[This guest article from Road to VR explains how design choices have made Gorilla Tag a successful virtual reality game and even a “cultural phenomenon,” with many of the choices related to enhancing the presence experience of players. See the original version of the story for five more images and two videos. –Matthew] How ‘Gorilla Tag’ Became a $100 Million VR Success on Quest Guest article by JP Minetos[JP Minetos works on the Investment Team at Hartmann Capital, a frontier venture fund investing in Games, VR/XR, Generative AI, and immersive technology, with companies including Flat2VR, Sinn Studio, Tripp, and ShapesXR.…

[Without using the term itself, the story below from The Bronx Daily describes how online gambling casinos are evolving to enable more effective presence illusions. –Matthew] Why Virtual Reality Could Be The Future Of Online Casinos By Jonas Bronck (“the pseudonym under which we publish and manage the content and operations of The Bronx Daily”)December 11, 2024 Technology keeps getting better to the advantage of online casinos. Think about it. Ten years ago, payment methods revolved around card payments and wire transfers. But now, the top casinos accept mobile money and e-wallet payments that are faster and more convenient to…

[This story from the Western Australia online newspaper WAtoday provides vivid descriptions that illustrate the potential of shared virtual reality experiences to evoke compelling presence illusions; see the original version of the story for two more images. More information and a video trailer are available on the website for The Great Kimberley Wilderness VR experience. –Matthew] [Image: The Great Kimberley Wilderness director and co-producer Briege Whitehead. Credit: Mark Naglazas] Virtual reality bites: How Perth tech gave one movie producer ‘the most engrossing cinematic experience in years’ By Mark NaglazasDecember 2, 2024 I must admit that it was with some trepidation…

[Lufthansa predicts a bright future for the use of virtual and mixed reality-generated presence experiences on its flights, as reported in this story from Travel Weekly. One of the potential benefits noted, overcoming the feeling of small space in the aircraft, seems particularly valuable. Other airlines aren’t as bullish- a lot would seem to depend on how quickly the technology becomes “smaller, more capable and much more common.” Lufthansa has a history of experimenting with presence; for example, see this ISPR Presence News post from August 2018. –Matthew] Lufthansa previews what’s next for in-flight entertainment By Robert SilkNovember 12, 2024…

[Variety reports on a new partnership between Avatar and Titanic filmmaker James Cameron’s company and Meta to produce entertainment for virtual and mixed reality. Cameron writes that the partnership will help navigate “a true, historic inflection point” in the evolution of media; the Meta blog post mentioned in the story puts it this way: “For more than a century, filmmakers have pushed the boundaries of storytelling. MR headsets represent the next step in the evolution of media, enhancing the viewing experience for millions, and utilizing native 3D in the service of traditional and immersive 360-degree environments, along with interactive elements…

[This story from Wired describes a new virtual reality game that enhances several aspects of presence, including putting players inside detailed recreations of specific plays from actual English Premier League soccer games, an approach to game design that will likely be applied to a wide variety of other sports. See the original version of the story for two more images, a video, and an audio version of the story. –Matthew] [Image: A screenshot of the game (L), and featured player Kobbie Mainoo of Manchester United (R). Credit: Photo-Illustration: Wired Staff; Rezzil/Getty] A New VR Game Puts You in the Middle…

[Digital pets continue to evolve, with “new AI-enabled virtual pets that can talk, learn, and form genuine connections with their human caretakers.” This story from Forbes focuses on the popular Pengu character, including how it’s designed to promote not just medium-as-social-actor presence but deeper relationships between humans. See the original version of the story for a different image and a 31-minute podcast (also available on YouTube) featuring the author’s interview with the CEO and co-founder of the company that created Pengu. The Pengu app is available in the Google Play and Apple App Stores. –Matthew] The Rise Of AI-Enabled Virtual…

[This story from New York University (NYU) provides a vivid example of how presence-evoking technologies can be more effective than traditional training tools and methods, in this case in the field of dentistry. The flight simulator comparison is a compelling way to emphasize their role and value. Also note (in the last section) the development of more realistic custom controllers to enhance presence. See the original story for five more images. –Matthew] [Image: NYU dental student Kaitlyn Re (right) practices giving an injection alongside fellow student Dhwani Thakkar (left). Credit: Jonathan King] Virtual Reality: A ‘Flight Simulator’ for Dental Students…

[A professor of Hospitality and Tourism Management is exploring another application of presence-evoking virtual reality for enhancing students’ learning experiences, and presumably outcomes. As a doctoral student in this story from Purdue University notes, “I think the biggest gap VR devices can help overcome, especially for HTM students, is the distance between the classroom and the real workplace.” See the original version of the story for five more images. –Matthew] [Image: Shawn Jung, assistant professor in the White Lodging-J.W. Marriott, Jr. School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, instructs his event planning class before attempting virtual reality exercises last spring in…

[This short essay from How-To Geek provides an important reminder about how far attitudes among the general public have come toward the use of the most well-known presence-evoking technology. See the original version of the story for three more images. –Matthew] Virtual Reality Might Finally Be Socially Acceptable By Sydney Butler, Editor, Hardware and Cutting Edge TechnologyNovember 27, 2024 When I first tried modern VR in 2016, it was a niche technology that drew plenty of mainstream ridicule. Today, things are very different, and no one has to be embarrassed about having a good time in a virtual world anymore.…

[The allure of presence is well-illustrated in this story from the Good News Network, supplemented by text from coverage by The Yorkshire Post. The original versions of both stories include a second image; the Good News Network story includes a 1:52 minute summary video (also available on YouTube) and the story in The Yorkshire Post includes a 1:28 minute video of Craig Cullingworth and Sophie operating the simulator (that video is also available on Facebook). –Matthew] [Image: Credit: SWNS] Dad Who Wanted to be a Pilot Builds Incredible Real-Life Simulator at Home–Now his Daughter’s Obsessed (Watch) By Good News NetworkNovember…

[I doubt any technology on the horizon will be able to fully replicate the experience of eating pumpkin pie with whipped cream or other traditional Thanksgiving dishes, but this story from IEEE Spectrum describes a new device that improves on earlier attempts to enhance presence by adding taste and smell to sight, sound and touch sensations while in virtual and mixed reality environments. See the original version of the story for a second image; see Ars Technica for additional details and a 57-second video; and see November 2013 and March 2017 posts from ISPR Presence News for more information about…