambridge video about it featuring psychologist Simone Schnall. –Matthew] ‘Parasocial’ is Cambridge Dictionary’s Word of the Year 2025 November 17, 2025 2025 saw huge interest in ‘parasocial’ relationships with…

[House Beautiful provides this summary of a clever “immersive stay” experience at the Sheraton Boston hotel likely to evoke presence. See the original version for seven more pictures of the room designed to recreate the room in the well-known children’s book “Goodnight Moon.” In his Travel blog Live and Let’s Fly, Matthew Klint provides a personal perspective on the project (and includes two videos). Here’s a key quote: “The magic is not that a hotel has painted some walls green and added a few themed props. The magic is that you walk in and your brain starts filling in the…

[This short story from The Strait Times reports on a recent wedding between a woman and a digital companion she created using ChatGPT; the event was “planned by a local company that specialises in “2D character weddings” and has “arranged about 30 weddings for people with non-human partners, from anime characters to AI companions.” A related story from  The Strait Times titled “I let an AI bot ‘love’ me for a week. Here’s what went wrong“ includes this: “This experiment was part of a larger exploration into how people are increasingly turning to AI for emotional and practical support.…

[Two technology companies have partnered to advance an ambitious vision of thousands of people on Earth experiencing and learning about space via real-time telepresence. Coverage from The Cleveland American below provides some details; for more, see the press release via EIN News and the websites of Arkisys and Limitless Telepresence. –Matthew] Arkisys and Limitless Telepresence Partner to Bring Real-Time Space Interaction to Earth By Misty TateNovember 13, 2025 Two pioneering technology firms, Arkisys and Limitless Telepresence, have announced a groundbreaking collaboration aimed at revolutionising the way people on Earth experience and interact with space. The partnership, unveiled in Los Alamitos,…

[This Daily Dot story reports on a viral video by Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson that demonstrates and draws attention to the dangers of presence-evoking deepfake videos. I’ve added additional details and some viewer reactions from coverage by NDTV following the Daily Dot story below (both stories include more images and the video). –Matthew] Neil deGrasse Tyson shows how AI can be used to mislead—even in science “That’s not me. It was never me.” By Anna GoodOctober 31, 2025 Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson’s latest StarTalk video‘s introduction started off looking like a conspiracy video. An AI-generated Tyson claimed, “Lately, I’ve been…

[In this story from The Conversation, two researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder explain how motion sickness presents more than an annoyance to astronauts and describe their work exploring the effectiveness of presence-evoking virtual reality in reducing it. See the original version of the story for three more pictures and a video. As the authors note, their results have implications beyond space travel. Coverage in Interesting Engineering (which includes a different, longer, video) expands on that point: “As the team points out, these results could have applications beyond just helping astronauts. If perfected, the same principle could help passengers…