International Society
for Presence Research

Author: Matthew Lombard

  • Call: “Experimental and Integrative Approaches to Robo-ethics” issue of IJSR

    Published:

    CALL FOR PAPERS Special Issue: “Experimental and Integrative Approaches to Robo-ethics” International Journal of Social Robotics (Springer; Impact Factor 2.516 in 2019) Journal website: https://www.springer.com/journal/12369 Manuscript submission due date: 28 February 2021 AIM OF THE ISSUE: The development and diffusion of social robots gives increasingly rise to ethical and legal concerns related to, e.g., responsibility assignments in cooperative tasks, implementation of moral rules in robots, possible dual uses and misuses of artificial agents, unintended modifications of social, cognitive, emotive and communication abilities in humans interacting with robots. The urgency of developing effective ethical inquiries related to these issues leads specialists…

    Read more: Call: “Experimental and Integrative Approaches to Robo-ethics” issue of IJSR

  • Promise and peril: Sonantic’s emotional AI voices

    Published:

    [This short piece from PC Gamer nicely captures both prospective benefits and significant concerns about a future saturated with presence experiences, focused in this case on a new AI-driven text-to-speech technology that creates compelling illusions. The original story includes the 4:25 minute video it describes, and the video is also available on YouTube and on Sonantic’s website. More information is in stories from Yahoo! News and The Times (the latter behind a subscriber firewall). –Matthew] Oh good, someone invented the ‘first AI capable of crying’ A company has created a text-to-speech technology that doesn’t just read words, it simulates an…

    Read more: Promise and peril: Sonantic’s emotional AI voices

  • Job: Associate Director, Center for Immersive Experiences at Penn State University

    Published:

    Call for Applications: Associate Director, Center for Immersive Experiences Pennsylvania State University University Park Campus https://psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/PSU_Academic/job/University-Park-Campus/Associate-Director–Center-for-Immersive-Experiences_REQ_0000004529-1 Review of applications will be begin September 1, 2020 JOB DESCRIPTION AND POSITION REQUIREMENTS: Penn State’s Center for Immersive Experiences (CIE; immersive.psu.edu) is seeking to fill the position of associate director. CIE is a Penn State signature initiative with university-wide participation of 12 colleges and research units and is an affiliated center of the Institute for Computational and Data Science (ICDS). The Associate Director will be appointed as an Assistant/Associate Research Professor based upon experience and is expected to have their faculty home in…

    Read more: Job: Associate Director, Center for Immersive Experiences at Penn State University

  • Adding virtual baseball (and other) audience members during a pandemic

    Published:

    [Social distancing requirements are leading producers of sports coverage – and many others – to get creative in simulating missing audience members. This story from Variety describes how Major League Baseball is addressing the issue with digital fans (see the original version for a 19 second video). SB Nation’s coverage (“The uncanny valley is full of Fox Sports’ virtual baseball fans”) characterizes it this way: “In order to make the return of baseball feel more ‘alive’ on TV, Fox is adding full stadiums of virtual baseball fans that cheer and boo along with the action. It’s a means to make…

    Read more: Adding virtual baseball (and other) audience members during a pandemic

  • Call: Society for Philosophy and Technology (SPT) 2021 Conference

    Published:

    Call for Papers SPT 2021: Technological Imaginaries The Society for Philosophy and Technology June 28-30 Université Catholique de Lille Université de Technologie de Compiègne https://lillethics.com/spt-2021/ Submission deadline: December 1, 2020 THEME: Technological Imaginaries Technologies are always more than the sum of their mechanical parts. Indeed, technologies are entangled in symbolic forms of a social and cultural nature. Technologies also contribute to the construction of new worldviews and new forms of life. Technological imaginaries are far more than phantasies detached from technological innovation. They are at the heart of innovation itself, of the invention as well as of the implementation and…

    Read more: Call: Society for Philosophy and Technology (SPT) 2021 Conference

  • Thermal camera bracelet reads your wrist to track your fingers

    Published:

    [New Atlas reports on an innovative wearable design with several presence applications; the original story includes a 3:18 minute video (also available via YouTube) and more information is also available from Cornell University. The new paper includes this: “Another interest[ing] application of FingerTrak in the future is to replace the glove or controller in [a] Virtual Reality setting, to free the hands in VR interaction. Moreover, FingerTrak can be used to control a robotic hand remotely and thus provide a novel means of human robot interaction where precise human hand manipulation is needed.” (p. 71:21) –Matthew] [Image: A digital model…

    Read more: Thermal camera bracelet reads your wrist to track your fingers

  • Call: ICMI 2020 (Virtual) Workshop on Social Affective Multimodal Interaction for Health (SAMIH)

    Published:

    Call for Papers (Virtual) Workshop on Social Affective Multimodal Interaction for Health (SAMIH) To be held in conjunction with the 22nd ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction 29 October 2020 ICMI 2020: http://icmi.acm.org/2020/index.php?id=home Workshop: https://sites.google.com/view/wsamih/home Workshop papers or abstract due: 23 August, 2020 Organizers: Hiroki Tanaka (Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan) Satoshi Nakamura (Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan) Jean-Claude Martin (CNRS-LIMSI, France) Catherine Pelachaud (CNRS-ISIR, Sorbonne University, France) Social Skill Training is often used in the multimodal Interaction research community as an umbrella term for systems that aim at training social skills: managing appropriately verbal and nonverbal behaviors…

    Read more: Call: ICMI 2020 (Virtual) Workshop on Social Affective Multimodal Interaction for Health (SAMIH)

  • Inverse presence: Discovery reveals 2020 is a Holodeck program

    Published:

    [If you’re in the ISPR Presence Community Facebook group you saw this clever example of inverse presence a few days ago (along with several others lately); the story about it below is from Daily Star Trek News. CNET’s coverage adds this detail: “A close-up of the fan-made holodeck interface screen says, ‘Early C21 Outdoor, Los Angeles City Park, Survival Mode, VELDT, Variation 7.’ According to [designer Arthur] Chadwick, VELDT is a nod to the short story called The Veldt by science fiction author and famous Los Angeles resident Ray Bradbury.” Both stories include tweeted reactions and several more are in…

    Read more: Inverse presence: Discovery reveals 2020 is a Holodeck program

  • Call: Views regarding ethical issues of conversational agents for France’s National Digital Ethics Steering Committee

    Published:

    [Note: Follow the links below for the questionnaire, which includes detailed information on this topic. –ML] Call for Participation [Views regarding] The ethical issues of conversational agents National Digital Ethics Steering Committee (CNPEN) https://www.ccne-ethique.fr/en/actualites/cnpen-ethical-issues-conversational-agents Submission deadline: 30 September 2020 The National Pilot Committee for Digital Ethics (CNPEN) was established in December 2019 at the request of the [French] Prime Minister. Composed of 27 members, this committee brings together digital specialists, philosophers, doctors, lawyers and members of civil society. One of the three referrals submitted by the Prime Minister to the CNPEN concerns the ethical issues of conversational agents, commonly known…

    Read more: Call: Views regarding ethical issues of conversational agents for France’s National Digital Ethics Steering Committee

  • Eight360 Nova: A crazy, untethered, fully rollable VR motion platform

    Published:

    [This New Atlas story about Eight360’s impressive virtual reality platform includes lots of references to compelling presence experiences (without using the term); see the original version for more pictures and the video mentioned at the end, and see the company’s website for more coverage and videos. –Matthew] Eight360 Nova: A crazy, untethered, fully rollable VR motion platform By Loz Blain April 23, 2020 By far the most extreme gaming and simulation platform we’ve seen, the Nova places you in a fully untethered ball that’s free to spin in any direction, creating all sorts of wild gravity effects for total immersion…

    Read more: Eight360 Nova: A crazy, untethered, fully rollable VR motion platform

  • Let It Out: Record your scream for broadcast into the empty Icelandic countryside

    Published:

    [A clever campaign to promote travel to Iceland lets people release their pandemic-related (or other) stress by having their recorded screams broadcast into the empty and beautiful Icelandic countryside, creating presence as transportation until they can “come let it out for real.” This story from CBS News includes a 1:01 video (also available via YouTube) and a 6:54 minute news report about adapting to isolation. –Matthew] Iceland is broadcasting the world’s screams to relieve coronavirus stress By Sophie Lewis July 16, 2020 People around the world are finding different ways to relieve stress during the coronavirus pandemic. Some have tried…

    Read more: Let It Out: Record your scream for broadcast into the empty Icelandic countryside

  • Call: IEEE VR 2021

    Published:

    Call for Conference/Journal Papers IEEE VR 2021 27 March to 1 April, 2021 Lisbon, Portugal and online http://ieeevr.org/2021/ IMPORTANT DATES September 2, 2020: Abstracts due (REQUIRED) September 9, 2020: Submissions due October 31, 2020: Notification of first review cycle results December 15, 2020: Revised paper submissions due to second review cycle January 8, 2021: Final notifications January 22, 2021: Camera-ready material due from authors of accepted papers LINKS Paper abstracts complete papers must be submitted electronically through the online submission system: https://new.precisionconference.com/~vr All VR Journal Papers submissions [see “FURTHER DETAILS REGARDING SUBMISSIONS“ below.  –ML] should be formatted using the IEEE…

    Read more: Call: IEEE VR 2021

ISPR Presence News

Subscribe

Search ISPR Presence News:

Categories

Archives

Recent Posts

Recent Comments