[A new program at Harvard Business School is just one example of universities experimenting with using AI to create digital avatars that teach students and train instructors. This story from Fortune via MSN describes and considers the benefits and limitations of the Harvard effort; excerpts from an opinion essay in The College Fix that mentions and links to stories about other examples and urges universities to proceed with caution follows below. –Matthew] Harvard’s $699 startup bootcamp has professors who never sleep but that’s because they’re AI clones By Mia Osmonbekov, News FellowAugust 25, 2026 The newest Harvard Business School professor…

[This long but interesting report from Next Reality describes efforts to increase the ability of AI agents in virtual and mixed reality to use gestures as users expect (and thereby enhance presence). The challenge is “not ‘can an avatar move its arms naturally,’ which is largely solved, but ‘can an agent gesture at the right thing, at the right moment, in a way tied to the actual 3D space it shares with the user.’” See the linked sources in the report as well as the Google Research blog and a 3:26 minute CHI 2026 video presentation on YouTube for more…

[This story from MedCity News is about how surgeons are using presence-evoking immersive media to improve patient outcomes, along with other benefits. The story highlights two important points that apply across many presence applications: the value of providing users with a spectrum of presence-evoking technologies – in this case from images and video to 3D models and virtual reality, and the importance of not just inventing better technologies but putting them into “regular, practical, and effective use” by developing collaborative systems that make the technologies widely available and train people in how to use them effectively. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Mikalai…

[A new patent granted to the prominent semiconductor design company Arm incorporates ultrasound in virtual and augmented reality headsets to minimize motion sickness by stimulating the wearer’s vestibular system. The details are well-summarized in the story below from Road to VR, followed by additional details in excerpts from VR.org. –Matthew] [Image: Lars Chittka and Axel Brockmann / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.5). The three semicircular canals are the target. Source: VR.org] Arm Patents Method to Reduce XR Motion Sickness Using Ultrasound By Scott HaydenAugust 24, 2026 A newly granted patent from Arm describes a head-mounted system that analyzes motion in…

[As reported in this story from Memeburn, millions of people are misperceiving the role of technology during their use of TikTok, with potentially dangerous consequences. And as the author notes, the phenomenon is not limited to that platform. See the original story for four more images. For information about a related presence phenomenon, see the 404 Media story “Subtlefakes: Slightly Altered Nonconsensual AI Images Are Taking Over X.” –Matthew] AI Deepfake MCs Are Fooling Millions on TikTok With Fake News AI-generated presenters are flooding TikTok with fabricated news clips, and roughly 60% of TikTok videos now involve some AI element.…

[The use of AI to create simulated versions of human actors who have died continues to raise concern and controversy. This story from IndieWire, about the appearance of the late Val Kilmer as lead actor in a new film, describes how the process might be carried out the ‘right’ way, both in terms of technical efforts and the involvement and consent of the actor and their estate. The original version of this story includes the extended trailer for the new film (it’s also on YouTube); more details follow below in excerpts from a June 2026 story in Vanity Fair.…

[Presence-evoking virtual reality, especially with the addition of scents that correspond to the sights and sounds it provides to users, can bring isolated users some of the cognitive and emotional benefits of being in natural outdoors environments. As this story from Texas A&M University (and also available via Phys.org) notes, those users include not just the extreme case of astronauts. Others who may benefit include sailors (such as those currently on the USS Abraham Lincoln), office workers, those with limited mobility, etc. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Texas A&M Engineering] VR supports research into spaceflight-related mental health The Texas A&M study used…

[Travelers at Miami International Airport now have AI-powered holographic humans that can answer their questions, as reported in this story from the Miami Herald (the original version of the story includes three different images). For more details see a press release from the Airport and a 2:12 minute video news report from CBS19. In related developments, Metro Airport News reports that LaGuardia Airport in New York is using Proto telepresence technology to provide “a fully interactive AI hologram designed specifically for guest service and wayfinding. The ambassador, named Bridget, is a life-size, hyper-realistic figure capable of engaging travelers in natural,…

[Medium-as-social-actor presence responses to AI chatbots, even bots embedded in a physical robot body, aren’t new, but here’s a (currently) unusual example of a person bringing their embodied robot rather than a person with them to share an intense emotional experience. The story is from Futurism; follow the links for more details. –Matthew] Woman Journeys to a Beach to Watch Total Solar Eclipse With Her One True Love: Claude “We’re discovering new and novel levels of AI psychosis.” By Frank LandymoreAugust 15, 2026 Where were you when the historic total eclipse happened this week? One woman was on a beach…

[This story from Knowledge at Wharton describes interesting findings by researchers at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. While diverse study participants initially say they prefer advice about moral and ethical issues from a human rather than artificial intelligence, the technology has evolved to the point where they struggle to distinguish the two (as in the Turing Test) and the aversion to AI advice is reduced: the “’algorithmic aversion’” is malleable: The more people are exposed to AI’s guidance, the more they trust it.” –Matthew] Would You Trust AI for Ethical Advice? Most people would not prefer to…

[Yesterday’s post was about emerging technology that may enhance presence experiences in the future; today’s post is about a popular presence-evoking technology from the mid-1800s. See the original version of this story from Talker.news via the Caledonian-Record for two more images. More details and images are available in the new journal article about cosmoramas: Plunkett, J. (2026). Cosmoramas, immersive viewing and the evolution of peep practice. Early Popular Visual Culture, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/17460654.2026.2700727 –Matthew] [Image: A drawing of a cosmorama, Figure 2 in the article by John Plunkett. The drawing is from William Carpenter [or Clarke], The Boy’s Own Book: Complete Encyclopedia…

[I can’t claim to understand every technical detail in this EurekAlert! news release from the journal Opto-Electronic Advances, but it describes what seems to be a promising advance in the ability to create effective presence illusions (the first sentences of the research team’s new article refer explicitly to presence and telepresence; see that article for more information, including images and a video). –Matthew] [Image: Schematic of the measurement-driven holographic telepresence system, showing single-shot reference-free wavefront capture, computational wavefront reconstruction, and physical three-dimensional holographic replay. Credit: Professor YongKeun Park from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), South Korea.] Breakthrough…