[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…

[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…

[The WindowSwap project lets users visit a website and “voyeuristically travel by looking out of somebody else’s window for a while.” This story from Smithsonian Magazine, where the original version includes seven more example images, also highlights other virtual travel experiences available online. The Kottke.org blog post “Let’s Go for a Stroll Outside” covers, and provides video examples of, another. –Matthew] [Image: The view from WindowSwap user Ula’s window in Doha, Qatar. Credit: Courtesy of Sonali Ranjit and Vaishnav Balasubramaniam / Coded by Maryam Touimi Benjelloun)] This Website Highlights Views Outside Windows Across The World The WindowSwap project provides a…

[Lucas Rizzotto recorded his life in first-person 3D for all of 2019 and created a VR interface that allows him to re-experience any part of it. The short description below is from PetaPixel, where the story includes his 28:11 minute video (also available via YouTube) and some interesting quotes taken from it. For information on an award-winning and thought-provoking earlier social VR project by the artist-inventor, “Where Thoughts Go,” see coverage in VRScout. –Matthew] This Guy Wore a Face Camera for a Year and Built a VR Time Machine By Michael Zhang July 11, 2020 San Francisco-based inventor Lucas Rizzotto…

[A new company is using virtual reality and the presence it evokes to give people in the workplace first-person experiences to help them understand and counter “bias, inequity, and incivility.” This story is from IEEE Spectrum, where it includes a second image. For more information see the company’s website and for related stories see these previous ISPR Presence News posts: Presence for good: “Traveling While Black” VR documentary creates impactful experience Presence for good: Changing your race in virtual reality U. of Illinois students crowdfunding VR films to increase understanding about police-minority relations Can VR and presence help stop sexual…

[This is a thoughtful survey of some fascinating and important issues and questions raised by incorporating artificial intelligence in human-like machines, creating medium-as-social-actor presence. It’s from USC Dornsife and draws on the expertise of researchers affiliated with the USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences; see the original version for a second image. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Mathieu Persan] Do Humans Dream of Androids Dreaming? From the species that brought you the moon landing and the hot dog eating contest, artificial intelligence is here to change the world. By Stephen Koenig July 7, 2020 The first question…