[It’s always good to remember that presence-evoking technology is far from new. This story from The New York Times (where it includes six more images) describes the experience of using a 70 year old consumer photography and display technology. While it doesn’t use the term (tele)presence, its language will be familiar: Using the hand-held viewer to see a photo taken by the Stereo Realist camera is said to have a “strange, transporting effect — the way, through 3-D magic, a scene from the past can appear ‘shockingly present.’” Even on a projector screen it creates “the impression of time-traveling.” “[W]ith…

[According to this first-person report from CNET, the new Varjo XR-1 high-end virtual and mixed reality headset is capable of creating impressive presence illusions, including the inability to distinguish real and virtual objects. It’s for businesses now but as the author notes may be the future for consumers as well. See the original story for two more images. –Matthew] [Image: In the Varjo XR-1, it’s hard to tell what’s virtual and what’s real. Credit: Jonathan Hirshon] Varjo’s VR headset could finally be ready to replace TVs and monitors The $10,000 reality-blending, mixed-reality XR-1 headset can make 4K TVs and Volvo…

[How strange to know that the people in images we see in the media may not have ever existed; now Motherboard reports that a company will make its collection of AI-generated stock models “customizable and personalizable. Users will be able to algorithmically place any face onto any body in their collection” including their own uploaded pictures. The story addresses some of the ethical concerns; it also includes a 0:41 minute video. See Rosebud AI’s website for more details. –Matthew] This Company Promises to Place Any Face Onto Any Body, Using an Algorithm Rosebud AI wants to add diversity to stock…

[In the context of today’s polarization, it’s worth considering the potential of presence-evoking technologies for engaging, informing and building empathy in the context of not just elections but politics generally. This link-heavy summary of some recent efforts is from Forbes; see the original version for five more pictures. –Matthew] Could Virtual Reality Influence Election Campaigns? Sol Rogers, CEO and Founder of REWIND, an Emmy nominated immersive content studio that fuses bleeding-edge technology with award-winning creative storytelling. December 10, 2019 Politicians always try to adapt to new forms of media to allow them to connect to their voter-base. Consider Franklin D.…

[The New Yorker has a long and lively first person report on a variety of presence experiences via virtual reality; just the beginning and end of the story are below (note the specific reference to presence at the end of the third paragraph and the example of inverse presence at the very end). The original story also includes a 38 minute audio version. The publication has two other recent presence-related stories, one about its new Animate Objects iOS app, “an augmented-reality feature that allows you to discover the secret thoughts of everyday items, as drawn by the New Yorker cartoonist…

[This story from Fast Company describes more evidence that presence-evoking technologies can build empathy and other positive effects, in this case to encourage users to get a flu vaccination. This quote from the research PI is noteworthy: “It turned out that neither the tablet nor the video were able to create this sense of presence, this sense of you feel like you’re involved in the story … The only modality that did that was virtual reality.” By the way, our colleague Sun Joo (Grace) Ahn is one of the project researchers. For more information see coverage by UGA Today and…

[They don’t use the term, but most stories about the new audio erotica website Quinn, including the one below from Wired, discuss presence. Mashable’s begins with this example: “The 10-minute recording features the soft voice of a French man (or at least, a man putting on a French accent) as he fingers his lover — the listener — one last time before he boards a plane to Paris the next morning.” The New York Times’ story quotes a voice-over actress who says contributing to the site allows her to “connect with audiences in a much more intimate way” and notes…