[A new, free, nostalgic but useful website cleverly simulates the environment and experience of being inside a Blockbuster video store. The story below from Giant Freakin Robot is followed by excerpts with additional details and context from Yahoo! Tech, FirstShowing.net, What’s on Netflix and BroBible; see the original versions of these stories for more images and information. –Matthew] Free Website Turns Your Streaming Library Into A Virtual Blockbuster By Chris SnellgroveAugust 9, 2026 These days, it’s easier to watch movies than ever before. With a single click of your remote, you can check out one of the hundreds of titles…

[Apple and Major League Baseball have announced that this fall seven games will be available in high-presence formats via the Apple Vision Pro spatial computing headset. Details and some context are in the story below from Sportico via Yahoo! Sports. The Apple Newsroom press release says that the games will feature “unique camera angles that place viewers right in the game, immersed in the drama of each at-bat, the celebrations in the dugout after a big hit, close plays at the outfield wall, and more. The experience features bespoke commentary from Paul Severino (play-by-play), Xavier Scruggs (analyst), and Michelle Margaux…

[This story from National Defense Magazine describes an omnidirectional treadmill that allows virtual reality users to wear regular footwear and move naturally without a harness. It’s being developed by a startup company for use in military training but has obvious application in other contexts. For more information including a demo video, see the OmniTrek website. –Matthew] [Image: Source: OmniTrek] Virtual Reality Treadmill Simulates Military Training Scenarios By Colby LambJuly 21, 2026 ARLINGTON, Virginia — A Utah-based startup is developing an omnidirectional treadmill to simulate military training scenarios inside a virtual reality environment. OmniTrek’s proof-of-concept prototype for the omnidirectional treadmill uses…

[Apologies for the personal and lengthy introduction to this post. When a person who is close to us, or as many of us know, a pet, dies, even when the death is expected, we feel not only sadness and loss but a profound sense of disruption. We stop, cry, and dwell on the significant change that has occurred in our reality. Most people have felt a less intense version of this response when the death is of someone they’ve only known through media – a favorite actor or actress, musical artist or person in the news. Scholars have labelled the…

[Evolving technologies including generative AI have made it easier and increasingly effective for bad human actors to create and distribute messages that purposely deceive, manipulate and harm other humans (for example, altered or created images, voice cloned phone calls, deepfake videos, etc.). Now we also need to worry about non-human actors using presence (i.e., misleading us about the role of technology in our experience) pursuing the same goals on their own. The abridged version below of a post on the blog of the UK government’s AI Security Institute (AISI) describes how in a recent test new AI models demonstrated the…

[This essay from The Pharmaceutical Journal describes many of the potential benefits of using presence-evoking technologies rather than just in-person experiences for recruiting and training workers, in this case in the context of manufacturing medicines in the UK. See the original version for a collage of three more images. –Matthew] [Image: An example of an immersive virtual reality experience to introduce students to the world of cell and gene therapy manufacturing] Virtual reality holds the promise of filling medicines manufacturing workforce gaps Will virtual reality technology enable the UK to meet the demands of training in the pharmaceutical industry and…