[This story explains how one company developed and is implementing the use of VR and presence to train drivers of trucks that carry hazardous and other materials to prepare them to deal with dangerous but rare situations. It’s from CCJ (Commercial Carrier Journal), where it includes a second image; Forbes has a related story. –Matthew] Innovators: Trimac Transportation removes real-world dangers through virtual reality training Jason Cannon January 15, 2020 CCJ Innovators profiles carriers and fleets that have found innovative ways to overcome trucking’s challenges. The difficulty in learning how to deal with dangerous situations is fairly clear. It’s hard…

[This Gizmodo story describes how using artificial intelligence to enhance a famous “actuality” film from the dawn of cinema said to have evoked intense presence responses at the time makes it look “like it could have been shot just yesterday on a smartphone or a GoPro” and alters the viewing experience. The original story includes both version of the film. Coverage in The Next Web adds that “The video’s also had sound added, which makes it all the more eerily… normal,” and references an article in The Moving Image (via ResearchGate) about reactions to the original film. A commenter on…

[This interview with an award-winning visual effects and virtual production supervisor doesn’t mention the term itself but describes several ways presence is being, and could be, used by filmmakers to “unite the digital and physical worlds so we can tell any story we can imagine”; note the democratizing scenario in his answer to the last question. The original story in Forbes features four additional images. –Matthew] [Image: “I first met Ben at Unite Vision back in 2017, where we discussed the future of immersive.” Credit: Unity.] Virtual Production And The Future Of Filmmaking—An Interview with Ben Grossmann, Magnopus Sol Rogers,…

[The story below from IndieWire describes three examples of how storytelling artists are using virtual reality to create body-centered presence experiences. For more on “Spaced Out” see coverage in /Film and CNET; for more on “Hypha” see VRScout; and for more on VR trends at Sundance 2020 see Forbes. –Matthew] [A still from “Spaced Out” by Pierre Friquet, an official selection of the New Frontier Exhibitions program at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Credit: Courtesy of Sundance Institute.] Sundance VR Programming Showcased Much More Than Movies in a Headset The potential for VR to immerse users in new bodily experiences…

[Last week Stephen Colbert, the host of The Late Show on CBS (in the US), used a clever iPad-based invention he calls the “Ask-O-Matic” to interview voters and a presidential candidate in advance of today’s Iowa caucuses; the funny 7:46 minute video segment is available via YouTube. But this technology isn’t new: Colbert introduced it on the September 20, 2012 episode of his previous TV program, The Colbert Report, when he interviewed documentarian Errol Morris. See a brief discussion on the New Territory Media blog and watch that earlier segment (start at 3:46) as well as the episode’s sign-off on…

[This post from Scientific American’s Voices blog makes a strong argument that creators of presence experiences need to work hard to make them accessible to all of us. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Getty Images] Virtual Reality Has an Accessibility Problem It’s been touted as an “empathy machine” that lets users see what it’s like to have a disability—but people with disabilities often can’t use it By Kaitlin Ugolik Phillips January 29, 2020 Virtual reality has come a long way since the 1960s-era Sensorama, which looked like a vintage arcade game and required the user to walk up and stick one’s head…

[This story from the Frontiers Science News blog describes a new study that uses virtual reality to manipulate the nature of experienced reality (i.e., presence) for participants to investigate how human-sensory systems integrate different types of perceptual cues. –Matthew] [Image: Source: Porras, D. C., Zeilig, G., Doniger, G. M., Bahat, Y., Inzelberg, R., & Plotnik, M. (2020). Seeing Gravity: Gait Adaptations to Visual and Physical Inclines – A Virtual Reality Study. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2019.01308] What goes up may actually be down By Michael Becker, Frontiers Science Writer January 24, 2020 Gravity is the unseen force that dominates our…