[An account of an inverse presence experience from The Verge] I tricked my brain into thinking real life was VR Welcome to the desert of the unreal By Adi Robertson on September 22, 2014 If you talk to anybody who’s into virtual reality for more than ten minutes, you will probably end up speculating about when we might achieve total immersion: the point at which a simulated experience becomes functionally indistinguishable from real life. Most people will submit that we’re not near that point yet, barring a nightmare scenario that Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey posited at the company’s conference this…

[From Geektime; see the Kickstarter site for much more information including videos] Yourbot lets you talk to your future generations Yourbot is your digital replica in the cloud and a foundation to preserve it for years to come. Your lineage will be able to chat with you in the year 2114 and beyond Amit Peri | On September 17, 2014 Imagine you could have a chat with your grandest of great great grandchildren today, what would you wish to tell them? Yourbot is an Android device with speech-to-text conversation engines which allows our future generations the ability to interact with…

[From Businessweek, where the story includes more images] [Image: As you walk around the farm, floating graphics add context. Courtesy Gannett Digital] A Newspaper’s First Trip Into Virtual Reality Goes to a Desolate Farm By Joshua Brustein September 22, 2014 Against the odds, the Des Moines Register has just become one of the first newspapers to move into virtual reality. Gannett (GCI), publisher of USA Today and dozens of regional publications, has released its debut report made specifically for the Oculus VR headset: an interactive view of a farm in Iowa designed to accompany a series of newspaper articles being…

[From Wired, where the story includes more pictures] Airbus Patents a VR Helmet That’ll Make You Forget You’re on a Plane By Alex Davies 09.16.14 In a world where economy-class seats are getting thinner and lavatories are shrinking, any flight longer than an hour can feel like a traveling prison. Aircraft manufacturer Airbus is abetting the shift, but a recent patent filing shows it hasn’t forgotten about you, the passenger who actually has to sit in these miserable flying cells. It’s considering helmets that will let you forget you’re in an airplane at all.…

[From Salon] [Image: Scene still from “A.I.”] Why artificial intelligence is the future of religion Robotics and Christianity have a longer history than you’d expect, and they’re only growing more entangled Michael Schulson, Religion Dispatches Sunday, Sep 14, 2014 This article originally appeared on Religion Dispatches. There are places you never expect to be in life. For me, this was certainly one of them: in a conference room in suburban Charlotte on the campus of Southern Evangelical Seminary, with an enormous old Bible on a side table, shelves of Great Books lining the walls, and, on the conference table itself,…

[From Wired, where the story includes many more images and a 0:25 minute video of the Teleporter experience] [Image: The two Teleporters standing in New York City. Starting September 18, one will be near City Hall, the other will be at the Marriott Marquis. Courtesy of Marriott Hotels/Framestore] The Future of Travel Has Arrived: Virtual-Reality Beach Vacations By Peter Rubin 09.18.14 I’m the only person in the hotel lounge. It’s night, and darkness lingers beyond the windows. Despite the room’s emptiness, there’s a feeling of warmth; a fireplace crackles, and music mixes with the hum of subdued conversation and clinking…