[The ambitious Virtual Experience Research Accelerator (VERA) project was created to advance human-subjects research on extended reality; in this news release via the University of Central Florida, VERA announces two new milestones toward that goal. See the original version for three more images, and a May 2023 ISPR Presence News post for more context. There’s much more information on the VERA website. –Matthew] UCF-Led VERA Project Reaches 2 Major Milestones for VR Research The Virtual Experience Research Accelerator (VERA), a U.S. National Science Foundation-funded platform designed to advance the pace and scope of immersive research, has launched its first large-scale…

[In what is apparently a world first, a charter school in San Diego, California has purchased two AI-powered humanoid robots to interact with students. It’s “part of a pilot program meant to help [the educators] figure out what role AI – and potentially robots – may play in the future of education.” Of course there are some serious concerns about the effort, including the priorities represented by the high cost of the robots and fears about the possibility of technology being used to replace human teachers. This report from Voice of San Diego describes the early days of the program…

[AI companies and many organizations label and refer to AI agents not as technological tools but as “digital humans,” “employees,” or “coworkers.” As described in this story from MIT Technology Review, researchers from Boston University have found that encouraging what might be considered role-based medium-as-social-actor presence in this way leads to negative outcomes by implying that the AI has skills and responsibilities equivalent to those of humans. As the researchers write, “AI employees appear to occupy a hybrid organizational position: treated as delegated producers rather than tools, but not monitored like human subordinates.” –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Photo Illustration by Sarah…

[This interesting story from UploadVR describes the trajectory of work by creator Marc Zimmermann, who has designed a series of presence-evoking virtual reality experiences that emphasize “mood, movement, sound, and emotional immersion rather than traditional gameplay.” To better understand what these experiences are like, see the original version of the story for six more images and two videos (and of course follow the links and try some of the experiences yourself). –Matthew] How Realms Of Flow Explores A Different Side Of VR By Craig StormJune 4, 2026 Some of the VR experiences that have stayed with me the longest haven’t…