International Society
for Presence Research

Author: Matthew Lombard

  • Zao app shows deepfake tech’s rapid evolution; Facebook-led consortium launches Deepfake Detection Challenge

    Published:

    [The Verge reports on the latest viral deepfake app Zao and the privacy concerns it raises. In closely related coverage, Beebom has a list of eight “best deepfake apps and websites you can try for fun,” NBC has a story about a viral deepfake video of Saturday Night Live star Bill Hader morphing into Arnold Schwarzenegger and efforts to counter nefarious uses of the technology; Shelly Palmer focuses on the implications in the context of online dating, a piece in The Conversation (reprinted by Snopes) focuses on legal recourses, and a Facebook blog post describes a new consortium’s $10 million…

    Read more: Zao app shows deepfake tech’s rapid evolution; Facebook-led consortium launches Deepfake Detection Challenge

  • Call: Humans Meet AI (book chapters)

    Published:

    Call for Chapters: Humans Meet AI Abstracts due by September 30, 2019 Dear colleagues, Following our successful international conference in June 2019 at Örebro University, Prof Alessandro Saffiotti and myself will be the editors of the following book. We wish to extend the chapters to authors that did not participate in the symposium. You are welcome to send your abstract before the end of September 2019. Full papers (7000 words) are expected by the end of 2019 and content will be peer-reviewed. The publisher is very likely to be Springer (Anticipation Science Series). Please contact us for more details. Best…

    Read more: Call: Humans Meet AI (book chapters)

  • Enter Arcadia Earth, an immersive art world designed to inspire environmental action

    Published:

    [Vogue reports on a temporary immersive art exhibition in New York that uses presence (including via VR and AR) to raise awareness and change behavior regarding the environment. See the original story for more images, Fox 5 for a 1:47 minute video report, and the Arcadia Earth website for more information, many more pictures and a teaser video. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: David Mitchell / Courtesy of Arcadia Earth] Enter Arcadia Earth, an Immersive Art World Designed to Inspire Environmental Action By Natasha Silva-Jelly August 30, 2019 The Amazon is burning, and fear is igniting worldwide about the future of our…

    Read more: Enter Arcadia Earth, an immersive art world designed to inspire environmental action

  • Call: DiGRA Australia 2020 National Conference

    Published:

    Call for Papers DiGRA Australia 2020 National Conference February 10 and 11, 2020 Queensland University of Technology (QUT) http://digraa.org/digraa2020/ DiGRA Australia is a chapter of the International Digital Games Research Association (www.digra.org) We invite you to contribute to a two-day game studies conference to be held on the 10th and 11th of February at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Registration for DiGRA Australia conferences is free. The DiGRA Australia 2020 National Conference has been made possible due to financial support from QUT’s School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and the QUT Digital Media Research Centre. Note: International submissions are…

    Read more: Call: DiGRA Australia 2020 National Conference

  • The perpetual tomorrow of virtual reality

    Published:

    [This detailed story from EGM reviews the early and recent history of virtual reality and the hopeful views of current developers about its future. See the original version for lots more pictures. –Matthew] The Perpetual Tomorrow of Virtual Reality VR still hasn’t matched the reveries of science fiction. But for developers, hope springs eternal. September 11, 2019 By Khee Hoon Chan “Pancake games” is a term used frequently among virtual reality aficionados to refers to non-VR titles. Like “walking simulators”—a term mocking that genre’s perceived lack of interactivity—the phrase originally carried a slightly derogatory tone, pointing to the VR community’s…

    Read more: The perpetual tomorrow of virtual reality

  • Call: Ludo2020, the Ninth European Conference on Video Game Music and Sound

    Published:

    Call for Papers Ludo2020, the Ninth European Conference on Video Game Music and Sound University of Malta April 24-25, 2020 https://www.ludomusicology.org/2019/09/04/ludo2020-call-for-papers/ www.ludomusicology.org | #ludo2020 Submission deadline: January 6th 2020 We are now accepting proposals for Ludo2020, the Ninth European Conference on Video Game Music and Sound, taking place at the University of Malta, April 24th-25th next year. Please share our Call for Papers poster online and around your institutions. We welcome proposals on all aspects of sound and music in games. This year, we are particularly interested in papers that support the conference theme of ‘Participation, Performance, and the Body’.…

    Read more: Call: Ludo2020, the Ninth European Conference on Video Game Music and Sound

  • Virtual reality could have a positive impact on the environment – Here’s why

    Published:

    [Here’s a summary from E – The Environmental Magazine of some of the ways VR and presence can help us preserve our natural environment. See the original version for a different image. –Matthew] [Image: Source: B&T] Virtual Reality Could Have a Positive Impact on the Environment — Here’s Why Kate Harveston September 10, 2019 You’ve probably heard of virtual reality (VR) talked about as a fun and immersive technology, but you may not have considered how it could favorably impact the environment. Here are some reasons why something that everyone’s buzzing about could have planet-protecting advantages.…

    Read more: Virtual reality could have a positive impact on the environment – Here’s why

  • Call: EICS 2020 – 12th ACM SIGCHI Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems

    Published:

    Call for Papers The 12th ACM SIGCHI Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems 23-26 June, 2020 Nice (Sophia Antipolis), France http://eics.acm.org/2020/ Submission deadline for 2019 Q4: October 25, 2019 (see below for more information) EICS 2020 is the twelfth international conference devoted to engineering interactive computing systems and their user interfaces, addressing one or more software quality factors, such as usability, reliability etc. (as defined by ISO2501, see https://iso25000.com/index.php/en/iso-25000-standards/iso-25010) Work presented at EICS covers all processes at any stage of the development life-cycle (requirements, specification, verification and validation, testing, deployment). Any of the following topics of interest may be addressed…

    Read more: Call: EICS 2020 – 12th ACM SIGCHI Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems

  • Are we living in a computer simulation? Let’s not find out

    Published:

    [To me a great value of the presence concept is that it raises thought-provoking questions about our lives and even the nature of existence. Regardless of your views about the validity of “simulation theory” (the idea that we’re likely living in a computer simulation), it illustrates the power of simulation and presence as a metaphor for our technology-dominated era. While thinking about how we’d change our perceptions and behavior should we discover that we and/or our world are simulations is intriguing (see Jones, Lombard and Jasak, 2011), this column from The New York Times warns against conducting formal tests. –Matthew]…

    Read more: Are we living in a computer simulation? Let’s not find out

  • Call: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Narrative Aesthetics in Video Games (book chapters)

    Published:

    Call for Chapters: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Narrative Aesthetics in Video Games https://www.igi-global.com/publish/call-for-papers/call-details/4302 Editors: Deniz Denizel and Deniz Eyüce Şansal, Bahcesehir University Proposals submission deadline: September 18, 2019 INTRODUCTION Each period creates its particular aesthetics. Developments in the scientific and technological fields affect art forms and accelerate their evolution. In time, the leading art movements of an era generate and exceed their own saturation of thresholds, transform their ‘deep-and-singular’ selves into ‘shallow-and-multiple’ selves. An art form that evolves by its internal dynamics and statics reaches the threshold of saturation, and finally becomes a ‘springboard’ upon which another art form can take…

    Read more: Call: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Narrative Aesthetics in Video Games (book chapters)

  • Telemedicine milestone: First long-distance heart surgery performed via robot

    Published:

    [This ZDNet story describes successful heart surgeries performed via robot from 20 miles away, a milestone accomplishment in telemedicine and telesurgery. For more information see the press release via Business Wire and the article in The Lancet’s EClinicalMedicine; for more on the positive impact of telemedicine see “In the coalfields, telemedicine provides antidote to doctor shortages, poor health” in The Roanoke Times. –Matthew] [Image: Figure 1C from the EClinicalMedicine article shows the surgeon controlling the remotely located Corindus robot.] First long-distance heart surgery performed via robot In a feat of networking, engineering, and medicine, a doctor performed a heart procedure…

    Read more: Telemedicine milestone: First long-distance heart surgery performed via robot

  • Call: Critical Robotics Research issue of AI & Society

    Published:

    Call for Papers AI & Society: Knowledge, Culture and Communication Special issue on: Critical Robotics Research Editor-in-Chief: Karamjit S. Gill (editoraisoc@yahoo.co.uk) Guest Editors: Sofia Serholt, Sara Ljungblad & Niamh Ni Bhroin PDF: www.springer.com/cda/content/document/cda_downloaddocument/Critical+Robotics+research.pdf?SGWID=0-0-45-1656815-p1009539 Abstract submission: November 1, 2019 Manuscript submission: April 1, 2020 Contributions are invited for a Special Issue on Critical Robotics Research, to be published by the AI & Society Journal of Culture, Knowledge and Communication (Springer) (http://link.springer.com/journal/146). This special issue seeks research contributions that explore the topic of Critical Robotics Research as an important emerging paradigm in the area of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) and related fields, including…

    Read more: Call: Critical Robotics Research issue of AI & Society

ISPR Presence News

Subscribe

Search ISPR Presence News:

Categories

Archives

Recent Posts

Recent Comments