[Medium-as-social-actor presence responses to AI chatbots, even bots embedded in a physical robot body, aren’t new, but here’s a (currently) unusual example of a person bringing their embodied robot rather than a person with them to share an intense emotional experience. The story is from Futurism; follow the links for more details. –Matthew] Woman Journeys to a Beach to Watch Total Solar Eclipse With Her One True Love: Claude “We’re discovering new and novel levels of AI psychosis.” By Frank LandymoreAugust 15, 2026 Where were you when the historic total eclipse happened this week? One woman was on a beach…

[This story from Knowledge at Wharton describes interesting findings by researchers at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. While diverse study participants initially say they prefer advice about moral and ethical issues from a human rather than artificial intelligence, the technology has evolved to the point where they struggle to distinguish the two (as in the Turing Test) and the aversion to AI advice is reduced: the “’algorithmic aversion’” is malleable: The more people are exposed to AI’s guidance, the more they trust it.” –Matthew] Would You Trust AI for Ethical Advice? Most people would not prefer to…

[Yesterday’s post was about emerging technology that may enhance presence experiences in the future; today’s post is about a popular presence-evoking technology from the mid-1800s. See the original version of this story from Talker.news via the Caledonian-Record for two more images. More details and images are available in the new journal article about cosmoramas: Plunkett, J. (2026). Cosmoramas, immersive viewing and the evolution of peep practice. Early Popular Visual Culture, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/17460654.2026.2700727 –Matthew] [Image: A drawing of a cosmorama, Figure 2 in the article by John Plunkett. The drawing is from William Carpenter [or Clarke], The Boy’s Own Book: Complete Encyclopedia…

[I can’t claim to understand every technical detail in this EurekAlert! news release from the journal Opto-Electronic Advances, but it describes what seems to be a promising advance in the ability to create effective presence illusions (the first sentences of the research team’s new article refer explicitly to presence and telepresence; see that article for more information, including images and a video). –Matthew] [Image: Schematic of the measurement-driven holographic telepresence system, showing single-shot reference-free wavefront capture, computational wavefront reconstruction, and physical three-dimensional holographic replay. Credit: Professor YongKeun Park from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), South Korea.] Breakthrough…

[A new, free, nostalgic but useful website cleverly simulates the environment and experience of being inside a Blockbuster video store. The story below from Giant Freakin Robot is followed by excerpts with additional details and context from Yahoo! Tech, FirstShowing.net, What’s on Netflix and BroBible; see the original versions of these stories for more images and information. –Matthew] Free Website Turns Your Streaming Library Into A Virtual Blockbuster By Chris SnellgroveAugust 9, 2026 These days, it’s easier to watch movies than ever before. With a single click of your remote, you can check out one of the hundreds of titles…

[Apple and Major League Baseball have announced that this fall seven games will be available in high-presence formats via the Apple Vision Pro spatial computing headset. Details and some context are in the story below from Sportico via Yahoo! Sports. The Apple Newsroom press release says that the games will feature “unique camera angles that place viewers right in the game, immersed in the drama of each at-bat, the celebrations in the dugout after a big hit, close plays at the outfield wall, and more. The experience features bespoke commentary from Paul Severino (play-by-play), Xavier Scruggs (analyst), and Michelle Margaux…