[This short story from EdScoop reports on a new, ambitious effort to bring engaging virtual reality experiences to higher education, and includes links to a few similar projects. The original version of the story includes a two-minute video (also available via YouTube) and the press release is available from No Proscenium. –Matthew] Arizona State launches virtual wildlife sanctuary for biology students By Betsy Foresman September 24, 2020 Arizona State University has begun developing new immersive locales using virtual reality, starting with a virtual wildlife sanctuary for biology students. Through a partnership announced last week with the virtual reality company Dreamscape…

[The Financial Times reports on new and earlier efforts to use presence-evoking technology to recreate the experience of busy trading floors; follow the link in the image description for a 3:42 minute video and see the story “Extended Reality offers financial services huge opportunities“ from Consultancy.uk for related information. –Matthew] [Image: Citigroup’s augmented reality workstation, combining 3D holograms and real-time financial data. The bank developed the system four years ago but never implemented it. Credit: Citigroup video via YouTube.] Traders set to don virtual reality headsets in their home offices UBS looks at recreating busy trading floors with London VR…

[The 1:08 minute video included with this press release from Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology via EurekAlert! (and also available on YouTube) isn’t very impressive on its own but it represents an important advance in presence-evoking technology. Optics.org provides a bit more technical information, including this: “[N]one [of the previous approaches] have produced a satisfactory balance between the pixel period, the image intensity, and the achievable frame rate. … [N]one of these methods [to use reconfigurable metasurfaces] has successfully achieved metasurface hologram movies of more than 4 frames per second, according to the TUAT project.” “TUAT took a public…

[The pandemic has increased the potential value of telepresence robots for tourism, with new robots and revenue models on the way. This story is from Skift, where the original includes two more images and a one minute video. –Matthew] Robots Came For Your Jobs, Now They’re Coming for Your Vacations: Here’s How Sean O’Neill, Skift August 28, 2020 SKIFT TAKE: Are there really enough people who want to remote-control a robot and visit places virtually? We’re skeptical. But the founder of the startup Propelmee is surprisingly persuasive at the potential uses for such robots. — Sean O’Neill The robots were…

[Posts here in April and July highlighted the use of cardboard cutouts to provide a sense of the physical presence of people who can’t attend events because of the pandemic. The trend is continuing and expanding, including in my hometown, as reported in this story from The Philadelphia Inquirer (where the original version includes three more pictures). Any web search will reveal many more examples, but here are four that show the breadth of the phenomenon: How Jesús Luzardo connected with family of victim of Florida school shooting through cardboard cutout (Daily Democrat) Conan O’Brien will turn you into a…

[There were several presence-related announcements at this week’s Facebook Connect conference and this story from The Verge touches on them, but it’s particularly interesting because it focuses on how CEO Mark Zuckerberg views the future, including this: “The thing that excites me about virtual and augmented reality is the feeling of presence. The idea that this is the first computing platform in the history of computing, where you really feel like you’re there with another person. Right? Delivering a sense of presence is the thing that I care about. And VR and AR are going to be the technologies that…