[The Apple Vision Pro was the impetus for lots of discussion at an interesting and enjoyable symposium at the University of Toronto last week titled “Questioning Reality: Explorations of Virtual Reality and Our Social Future.” The story below about a new presence-evoking documentary about fashion from Gucci touches on some of the same themes and questions regarding the future of Apple’s new platform and others that will come after it. The story is from fxguide, where the original version features more images; the documentary is available via the GUCCI app on the Apple App Store. For more details and coverage, see stories from Forbes and Glossy. More reactions and discussion can be found on the r/VisionPro subreddit. –Matthew]

Gucci on the Apple Vision Pro and why it Matters

By Mike Seymour
April 5, 2024

Yesterday, Gucci released an immersive, mixed-reality version of its new documentary on creative director Sabato De Sarno for the Apple Vision Pro (AVP).… read more. “Gucci on the Apple Vision Pro and why it matters”

[The author of this review from Axios describes the benefits and challenges she encountered during sustained use of the new Apple Vision Pro headset. As with so many assessments, the report makes clear that presence-evoking virtual, augmented and mixed reality technologies are advancing, but there are still substantial barriers to widespread adoption. –Matthew]

[Image: A view from the Vision Pro with icons overlaying pass-through video of a living room. Credit: Apple]

Axios Review: Using Apple’s Vision Pro in real life

By Ina Fried, author of Axios AI+
March 29, 2024

Apple’s $3,500 Vision Pro headset, two months after its appearance in stores, is now something we can live with as well as marvel at.

The big picture: I spent two weeks wearing the headset while sitting in airplanes, watching movies in bed and writing articles from my living room couch.… read more. “What it’s like to use Apple’s Vision Pro for two weeks in real life”

[An ”immersive and beautiful” new museum of children’s literature evokes presence without screens and other digital technologies. Instead, it features “40 book-themed dioramas blown up to life-size and arranged, Ikea showroom-style, in a space the size of two hockey rinks.” The details are in this abridged version of a story from The New York Times; see the original version for 15 more images. –Matthew]

[Image: Two generations of readers enjoy “Caps for Sale” at the Rabbit Hole, a new museum in Kansas City, Mo. Credit: Chase Castor for The New York Times]

Once Upon a Time, the World of Picture Books Came to Life

The tale behind a new museum of children’s literature is equal parts imagination, chutzpah and “The Little Engine That Could.”

By Elisabeth Egan
Photographs and Video by Chase Castor
April 1, 2024

On a crisp Saturday morning that screamed for adventure, a former tin can factory in North Kansas City, Mo.,… read more. “Picture book worlds brought to life: A new museum of children’s literature creates presence with life-size dioramas”

[A new study demonstrates that behavioral activation – a treatment for depression in which patients are encouraged to engage in pleasant real-life activities, is also effective when the activities are simulated using virtual reality. The details are in this post from Stanford Medicine’s Scope blog (where the original includes two more images). –Matthew]

[Image: Credit: Emily Moskal]

Imagining virtual reality as a simple tool to treat depression

By Sarah C. P. Williams
April 11, 2024

Some of the 17 million Americans afflicted with major depressive disorder each year may soon receive a surprising new prescription from their clinician: Have fun on a virtual reality device.

Engaging in activities that make you feel good may seem like overly simplistic advice, especially when directed at people with severe depression. But the science behind this idea, called “behavioral activation,” is well established. Multiple studies have found that encouraging people to get outside, exercise, socialize, volunteer or immerse themselves in enjoyable activities in a prescribed, systematic way can help ease the symptoms of depression.… read more. “Imagining virtual reality as a simple tool to treat depression”

[The new Spatial Personas feature in Apple’s Vision Pro headset allows up to five users to collaborate in the same mixed reality space; the author of this story from CNET describes his presence experience using the feature and is impressed. See the original story for a second image, and ZDNET for more coverage. –Matthew]

[Image: Here’s Norman Chan, playing chess with me in my home office. Credit: Screenshot by Scott Stein/CNET]

Spatial Personas Have Turned My Apple Vision Pro Into a Telepresence Machine

A small change to how Apple’s avatars work has made connecting with people feel far more real in ways that make the future feel wilder than ever.

By Scott Stein, Editor at Large
April 3, 2024

After spending an hour and a half at night with a friend, drawing, playing games, watching movies and looking at models, I realized I forgot to say goodnight to my kid.… read more. “Spatial Personas have turned my Apple Vision Pro into a telepresence machine”

[This essay from Vox makes clear how difficult it is for us to resist perceiving an artificial intelligence as a “conscious, thinking being,” i.e., experiencing medium as social actor (MASA) presence. Of course it’s only a presence misperception if the AI is indeed not conscious, and while the author agrees that we shouldn’t base our decisions about an AI’s consciousness on what it tell us, she notes that experts have few effective tools for making the determination. A New York Times story from September 2023 titled, “How to Tell if Your A.I. Is Conscious,” with the subheading, “In a new report, scientists offer a list of measurable qualities that might indicate the presence of some presence in a machine,” expands on the challenges of determining consciousness and concludes this way:

“We do this kind of research already with animals, requiring careful study to make the most basic claim that other species have experiences similar to our own, or even understandable to us.… read more. “This AI says it has feelings. It’s wrong. Right?”

[This AppleInsider report about a newly revealed patent application doesn’t focus on the implications for presence, but the incorporation in Apple products of lenticular displays that create the illusion of three-dimensional objects certainly would enhance the presence experiences of a large group of consumers. See the original version of the story for a second image. –Matthew]

Apple wants to bring Spatial Computing to regular monitors

By William Gallagher
April 4, 2024

Amplifying work and media it has developed for the Apple Vision Pro headset, Apple is developing technology so your MacBook Pro or desktop monitor can display 3D environments without special glasses.

Perhaps this is Spatial Computing or maybe it just looks like it. For a future MacBook Pro, Studio Display — or even, unbelievably, an Apple Watch — may come with a flat screen showing 3D images.

Arguably, that’s exactly what we’ve got now with the 3D features of the Apple Vision Pro.… read more. “Apple wants to bring Spatial Computing to regular monitors”

[Here is another insightful essay from Mike Elgan in Computerworld. This one echoes classic social presence scholarship in arguing that we should base our decisions about which (if any) communication technologies to use on both the degree to which they evoke a sense of being physically together and the purpose and emotional tenor of the expected communication. Note especially the optimistic section below titled “Augmented or virtual meeting spaces?” –Matthew]

[Image: Credit: Metamorworks / Getty Images]

Kill meetings (before meetings kill your company)

Meetings waste time, destroy solitary deep work and make a mockery of flex work and a globally distributed workforces.

By Mike Elgan, Contributing Columnist
April 1, 2024

Meetings have been problematic for decades. They’re often used as a catch-all solution to unresolved problems. And a chronic lack of meeting discipline means that, for all the time spent getting people together, little is accomplished.… read more. “Kill meetings: Remote (and all) workers feel disconnected, but the answer is better choices of presence-evoking technologies”

[A new artificially intelligent robot is being used to teach school children in India, as reported is this story by New Indian Express. An excerpt from coverage in Interesting Engineering that follows provides optimistically framed context. The Times of India has a three minute video report (also available on YouTube). For a first-person report from the robot’s creator (and more pictures), see a story in Rediff.com (an excerpt about the origins of the robot’s name and responses to ‘her’ debut is also below). For more on the mentioned AI teacher Beatrice, see a story in Campus Technology. All of this news may remind some of the recent controversy regarding the suggested use of AI during a graduate student strike at Boston University, as reported by GovTech. –Matthew]

[Image: Source: Rediff.com]

Meet Iris, Kerala’s first AI teacher’s class has zero absentees

Named Iris, the creation is a product of Atal Tinkering Lab, MakerLabs and KTCT school.… read more. “India’s first sari-donning AI humanoid robot teacher starts teaching”

[As this story from the University of Pittsburgh reports, Pharmacy students there are using an expanding variety of presence-evoking technologies to enhance learning, and a new dedicated Lab will open there this fall. In addition to the Anatomage Table pictured below, two images in the original version of the story feature the HoloLens 2 AR. –Matthew]

[Image: James Coons watches his student explore life-sized cardiac and circulatory anatomy on an Anatomage Table. Credit: Lawrence Kobulinsky]

Transforming Learning at Pitt Pharmacy with Augmented and Virtual Reality

By Phoebe Ingraham Renda
March 6, 2024

From Oculus gaming systems to Apple’s Vision Pro, Pitt students are no strangers to virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies. However, for the first time in fall 2023, 115 School of Pharmacy students used this technology to step into their studies during their Pharmacotherapy of Cardiovascular Disease course.… read more. “Transforming learning at Pitt Pharmacy with augmented and virtual reality”