Author: Matthew Lombard


  • Call: ‘Post-phenomenology and the ethics of Artificial Intelligence’ issue of Scenari

    CALL FOR PAPERS Post-phenomenology and the ethics of Artificial Intelligence Themed issue of the journal Scenari Edited by L. Possati, L. Taddio, and F. Ferro https://mimesisjournals.com/ojs/index.php/scenari/call-for-papers-2-22-2 Deadlines: For submitting proposals (title and abstract): July 25, 2022 For submitting the papers: September 30, 2022 As advances in AI occur at a rapid pace, there is a growing need for us to explore and understand what impact these will have on society. Policymakers, opinion leaders, researchers, and the general public have many questions. Can we distinguish between actions and behavior of an AI system? Who or what is responsible for the behavior…

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  • Different approaches to and views about virtual church

    [This CBC Radio story uses examples and interviews to describe some of the appeals of, approaches to, and views about the increasing use of presence-evoking virtual settings for attending church. The comments and predictions in the last two paragraphs are particularly interesting. The original version of the story includes five more images and a link to the recent 53-minute “How COVID rewired religion” edition of the CBC Radio program Tapestry, where the first segment focuses on “virtual church.” –Matthew] [Image: Jason Poling’s digital avatar greets visitors to his virtual-reality church community in a program called Alt Space. Poling is based…

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  • Call: Chapters for ‘Sensory Rhetorics: (Re)Making Sense in Perilous Times’

    [This isn’t a typical call for papers here, but there’s a clear connection to presence (and “digital technologies” are mentioned in one of the topic examples). –Matthew] Call for Book Chapters Sensory Rhetorics: (Re)Making Sense in Perilous Times Steph Ceraso and Jon Stone, Eds. Proposals and bios due by September 1, 2022 Book chapters due in February 2023 This collection aims to explore sensory rhetorics as a generative, capacious area of scholarly inquiry. There is a growing corpus of transdisciplinary scholarship on the senses, affect, and bodily ways of knowing/being (Massumi, Cvetkovich, Panagia, Ott). Sensory studies has also become an…

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  • How VR/AR and presence can support and enhance outdoor environmental education

    [This example -and link- filled post from The Conversation (“Academic rigor, journalistic flair”) describes ways presence-evoking technologies can be used effectively in environmental education; see the original version for three videos. –Matthew] Virtual reality can support and enhance outdoor environmental education July 11, 2022 By Micheal Jerowsky, PhD Candidate, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia and Ann Borda, Associate Professor, Melbourne Medical School, The University of Melbourne The use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) for environmental education is controversial. Some are concerned that these technologies might replace or disrupt outdoor experiences that can connect students to…

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  • Call: Workshop on Prototyping Cross-Reality Systems at ISMAR 2022

    Call for Submissions Workshop on Prototyping Cross-Reality Systems To be held in conjunction with the 2022 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR 2022) October 17th or 21st, 2022 (Monday or Friday) Hybrid Workshop: https://crossreality.hcigroup.de ISMAR 2022: https://ismar2022.org Submissions deadline: July 21, 2022 (Thursday) (EXTENDED) We invite researchers, practitioners, and designers to participate in the first workshop on prototyping cross-reality systems. Cross-reality (CR) systems offer different levels of virtuality to their users, enabling them to either transition along the reality-virtuality continuum or collaborate with each other across different manifestations. Many Augmented (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) systems are…

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  • Worry more about medium-as-social-actor presence, less about machine sentience

    [With yet another advance in language models, the author of this story from The Atlantic warns that the science-fiction threats of sentient machines are a distraction from the questions and challenges raised by the improving ability of ‘artificial intelligence’ to imitate consciousness and confuse humans: “The line between our language and the language of the machines is blurring, and our capacity to understand the distinction is dissolving inside the blur.” For interesting, related perspectives, see two July 2022 stories: “Moving beyond mimicry in artificial intelligence: What makes pre-trained AI models so impressive – and potentially harmful” in Nautilus, and “Nick…

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  • Call: ACM IUI 2023: ACM Intelligent User Interfaces 2023 Conference

    Call for Papers ACM IUI 2023: ACM Intelligent User Interfaces 2023 Conference Sydney, Australia March 27-31, 2023 https://iui.acm.org/2023/call_for_papers.html Deadlines: Abstract submission:  October 7, 2022 Full Submission:  October 14, 2022 ACM Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (ACM IUI) 2023 is the 28th annual premiere venue, where researchers and practitioners will meet and discuss state-of-the-art advances at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Ideal IUI submissions should address practical HCI challenges using machine intelligence and discuss both computational and human-centric aspects of such methodologies, techniques, and systems. The theme for this year will be Resilience, covering a wide…

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  • Five stolen paintings go on display in virtual reality

    [A new app allows users to experience art masterpieces in virtual reality (or on a smartphone) but goes beyond trying to reproduce the museum experience both in the design of the interface and because the original artworks aren’t available because they’ve been stolen. This story from Smithsonian Magazine provides details about the app and related efforts along with links to other coverage and a short video about The Stolen Art Gallery. Boing Boing has a very short first-person report on what using the app with a Meta Quest 2 is like, while the press release via PR Newswire includes this…

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  • Call: Research to be included in meta-analysis on persuasive effects of 360 VR videos

    Call for Research For Inclusion in Meta-Analysis of the Persuasive Effects of 360 VR Videos Dear colleagues, We are working on a meta-analysis that examines the persuasive effects of 360 degree VR videos. In particular, we are interested in including experimental studies that expose participants to a 360 video and measure its persuasive impact (e.g., empathy, beliefs, attitudes, intentions, behaviors). We have searched multiple databases to ensure that we include all published studies in this area. We also hope to include unpublished work (e.g., conference papers) in our analysis. If you have an unpublished study relevant to our analysis, please…

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  • Two forms of ‘Shakespeare Karaoke’ illustrate immersion and isolation issues in EdTech and beyond

    [There aren’t any easy answers and it’s unclear how or even whether conclusions in the specific context of Shakespeare’s plays can be generalized, but this story from EdSurge highlights a significant debate regarding what forms and degrees of immersion produce presence responses that are most useful for learning (and other goals). Perhaps the ideal solution is a combination of approaches. See the original story for two more images. –Matthew] [Image: Acting out a scene through Play the Knave. Credit: Photo courtesy of Play the Knave.] What ‘Shakespeare Karaoke’ Teaches About the Virtual Reality Future Does technology work better as a…

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  • Call: Fourth Workshop on Knowledge-aware and Conversational Recommender Systems (KaRS 2022)

    Call for Papers Fourth Workshop on Knowledge-aware and Conversational Recommender Systems (KaRS 2022) In conjunction with the ACM International Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys 2022) September 18 – 23, 2022 Seattle, WA, USA https://kars-workshop.github.io/2022/ Submission deadline: August 5, 2022, AoE SCOPE We are pleased to invite you to contribute to the Fourth Workshop on Knowledge-aware and Conversational Recommender Systems held in conjunction with the ACM International Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys 2022) Seattle, WA, USA, from September the 18th to September the 23rd, 2022. In the last few years, a renewed interest of the research community on conversational recommender systems…

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  • Presence challenges: Adapting ‘The Twilight Zone’ for virtual reality

    [Without giving too much away, this story from GameSpot describes some of the challenges of adapting the 1960s classic television series The Twilight Zone – a personal favorite that dramatically illustrated real-world issues and human dilemmas by putting characters in strange new versions of reality – from a passive, two-dimensional, third-person viewing experience into an active, three-dimensional, first-person experience in virtual reality. See the original story for two more images and a 1:56 minute video, the Twilight Zone VR website for more about the new version, and Wikipedia for more about the series and how it’s been re-envisioned for a…

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