[Looking for evidence that presence-evoking technologies are ‘important’? This story from TechCrunch, which includes another chart, presents new forecast analyses for the AR and VR markets from Digi-Capital. –Matthew] Augmented And Virtual Reality To Hit $150 Billion, Disrupting Mobile By 2020 Posted April 7, 2015 by Tim Merel (@DigiCapitalist) Editor’s note: Tim Merel is the managing director of Digi-Capital. Virtual reality and augmented reality are exciting – Google Glass coming and going, Facebook’s $2 billion for Oculus, Google’s $542 million into Magic Leap, not to mention Microsoft’s HoloLens. There are amazing early-stage platforms and apps, but VR/AR in 2015 feels a…

[Here’s an unusual context for presence: ‘Fake food’ is apparently common in Japan’s restaurants, and now it’s expanded into fashion; this story from Munchies includes several more pictures. See also “Japan’s newest trend: Bacon n’ eggs on the iPhone” from CNBC (!). –Matthew] This Japanese Fake Food Artist Makes Ramen and Bacon Wearable By Hilary Pollack April 1, 2015 In Japan, fake food is more than a menu enhancer or a quirky decoration: It’s a straight-up artform. Making an egg appear gelatinous, a bowl of noodles appear still-warm, or a piece of bacon appear juicy requires more than just a…

[This story from Newsweek only begins to raise some of the implications – for presence and otherwise – of customizable robot personalities stored in the cloud. –Matthew] [Image: MIT’s social robot Nexi; from Popular Science] Google Patents Customisable Robot Personalities By Luke Hurst 4/2/15 at 12:02 PM Google is preparing for a world in which robots possess human-like personalities after filing a patent for the technology in the United States. Quartz, a tech and business news website, reports that the patent, awarded this week to the technology giant, will allow for the downloading and customization of robot personalities which could…

[Interesting take (note the date) on first order (biology) and second order (technology) mediation, i.e., presence and telepresence; this is from Tom’s Hardware, where the story includes more pictures. –Matthew] Move Over, Virtual Reality: Literal Reality Is The Next Big Thing By Seth Colaner, Fritz Nelson, Niels Broekhuijsen, Lucian Armasu, Rexly Penaflorida II April 1, 2015 Move over, Oculus Rift. Get lost, HTC Vive. Don’t even bother, Microsoft’s Hololens. There’s an unbelievable new tech in town called literal reality (LR) that completely blows away the best VR or AR experience you’ve ever had or could hope to have. An entity…

[Howard Lichtman, founder and president of the Human Productivity Lab, an independent consultancy and research firm that helps organizations design visual collaboration strategies and deploy solutions (and a keynote speaker at PRESENCE 2009 in Los Angeles), is also Chief Creative/Commercial Officer of Array Telepresence, which takes a different approach to creating immersive telepresence experiences for the high-end TP market. Details are below from Telepresence Options, and a video interview with the company principals is available here. –Matthew] Array Telepresence Debuts Immersive Telepresence Using Your Existing Videoconferencing System at Enterprise Connect March 16, 2015 Array Telepresence, a start-up telepresence solution provider…

[Some of the use cases in the very entertaining 2:26 minute video that accompanies this story from The Hyped Geek could be very useful and popular (note: the creators didn’t take John Oliver’s pledge!) –Matthew] Taste food off your phone with Maxis Screen Savour Posted By Boss Geek on Mar 30, 2015 Ever drooled over a well taken food pics on Instagram? Some look so good you wish you could just lick them of your screen and taste them. Of course if your idea of a good taste is the salty taste of your face sweat or the dull taste…

[Another way to get immersed in mediated experiences, from PlayStation.Blog, where you’ll find many more pictures and a 2:31 minute video (note: the creators didn’t take John Oliver’s pledge!) –Matthew] Introducing PlayStation Flow A watershed moment in wearable tech By Ariel Ingannare, Wearable Tech Manager Posted 1 April At PlayStation we’ve always been dedicated to bringing gamers immersive experiences. From innovative features like Remote Play and Share Play to the endless possibilities of the upcoming Project Morpheus, PS4 is continually creating new ways to play. Here at the PlayStation Wearable Entertainment Technology (P-WET) group we are ready to add to…