International Society
for Presence Research

Author: Matthew Lombard

  • Why Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality will soon mean the same thing

    Published:

    [Precise and explicit definitions are essential for scholars (a quest close to my heart when it comes to presence). Especially in the last decade the evolution of the technologies that evoke presence has raised challenges for defining the nature and categories of the technologies and even for defining and measuring presence (e.g., many questionnaire items don’t apply well to augmented reality). This column from Computerworld outlines the situation and argues that despite the important distinctions, soon the technologies will all be commonly known as “virtual reality.” The original version of the column includes a second image and a 4:28 minute…

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  • Call: Chapters for “Research Games: Using Game Design Elements as an Inspiration for HCI Research Methods”

    Published:

    Call for contributions on an edited book on Research Games: Using Game Design Elements as an Inspiration for HCI Research Methods Chapter proposal deadline: 1st September 2017 In recent years, games have increasingly received attention as a source of inspiration for areas outside of games and play itself. After a successful workshop at CHI 2016 we are preparing an edited book in the Springer Human-Computer Interaction Series explicitly aiming to reveal bridging concepts and presenting methods for introducing the application of game elements and game design principles to research in the field of HCI. This Book will focus on how…

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  • More presence coming to the dining experience

    Published:

    [This story from the Irish Independent describes several ways presence experiences are becoming more common at restaurants; the original version includes two more pictures and for more information check out the websites of Shanghai’s Ultraviolet and Ibiza’s Sublimotion. –Matthew] [Image: Sea food: Diners at Shanghai’s Ultraviolet restaurant take in an underwater experience. Photo: Scott Wright of Limelight Studio] Out for a byte: dining is now a feast for all senses Technology à la carte will whisk you away to a Tuscan garden while kitchen robots flip your burgers. Sue Quinn savours the thought June 7 2017 Have a taste of…

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  • Call: International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Information

    Published:

    Call for Abstracts International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Information University of Porto (Portugal) December 5-7, 2017 http://aiconference.weebly.com/ Deadline for submissions: September 30, 2017 Dear all, Proposals are welcome for the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Information, which will be held at the Faculty of Arts, University of Porto (Portugal) on December 5, 6 and 7, 2017. The official language is English. Graduate students, junior researchers and senior scholars are welcome to submit their work. KEYNOTE SPEAKERS (CONFIRMED): Professor Luciano Floridi (University of Oxford) Professor Estela Bicho (University of Minho) Professor Eugénio Oliveira (University of Porto) Professor Luis Moniz…

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  • Finally: An augmented reality app that injects the internet into real life

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    [As this story from Wired notes, in the possibly-near future a virtual layer of experience will become overlaid on and intertwined with our nonmediated world, with lots of potential uses and impacts. The new Mirage app is an early step toward that future. –Matthew] Finally: An Augmented Reality App that Injects the Internet into Real Life Peter Rubin August 8, 2017 When Ryan Staake and Patrick Piemonte first worked together, they helped you get around: Both were interface designers at Apple, with Piemonte working specifically on the iPhone’s map technology. Now, nearly a decade later, the two are working together…

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  • Call: Emotional Machines: Perspectives from Affective Computing and Emotional Human-Machine Interaction (interdisciplinary conference)

    Published:

    Interdisciplinary Conference: Emotional Machines. Perspectives from Affective Computing and Emotional Human-Machine Interaction September 21-22, 2017 at the Institute of Philosophy, University of Stuttgart, Germany http://www.uni-stuttgart.de/philo/termine/emotionalmachines Free with registration Humans have emotions, machines do not. This seems to be a truism: Human beings are made of flesh and blood; they do not just act rationally but impulsively and emotionally. They make decisions, feel attracted to objects or subjects or repelled by them. They mourn others, are in a good mood or suffer from depression. But what about machines? At first glance machines and emotions seem to be at odds with each…

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  • Beyond virtual reality: Synthetic reality and our co-created futures

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    [This big picture perspective on the future of mediated experience from Forbes makes a compelling case that today’s technologies are leading us toward what has only been considered in science fiction, raising some of the same intriguing philosophical questions about the nature of humans and how we would use or misuse such technologies. –Matthew] [Image: A picture taken on June 8, 2016 in the gardens of the Chateau de Versailles shows ‘Waterfall’ installation by Danish artist Olafur Eliasson. The spectacular installation cascades into the Grand Canal of the famous royal gardens outside Paris. Eliasson created eight works for the palace…

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  • Call: Design for Health

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    Call for Papers: Design for Health Design for Health is an international refereed journal covering all aspects of design in the context of health and wellbeing. The Journal is published twice a year and provides a forum for design and health scholars, design professionals, health-care practitioners, educators and managers worldwide. Design for Health is affiliated with the Design4Health conference, established in 2011. The Journal aims to publish thought provoking work based on rigorous research. It invites high quality, original submissions that make a contribution to knowledge and practice in the context of the design of health products, services and interventions that…

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  • Ethical, practical challenges of VR-AR-AI-IoT blurring the lines between physical and virtual reality

    Published:

    [Presence scholars should lead the way in making sure everyone involved considers and addresses the challenges created by evolving technologies, as highlighted in this column from Futurism. –Matthew] [Image: “Reality is An Illusion” by Louis Dyer via Deviant Art] Will AI Blur the Lines Between Physical and Virtual Reality? By Jay Iorio, Innovation Director for the IEEE Standards Association August 15, 2017 The Notion of Reality As technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), big data, 5G, and the internet of things (IoT) advance over the next generation, they will reinforce and spur one another. One plausible…

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  • Call: Parallel Worlds: Designing Alternative Realities in Videogames

    Published:

    Parallel Worlds: Designing Alternative Realities in Videogames Saturday 30 September 2017 Victoria & Albert Museum, London Building on the sell-out success of last year’s Parallel Worlds Videogame Design conference at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, we’re excited to announce our follow up event, providing a critical and cultural platform to discuss one of the most important fields in contemporary design. Parallel Worlds will take place on Saturday 30 September 2017, bringing together an eclectic line up of leading designers, artists and thinkers whose work is connected by the worlds we build through games and play. Speakers confirmed so…

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  • Understanding children’s relationships with social robots

    Published:

    [This post from the MIT Media Lab website (it also appears in Medium and IEEE Spectrum) is a first-person report on a program of research that examines children’s social (medium-as-social-actor presence) responses to robots; I think it’s a model for how to introduce a wider audience to these ideas (e.g., I plan to assign and discuss it in undergraduate courses). The original version includes several more pictures and a video. –Matthew] [Image: A child listens to DragonBot tell a story during one of our research studies. Credit: Personal Robots Group] Making new (robot) friends Understanding children’s relationships with social robots…

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  • Call: Philosophy and the Moving Image (book chapters)

    Published:

    Call for Chapters: Collective Book PHILOSOPHY AND THE MOVING IMAGE Editors: Chris Rawls (Roger Williams University), Diana Neiva (University of Porto) and Steven S. Gouveia (University of Minho) Preface: Professor Thomas E. Wartenberg (Mount Holyoke College) Submission deadline: November 13, 2017 Topics and issues of interest include (but are not limited to): Classical and contemporary film theory (formalist, psychoanalytic, feminist, cognitive, structuralist, etc.) Definitions of cinema (essencialist – e.g. medium specificity – and nonessentialist) Philosophical themes in film (ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, epistemology, etc.) Genre(s) (the issues on film genres, avant-garde, documentary, pornography, horror, drama,…

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