[It’s still limited to the wealthy and famous, but as technology improves and becomes less expensive, will the “presence after death” technology described in this story from The Guardian become common in the future? The story includes the two versions of the video Kardashian West tweeted, the first with the text, “For my birthday, Kanye got me the most thoughtful gift of a lifetime. A special surprise from heaven. A hologram of my dad. It is so lifelike! We watched it over and over, filled with emotion.” The second tweet reads “I can’t even describe what this meant to me…

[Although we rarely think of them that way, common eye glasses are a presence-evoking technology because they mediate our experience of the world and we quickly forget their role in changing how we see. As a person with a non-correctable vision impairment (due to congenital nystagmus) I especially appreciate the value of the more advanced presence-evoking technologies to improve vision described in this New York Times story (see the original for two more pictures). –Matthew] [Image: Ammad Khan, chief executive of IrisVision, with the company’s device to help those with low vision see better. It uses a smartphone, virtual reality…

[The project described in this story from the Stanford University School of Medicine represents a very positive application of presence-evoking technology that involves sharing knowledge and experience across the planet. –Matthew] [Image: A virtual-reality-enabled anatomy class that Stanford Medicine educators taught to high school students over the summer. Credit: Matt Hasel] Educators will use virtual reality to teach anatomy This fall, Stanford Medicine educators will teach anatomy to medical students in Kenya using virtual reality. The effort is part of a pilot project to educate medical students in under-resourced schools. October 16, 2020 By Mandy Erickson Later this fall, Luqman…

[This National Geographic story from September 2020 describes the increasing prevalence and acceptance of robots, including telepresence robots, because of the pandemic; see the original version of the story for three more (typically vivid National Geographic) images, and for more on Spot see coverage (including a 1:03 minute video) from IEEE Spectrum. –Matthew] [Image: Spot, a dog-like robot developed by Boston Dynamics, allows health workers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston to interact with patients—and even to measure their temperature, pulse, and oxygen saturation—from a safe distance. Credit: Screen capture from video by Farah Dadabhoy/Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Video…

[Facebook Research Labs is working on technology that makes typing while in virtual or augmented reality more natural and intuitive, as reported in this story from Virtual Reality Times. Note the reference to the technology’s use in future “‘always on’ … standalone Augmented Reality headsets that users might wear anywhere including in the car, at home, at work and anywhere else.” See the original story for three short demonstration videos; more information is in a Facebook blog post and a UIST 2020 research paper (at the link at the end of the story). –Matthew] Facebook Researchers Develop Invisible Finger-Tracking Keyboard…

[In these stressful times, the topic of this story from Medical News Today is particularly important. The story describes a new study that compared the positive effects of experiencing nature via TV, 360 video and VR, with interesting results regarding the role of presence. The full article is available without subscription from the Journal of Environmental Psychology. See also a related April 2020 ISPR Presence News post. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Donald Iain Smith/Getty Images] Virtual reality nature boosts positive mood Watching nature on an ordinary television relieves boredom and negative emotions, according to a study. But interacting with nature in…

[This Cosmos report describes more clearly than most press coverage what appears to be an important discovery that will lead to improved haptics in VR, and thereby improved presence. See the story from the University of Birmingham for more information and a 1:56 minute video (also available via YouTube). –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Sebastian Kopp / EyeEm, via Getty Images] The science behind our sense of touch There are some surprising similarities with earthquakes. By Lauren Fuge, science journalist at The Royal Institution of Australia 13 October 2020 European researchers have developed a new universal scaling law for the sense of…

[For the technology most associated with presence to become more than a niche product after so many years we need clear-eyed evaluations about the remaining barriers like this one in Polygon from a long-time user/observer. –Matthew] The VR revolution has been 5 minutes away for 8 years What keeps virtual reality stuck in the future? By Ben Kuchera October 20, 2020 [Part of the Polygon series “Imagining the Next Future”] Virtual reality is either better than it has ever been, or at least a few years away from mainstream acceptance, depending on who you ask. Both points of view always…

[The new study described in this story from The Conversation is interesting on its own but as the author notes, it brings into focus some of the ethical concerns raised by virtual reality and other immersive, ‘experiential’ media. See the original story for a 2:57 minute video. –Matthew] [Image: View of the virtual environment from perspective of participant. Source: “Assessment of threat and negativity bias in virtual reality” by Christopher Baker, Ralph Pawling & Stephen Fairclough in Scientific Reports.] How we discovered that VR can profile your personality Stephen Fairclough Professor of Psychophysiology in the School of Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University October 15,…

[As reported in the press release below, Dr. Marjorie Zielke has won the Tech Titans’ 5G Challenge with a proposal to develop an Emergent Virtual Teacher Platform (EVTP); she and her team at the Center for Simulation and Synthetic Humans at the University of Texas at Dallas “see a future society of synthetic and real humans working together.” For information about Dr. Zielke’s 2020 NSF grant “to explore how augmented reality can help medical students prepare for interactions with real patients” see the UTD website; the UTD Office of Research website hosts a 52 minute video of a seminar by…

[It’s not clear whether dogs wearing augmented reality goggles experience superimposed visual elements as part of their nonmediated reality but the project reported in this story from APG News suggests that both dog and human handler using the technology may experience spatial, and social, presence. The original story includes a second image. See also the August 2020 ISPR Presence News post “US Army robo-teammate can detect, share 3-D changes in real-time using AR.” –Matthew] Augmented Reality Dog Goggles Could Help Protect Soldiers By CCDC Army Research Laboratory October 14, 2020 RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — Military working dogs often scout…

[Here’s a story from TechCrunch about Amazon’s new use of augmented reality, just in time for Halloween. See the original version for more pictures and a 38 second video (also available on YouTube), and a related ISPR Presence News post about Amazon’s “Distance Assistant” AR that helps warehouse workers stay socially distant. –Matthew] Amazon launches an AR app that works with new QR codes on its boxes Sarah Perez October 12, 2020 Amazon has quietly launched a new augmented reality application that works with QR codes on the company’s shipping boxes to create “interactive, shareable” AR experiences. Called simply “Amazon…