[Most presence experiences occur as a result of using one or a few technologies at one or a few places, but some amusement, and especially theme, parks offer many different presence experiences all in the same place (a few cities, or at least large areas of cities, do this too – e.g., Las Vegas and replica cities). This story from the Independent captures some of the sensations of visitors to these odd but compelling places, in this case the Huis Ten Bosch theme park in Japan. See the original story for more photos, and the park’s website for more information.…

[This short story from Forbes describes the clever use of tele-operation via VR to help artificially intelligent robots learn how to move like humans. The original story includes a 1:29 minute video, and for more information see the short interview with Peter Abbeel in Supply Chain Management Review and the November 2017 New York Times story it links to. –Matthew] [Image: Robot performs human movements using VR. Photo Credit: Berkeley Robot Learning Lab.] Robots Learn To Move Like Humans Using Virtual Reality February 1, 2018 Andréa Morris, Contributor – I cover S.T.E.A.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math). The historic…

[Can a robot evoke medium-as-social-actor presence and effectively fill the role of TV news anchor? The original version of this story from the Daily Mail includes more pictures and two videos. For more details see a 14:21 minute video from The Guardian via YouTube. More information and a video about the weather robot Xiaoice is available from The Washington Post and Engadget covered the earlier robot news anchors Kodomoroid and Otonaroid. –Matthew] Erica, the creepy robot that is so life-like she appears to ‘have a soul’, will replace a Japanese TV news anchor in April Roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro says she…

[This story from The Register provides a nice overview of the many efforts to incorporate haptic sensation in virtual reality (and thereby increase presence for users); the original story includes videos for four of the technologies. –Matthew] We won’t need to go outside if these haptic tricksters have their way Simulating physical sensations is a growing frontier in VR tech By David Matthews 26 Jan 2018 Haptic controllers are being touted as the next frontier in virtual reality. Having spent years obsessing over headset pixel counts, the VR industry is now playing with exoskeletal gloves, ultrasound waves and even electric…

[Now you can replace your telepresence robot with a human surrogate wearing the ChameleonMask! This story is from Mental Floss, where the original includes a 30 second video; much more information is available from the project website. –Matthew] ‘Human Uber’ Lets a Surrogate Socialize For You By Jay Serafino February 1, 2018 Has the process of interacting with other human beings become too much for you, but you don’t have the heart to ditch your social obligations completely? Then you’ll be very interested in what virtual reality researcher Jun Rekimoto showed off at MIT Tech Review’s EmTech conference in Asia…

[This is an interesting story from IFLScience about medium-as-social-actor presence in a Scotland grocery store. Our colleague David Benyon from Napier University is quoted in coverage from the Sunday Herald and a cultural explanation for how people responded to Fabio the robot is included (along with a short video) in a story in ZDNet. –Matthew] Store Hires Robot To Help Out Customers, Robot Gets Fired For Scaring Customers Away By James Felton 22 January 2018 Every few months there’s a story warning us that robots will take over our jobs within five, 10, or 20 years. You don’t get a lot…