[This story from the New Statesman describes both the benefits and ethical challenges of incorporating multiple types of presence, particularly medium-as-social-actor presence, in education. –Matthew] “Eton for all”: will robot teachers mean everyone gets an elite education? From Shakespeare holograms to mental health, how artificial intelligence could transform our schools. October 2 2017 By Lizzie Palmer There are a few certainties in this world: death, taxes, and that our jobs will eventually be taken by robots. However, some professions are under greater threat than others. Accountants and couriers should probably worry. But doctors and teachers will be fine, surely? Even…

[This story about the award-winning VR film “Bloodless” describes a media creator’s perspective on the important differences between film and interactive,  immersive virtual reality; it’s from the AP via Philly Voice. For more information, see coverage in the Korea Herald and the Gina Kim‘s website. –Matthew] [Image: Source: Samantha K. Kim] Director turns to virtual reality to tastefully show tragedy By Youkyung Lee Associated Press October 02, 2017 SEOUL, South Korea — For 25 years filmmaker Gina Kim wanted to make a movie about the true story of a South Korean sex worker killed by an American soldier, but struggled…

[This short story from PsyPost is about a logical and potentially valuable application of presence for accurately diagnosing social anxiety. Note: ISPR Presence News will be away on Thursday and Friday and return on Monday. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung] Virtual reality technology could be a powerful tool in diagnosing social anxiety disorder Eric W. Dolan September 23, 2017 A team of German researchers is hoping to use virtual reality technology to diagnose social anxiety disorder. Their initial results have been published in the scientific journal Computers in Human Behavior. “Most of the work done with VR so far (including from…

[As with other presence-evoking technologies, advertising in VR and AR can easily cause breaks in presence; this story from Venture Beat describes how one company is working to minimize the likelihood of this frustrating and counter-productive phenomenon (the CEO uses the phrase “breaking immersion”). –Matthew] Advrty brings native ads to virtual reality Stephanie Chan September 21, 2017 Advrty wants to offer a new avenue of monetization for virtual reality developers, which doesn’t involve full field-of-view pop-up ads. Instead, it’s a platform aimed toward designing and incorporating nonintrusive product placement. It’s in beta. “Initially, think billboards, posters and product placements using…

[Adding more personality to voice assistants could increase medium-as-social-actor presence for users. This story from Digiday, which includes a 1:20 minute video, describes an interesting example created by the B-Reel agency. The experience might be optimized if users could adjust the degree, and even type, of personality expressed. –Matthew] This agency created a voice assistant inspired by a Swedish grandmother September 25, 2017 by Ilyse Liffreing Google Home, Echo and other voice-activated devices have many capabilities, but one agency believes they lack something essential for the future of voice: personality. B-Reel designed a virtual assistant that takes on the persona…

[This story from Smithsonian Magazine is an effective reminder that VR is just the latest popular attempt to use technology to create presence experiences (example quote: “The world in a stereoscope seemed transcendent, hyper-real”). I agree with the concluding suggestion that VR will eventually become just another tool and perhaps fade from use, but I’m confident we’ll continue to be driven to develop (and popularize) technologies that are increasingly effective at evoking presence. The original story contains many more images and a link to a related book. –Matthew] [Image: This Underwood & Underwood stereograph (c. 1901) shows a woman viewing…