International Society
for Presence Research

Author: Matthew Lombard

  • Japanese owners hold funerals for ‘dead’ robot dogs

    Published:

    [This is a dramatic illustration of the power of the form of presence in which a medium itself is perceived as a social actor! The story is from The Japan Times, where it includes two more images. –Matthew ] [Image: An A-Fun employee put[s] the Sony’s pet robot AIBOs at an altar prior to hold[ing] the robots’ funeral at the Kofukuji Temple in Isumi, Chiba Prefecture. | AFP-JIJI] An afterlife for man’s best robot friend? AFP-JIJI Feb 25, 2015 Incense smoke wafts through the cold air of the centuries-old Buddhist temple as a priest chants a sutra, praying for the…

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  • Call: Games and Transgressive Aesthetics Workshop at DiGRA 2015

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    Call for Abstracts: Games and Transgressive Aesthetics Workshop at DiGRA 2015 May 14th-17th at Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany Overview: Digital games have a reputation for including excessive violence, and violent content tends to be the focal point when games become the target for public criticism. However, as interacting with the gameworld through the use of simulated violence is a convention in many games; and while game violence certainly can be experienced as unsettling, it seldom leads the game to become ”unplayable” for players. Rather, it seems that the game context contributes to reduce the offensiveness of such content. Indeed, players…

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  • VR sexuality: Your fantasies may never be the same

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    [This is a particularly thoughtful, big-picture story about presence and sexuality, from Wired. Note the connection between immersion in books and VR, the historical perspective, the role of popular culture portrayals, the critique of some technologies and predictions for their success, and especially the explicit (no pun intended) discussion of the role of presence in mediated intimacy. Matt Jones and I argued in an article in Human Technology (pdf) that presence scholars should pay more attention to this context for presence experiences. –Matthew ] [Image: When Ela Darling and her collaborators filmed some test footage for the Oculus Rift, what…

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  • Call: 1st Workshop on Distributed Adaptive Systems (at ICAC 2015)

    Published:

    Call for Papers DAS @ ICAC 2015 1st Workshop on Distributed Adaptive Systems At ICAC 2015, the 12th IEEE International Conference on Autonomic Computing Grenoble, France, July 7 2015 Paper Submission April 13, 2015 Notification May 15, 2015 Camera Ready May 22, 2015 Workshops July 07, 2015 Workshop website: http://www.agentgroup.unimore.it/DAS2015/ Conference website: http://icac2015.imag.fr On the account of the recent advances in technology, computational systems have to be thought as ever growing distributed artificial environments in which requirements, constituent components and user needs dynamically change in unpredictable ways. Coping with such uncertainties represents an interesting challenge for the designer of these…

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  • Why Social Virtual Reality is worth celebrating

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    [This article from Road to VR not only uses the term presence but highlights many presence dimensions or types. Note that the “55% of communication is nonverbal” claim is a misapplication of Mehrabian’s work (e.g., see the 3:29 minute CreativityWorks video “Busting the Mehrabian Myth” on YouTube). –Matthew ] Why Social Virtual Reality is Worth Celebrating February 21, 2015 This guest article comes from Chris Madsen who has been eagerly exploring the developing Social VR scene. Chris graduated from the University of Utah in psychology and has worked in the mental health field for almost 20 years. Throughout his career…

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  • Call: 10th Workshop on Agent Based Computing: From Model to Implementation (ABC:MI)

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    CALL FOR PAPERS 10th Workshop on Agent Based Computing: From Model to Implementation (ABC:MI) Lodz, Poland, September 13-16, 2015 WWW: http://fedcsis.org/abcmi E-mail: abcmi2015@fedcsis.org We would like to cordially invite you to consider contributing a paper to ABC:MI – held as a part of the Federated Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems (FedCSIS 2015). FedCSIS is a yearly international multi-conference organized by the Polish Information Processing Society (PTI) in cooperation with the IEEE Region 8, ACM Special Interest Group on Applied Computing, European Alliance for Innovation, Lodz ACM Chapter, Polish Operational and Systems Research Society – POSRS, Eastern Cluster ICT…

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  • Hands-on with Mattel’s new AR, VR View-Master

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    [I like that they’re calling the discs “experience reels”… this is from CNET, where the story includes more pictures and a 1:45 minute video report; more CNET coverage is available here and the press release is available from Mattel. –Matthew ] A View-Master for virtual reality: Hands-on with Mattel’s new AR, VR phone toy February 13, 2015 Scott Stein Mattel is relaunching View-Master, but as a virtual reality and augmented-reality phone toy. And I got to play around with it for a bit…or at least, some of the tech behind it. Announced at an event in New York City, the…

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  • Call: ICEC 2015 – International Conference on Entertainment Computing

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    CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS ICEC 2015 – International Conference on Entertainment Computing 30 Sept – 2 Oct, 2015 Trondheim, Norway http://icec2015.info/ The IFIP International Conference on Entertainment Computing is the primary forum for disseminating and showcasing research results relating to the creation, development and use of digital entertainment. The conference brings together practitioners, academics, artists and researchers interested in design, practice, implementation, application and theoretical foundations of digital entertainment. We solicit paper, poster and demonstration submissions, as well as proposals for tutorials and workshops. SUBMISSION TYPES AND DEADLINES We invite submissions on design, art, engineering and theory of digital entertainment in…

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  • The good and bad of escaping to virtual reality

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    [Several of our colleagues are quoted and many interesting examples and links are included in this story from The Atlantic. –Matthew ] The Good and the Bad of Escaping to Virtual Reality Researchers believe new immersive technology could lead to isolation, but maybe when social needs are met online, people won’t need in-person interaction as much. Monica Kim Feb 18 2015 In Silicon Valley, in 1985, a ragtag band of programmers began exploring the concept of virtual reality from a tiny cottage in Palo Alto. Spearheaded by the 24-year-old Jaron Lanier, VPL Research helped make VR a buzzword in the…

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  • Call: 2015 International Conference on Collaboration Technologies and Systems (CTS 2015)

    Published:

    The 2015 International Conference on Collaboration Technologies and Systems (CTS 2015) June 01-05, 2015 The Westin Atlanta Airport Hotel Atlanta, Georgia, USA http://cts2015.cisedu.info In Cooperation with ACM, IEEE, and IFIP Call for Poster Papers and Posters PURPOSE AND SCOPE The 2015 International Conference on Collaboration Technologies and Systems (CTS 2015) is to address, explore and exchange information on the state-of-the-art in collaborative environments, their modeling and simulation, design and use, and their impact. The conference will include a session for poster presentations. CTS 2015 is soliciting poster papers and posters, both technical and industry based, on all CTS related topics…

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  • Immersis, a Pixar-inspired projector that beams VR into an entire room

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    [This is reminiscent of Philips’ Hue and Microsoft’s IllumiRoom… the story is from Wired, where you can find several more pictures. –Matthew ] A Pixar-Inspired Projector That Beams VR Into an Entire Room By Joseph Flaherty February 12, 2015 Virtual reality can make you feel like you’re high atop the Wall in Westeros, flying like a bird, or running from an alien intent on killing you, but to everyone else, you look like a spaz flailing about in high-tech ski googles. This makes demonstrating a head-mounted display like the Oculus Rift difficult in a group setting.…

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  • Call: EKSIG 2015: Tangible Means – Experiential knowledge through materials

    Published:

    Call for papers EKSIG 2015: TANGIBLE MEANS – Experiential knowledge through materials International Conference of the DRS Special Interest Group on Experiential Knowledge at Design School Kolding and University of Southern Denmark. 22-26 November 2015 http://www.experientialknowledge.org.uk/conference.html With the theme “TANGIBLE MEANS: Experiential Knowledge through Materials”, the conference aims to provide a forum for debate about materials as a means for knowledge generation by professionals and academic researchers, exploring the role and relationship of generating and evaluating new and existing knowledge in the creative disciplines and beyond. In recent years many creative disciplines have shifted focus from what is produced to…

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