[Check out the 2:49 minute video included in this story from VRScout (and also available via YouTube) to see how an XR developer has creatively used the passthrough capability of virtual reality to create a compelling mixed reality presence illusion. See the original story for two more images and another video. –Matthew] Amazing VR App Turns Any Room Into A Mixed Reality Stargazing Lounge This mixed reality stargazing experience for Quest opens the windows into outer space. By Bobby Carlton November 24, 2021 When Facebook—now Meta—introduced its Passthrough API Experimental earlier this year, it opened the doors for developers, allowing…

[As the short story below from Futurism reports, a video of a new robot from the company Engineered Arts named Ameca is going viral because the robot’s facial expressions are unusually realistic. Coverage in Nerdist begins this way: “The population of humanoid robots on Earth continues to grow unabated. Everybody and their IT person has seen Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot, for example. And what’s going on with bipedal bots at Caltech would make a T-1000 sit up and take notice. But nothing—as far as we know—appears to be more realistic than Engineered Arts’ new robot, Ameca.” LAD Bible includes these…

[As The Next Web story below explains, South Korea plans to use virtual reality to determine whether older citizens retain the necessary “driving, cognitive, and memory skills” to renew their driver’s license. Could the presence-evoking technology be used for all driver’s tests at some point in the future? –Matthew] [Image: Figure 2 from Sooncheon Hwang et al.: Stimuli used in study of driver performance using virtual reality in daytime and at night. Incident 1: A dog runs into the driving lane. Incident 2: A car cuts into the driving lane. Incident 3: A truck approaches from a cross road to…

[Having become a vegetarian many years ago after being bothered by the idea of eating animals (“anything with a face”), I have absolutely no interest in replicating the experience of eating chicken with skin and bones, but the new Nestle product described in this story from DesignTAXI is an interesting attempt to evoke presence. See the original story for a second image and follow the links at the end for more details. –Matthew] Nestlé Backs Vegan Chicken Wings That Come With ‘Skin’ & ‘Bones’ By Mikelle Leow November 23, 2021 It’s been said that bone-in wings taste better. Soon, vegetarian…

[In this IEEE Spectrum interview, the chief architect of early metaverse Second Life provides some valuable perspective on what would be required, and the prospects for, a successful and widely popular metaverse. –Matthew] [Image: Hanging out in Second Life. Credit: Linden Lab] What Can the Metaverse Learn From Second Life? Creator Philip Rosedale says a virtual reality internet is still some way off By Edd Gent November 29, 2021 The tech world is abuzz with talk of the metaverse, a virtual world where millions of people could soon gather to work, play, and socialize. The idea isn’t as new as…

[Nvidia’s latest technology platform Omniverse Avatar attempts to create effective social presence illusions, as described briefly in this story from The Verge; watch the demonstrations from the CEO’s recent presentation and see what you think. For more details about these and other recent innovations from Nvidia see coverage in ZDNet. –Matthew] Nvidia wants to fill the virtual and physical worlds with AI avatars New Omniverse Avatar platform combines 3D models and AI speech By James Vincent November 9, 2021 Nvidia has announced a new platform for creating virtual agents named Omniverse Avatar. The platform combines a number of discrete technologies…