[The prospect of creating AI chatbots that simulate specific human beings almost always raises interesting and important questions. The latest example, described in this story from the South China Morning Post, is an AI that simulates a person’s former romantic partner. See the original version of the story for four more images. Tech writer Mike Elgan writes about this in his Machine Society substack and concludes with this: “My beef with this concept is the same I have with any kind of relationship AI. It’s delusion-inducing for many users (who may believe the digital twin is actually a copy of…

[This widely cited story from The Guardian reports that schools in London are using presence-evoking virtual reality to reduce student anxiety around exams and other stressors. See the original version of the story for a second image, and the Phase Space website for more details and a 1:51 minute video (also available on Vimeo). –Matthew] [Image: A pupil using a Phase Space VR headset. Credit: Phase Space] London schools trialling VR to relieve pupils’ stress Phase Space pilot programme with NHS mental health trust used to calm anxiety around exams, ADHD and home troubles By Denis Campbell and Sinéad CampbellMay…

[Motivated by the fact that children are increasingly using presence-evoking technologies in school (and elsewhere), researchers at the University of South Florida are investigating differences between how adults and children use augmented reality. The original version of this story includes five more images and this quote from USF Assistant Professor Julia Woodward: “If we are going to design for children, we need to consider all the elements. Children think about AR in terms of real-world objects and try to interact with them like physical items, with weight and force. We need to design with those expectations in mind.” –Matthew] Rethinking…

[This opinion piece from TechRadar by a long-time expert observer praises the presence-evoking capabilities of the Apple Vision Pro spatial computing device while providing a realistic assessment of its possible future and role in the evolution of presence technologies. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future] I don’t know if Vision Pro is alive or dead, but it is still the most sophisticated, powerful, and coolest hardware Apple ever built — and we can surely thank it for the glasses that will follow Will it survive the new leadership By Lance UlanoffMay 1, 2026 Rumor has it, Apple‘s pricey Vision…

[This interview from the World Bank Group describes how a carefully planned, industry-academic collaborative program that uses presence-evoking technologies to train students in Ecuador’s Technical and Technological Institutes is improving how students learn auto mechanics. See the original version of the interview for three different images, and for more information (and a video) about the Active Training Using Virtual Reality Program (ACTIVaR) see an earlier World Bank Blog post. –Matthew] [Image: Source: World Bank Blog] Augmented and Virtual Reality Program Transforming TVET in Ecuador April 27, 2026 Job creation is the ‘North Star’ of the World Bank Group’s work, and…

[Expanding presence for literary texts, a new feature from Character.AI lets users “step inside a classic novel – not just read it, but play it.“ A quick summary is provided in this story from Quasa, where the original version includes four more images. A story in Mashable takes a deeper dive, and one in Digital Trends focuses on user safety. For more information and to access the Books feature, see the company’s announcement on the Character.AI blog. –Matthew] Character AI Launches “Books” — Now You Can Step Inside Your Favorite Classic Novels By Viacheslav VasipenokApril 24, 2026 Character.AI…

[In this post from his Machine Society Substack, technology writer Mike Elgan describes new research that demonstrates what we would call medium-as-social-actor presence. The researchers find that when an AI chatbot takes longer to respond to queries, it is perceived as taking longer to think of the answer. Elgan puts it this way: “people judge AI the way they judge people. If people give a slower response, we tend to assume it’s a more thoughtful one.” Elgan argues that deliberately slowing AI response times to manipulate user perceptions in this way is unethical and encourages dangerous delusions regarding the true…

[This story from Healio describes an ongoing project to develop and test a 45-60 minute “choose your own adventure” presence-evoking virtual reality experience to reduce the anxiety of cancer patients before they undergo surgery. For more details, the original version of the story includes a 5:06 minute video, and a 4:34 minute CBC News Manitoba report about the project is available on YouTube. Although they don’t focus on the role of presence, a quick online search reveals promising results when VR is used to reduce anxiety before cardiac surgery (e.g., these three studies), elective surgery, and for both children and…

[As more people use AI to compose grammatically perfect and typo-free emails, it’s easier to detect the AI and dismiss the message as computer-generated. To counter this break in medium-as-social-actor presence, and to draw attention to the problem, a Harvard student created software that uses AI to edit your AI-generated emails to make them more likely to appear to have been written by a human (!). Details are in the story below from Livemint, where the original version includes the relevant segment of a TBPN podcast (also available on YouTube) in which the creator discusses Sinceerly. See also earlier coverage…

[A million-dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Justice is funding the development of a new presence-evoking training program for professionals who respond to reports of domestic violence. This story from George Mason University notes that a primary focus of the project, which may become a national (or international?) model, will be on developing the content of the practice scenarios. See a closely-related March 2026 story from the same source for more details. –Matthew] [VR headsets in the college’s Lab for Immersive Technologies and Simulation] $1 million U.S. Department of Justice grant will support virtual reality training for domestic violence…

[This article from Arab News describes how the trend toward experiential tourism at cultural sites requires careful use of presence-evoking technologies. As one expert in the story notes, “immersive technology allows museums to recreate the historical contexts in which artworks once existed, helping visitors better understand the environments and cultures that shaped them, [but] ‘technology is always at the service of the narrative — never the other way around.’” See the original version of the story for five more images including a detailed infographic. –Matthew] [Image: At the Louvre Abu Dhabi, researchers relied on the archeological remains of the Forum…

[Presence-evoking simulations are increasingly part of medical training, but a recent Nursing Simulation Day at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana introduced an interesting new “body swapping” feature in which students could switch roles between caregiver and patient. Details are in this story from the student-run newspaper The Observer. –Matthew] [Image: Nursing student gives clinical report to VR patient, utilizing the AI powered technology to receive real time feedback on procedures. Credit: Photo by Soledad Castellanos / The Observer] Saint Mary’s nursing program debuts new VR and disaster simulation experience The department featured its new VR simulators for students…