[In the second of two special holiday posts today featuring essays about Christmas and technology, a professor of Philosophy uses the example of interacting with an “AI Santa” to write about the delicate line between harmless and positive suspension of disbelief and the dangers of misperceiving reality, i.e., the promise and peril of presence. See the original version of the essay in The Sacramento Bee for a different image.  –Matthew] [Image: AI Santa by Tavus. Source: Tom’s Hardware] Opinion: AI is now a sweet but weird part of Christmas By Andrew Fiala, a professor of philosophy at Fresno State UniversityDecember…

[In the first of two special holiday posts today featuring essays about Christmas and technology, the Cybernews writer presents a dark perspective on the impact of technologies, including those that evoke presence, on our experience of Christmas. The essay concludes with a reference to the simulation argument, the contention that we’re all experiencing the ultimate form of presence (or inverse presence, depending on whether the contention is true). For a contrastingly heart-warming story about the use of technology (broadly defined), see coverage in The Guardian of a unique United Airlines program: “For more than 30 years, United has staged its…

[Apparently for the first time, advertisers have used the multi-sensory “4D” technologies available in some movie theaters to increase the experience of presence, and thereby the attention of and impact on audience members. Details are in the story below from MediaPost, where the original version includes the 2:24 minute Wicked trailer in the immersive Screencast format (the trailer is also available on YouTube); the “Making of” video is available on YouTube as well. A press release via Business Wire includes this: “’The immersive nature of big screen cinema advertising already provides marketers with the highest attention scores of any media…

[Presence experiences are normally designed for humans, but in some fields of research it’s important to create a presence-evoking simulation for animals. Cornell University researchers are advancing the use of immersive virtual reality for neuroscience research with mice, as reported in this story from the Cornell Chronicle. –Matthew] MouseGoggles offer immersive look into neural activity By David Nutt, Cornell ChronicleDecember 18, 2024 Thanks to their genetic makeup, their ability to navigate mazes and their willingness to work for cheese, mice have long been a go-to model for behavioral and neurological studies. In recent years, they have entered a new arena…

[This story from WPLG 10, the ABC television network affiliate in Miami, Florida, describes the use of virtual reality by the judge, prosecutors and a witness during a stand-your-ground hearing in a Broward County courtroom. Beyond the details of the case, it delves into arguments about the pros and cons of the use of the technology, and in particular the role of presence (even quoting our colleague Jeremy Bailenson). The original version of the story includes a 3:15 minute video report (also available on YouTube). For context on the use of presence-evoking technologies in judicial proceedings, see a 1994 article…

[A German company is advancing the potential uses of telepresence robots for remote at-home care of elderly (and other) people by combining a variety of evolving presence-evoking technologies. Some of the details about the latest version of the company’s Robodies are provided in this story from Interesting Engineering, where the original version includes two videos (also available on YouTube here and here). More details are available on the Devanthro website. I imagine many of us would like to know more about what the company’s “nearly ten years of research and intensive testing in real-world environments” reveals about how people perceive…

[According to this story by the Editorial Director of New Atlas, we’re one step closer to a real-world version of Star Trek’s ‘ultimate’ presence-evoking technology, the Holodeck. See the original version of the story for four embedded short videos, and the technical explanation and demonstration video from SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 (also available on YouTube). The new research paper is in ACM Transactions on Graphics. –Matthew] Holodeck watch: Real-time volumetric video takes a giant leap By Loz BlainDecember 16, 2024 Imagine a next-gen VR experience that lets you speak realistic scenes, intelligent characters and complex situations into being, then interact with…