[The use of teleoperation in police work has been considered before (e.g., see the 2019 ISPR Presence News post “A telepresence robot for police traffic stops” and the 2016 post “The legal and ethical ramifications of letting police kill suspects with robots”), but this essay from Police1 examines the potential benefits and challenges of using holographic police officers to keep both the public and police officers safe. See the original version for a video of the Portl platform. –Matthew] Could holographic officers improve safety and enhance trust? The technology could transform interactions with the public and improve responses to dangerous…

[Survivors of torture in an infamous Venezuelan prison are using virtual reality and the presence it evokes to bring awareness and empathy regarding the abuse to politicians and the public, and hopefully bring about political action to stop it, as reported in this story from The Washington Post. See the original story for more photos, a 1:27 video, and links to related coverage including a March 2023 story about Venezuela’s use of deepfakes to report false positive news stories. –Matthew] [Image: A person standing near Times Square wears a VR headset screening an immersive experience of the conditions at El…

[The NBC Bay Area television station covered the interesting story of teacher, artist, collector and presence illusion creator Joshua Ellingson; see the original story for the station’s 3:02 minute video report, and for much more information and many videos visit Ellingson’s website. –Matthew] [Image: A Pepper’s Ghost illusion of a goldfish swims beneath a plastic globe in the apartment of San Francisco artist Joshua Ellingson.] San Francisco artist finds popularity with old-time illusions By Joe Rosato Jr. August 28, 2023 Inside his 600-square-foot San Francisco apartment, Joshua Ellingson was outnumbered about 20 to one by vintage television sets, a collection…

[The story below from Decrypt reports that over a thousand people recently attended a runway fashion show that featured only holographic figures, and “numerous audience members” were moved to tears “despite the fact that nothing they had seen, technically speaking, physically existed.” See the original story for four more pictures and two videos, and for more information see the event’s press release via FashionUnited. –Matthew] Hologram Runway Wows Crowds at Amsterdam Fashion Week Future Front Row seeks to chart an immersion-first path forward for the digital fashion industry after packing the house in Amsterdam. By Sander Lutz September 11, 2023…

[The self-driving car company Wayve is using conversational large language model-based artificial intelligence to “talk” to its cars and ask them questions about what they see and how they make decisions as they drive. The company also is training the AI by having expert human drivers explain their perceptions and decisions as they drive. While this article from MIT Technology Review focuses on the important practical benefits of the approach, which has already been used with robots but not cars, the experience of conversing with embodied AI in both cases seems very likely to evoke an increasingly compelling form of…

[Another incisive column from technology writer Mike Elgan in Computerworld predicts that despite some companies’ mandates that their employees return to full-time office work, the shift to flexible work-from-home schedules established during the pandemic will continue: “Remote work is the future of work” (which means that presence-evoking technologies will be increasingly vital). –Matthew] [Image: A reception desk at Amazon offices in downtown Seattle, Washington. Credit: Glen Chapman/AFP/Getty Images. Source: CNBC] Amazon’s return-to-office mandate won’t work out No matter how many companies demand that their employees return to the office, the shift to remote work that occurred during the pandemic isn’t…