[A story from the American Alliance of Museums describes efforts not only to create presence experiences but to develop an evaluation tool to measure the impacts of those and other experiences, including whether they actually lead to visitor learning. See the original story for two more images. –Matthew] [Image: The dazzling effects of augmented and virtual reality are obvious, but how can museums know if they actually facilitate learning? Credit: Courtesy of Chicago History Museum] Evaluating the Impact of Augmented and Virtual Reality By Colleen McGaughey & John Russick [see bios at end below] January 15, 2021 “I am perfectly…

[The new version of the expressive and now teleoperated-via-VR robot Reachy caught my attention but this story from CNET about new developments in robotics showcased at the (virtual) 2021 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) highlights other presence-related tech and how innovations are helping us live during the pandemic. The original story includes a 2:35 “Tactile Telerobot Showreel” from Shadow Robotics (also available via YouTube). For more on Reachy, see coverage in Tom’s Hardware and the Pollen Robotics website, both of which include a 1:26 minute video (also on YouTube); the website also features an online simulator. For more examples of presence…

[With all the too-often avoidable turmoil and tragedy of the last many months, I think many of us would benefit from the application of presence described in this story from Tatler Hong Kong. See the original version for three more images, and for more details see the SpaceVR website, particularly the FAQ page. –Matthew] Float Co. Mid-Levels Introduces Asia’s First Virtual Reality Space Experience By Zabrina Lo January 7, 2021 With a VR headset and a sensory deprivation tank, aspiring cosmonauts can experience the thrill of being in orbit without having to leave planet Earth I have alway7s wanted to…

[This PC Magazine story describes what it’s like to set up and use an AI driven digital human that can carry on emotionally engaged conversations with customers and others, the next step in chatbot technology: it includes this quote from an expert: “Digital humans are considerably more valuable than any alternative [since] they aren’t just transactional, they are ‘interactional.’” See the original story for three more images and a video. –Matthew] One Step Closer to SkyNet: Your Next Help Desk Chat Might Be With a Digital Human AI company UneeQ seeks to take the next step in the evolution of…

[This Debugger story explains the promise of and our progress toward effective and commonly available holograms (actually volumetric images); our colleague Frank Biocca is one of the experts quoted and the original story includes three videos and an additional image. For related news see USA Today’s story about IKIN’s new RYZ, “the first personal hologram platform”; Digital Trends’ story about Looking Glass Factory’s 3D holographic display and software that transforms any 2D image into a 3D one; and a short Bloomberg video about the Swiss company Inverse’s 3D hologram meeting technology that just won a CES 2021 Best of Innovation…

[Digital Trends reports on the development of a novel exosuit designed to make virtual experiences “indistinguishable from real life”; the original story includes a one minute video and three different images. Coverage in New Atlas adds these details: Reese has been testing it at a simulated 1/20th of normal Earth gravity, making walking around and jumping less laborious than in real life while still giving a user a sense of force and balance. Currently, there are motors only at the hip and knee joints, but future plans would extend this to five motors on each leg, with more on your…

[A January 4, 2021 item in The Ghost Howls blog highlights an interesting and potentially valuable resource, an interactive compilation and classification of over 100 different methods of locomotion in virtual environments. –Matthew]   Discover all the available VR locomotion methods Some amazing researchers have collected and classified all the known VR locomotion methods, for a total of more than 100! There are all the most common solutions, like smooth movement and teleporting, but also some crazy ones like changing the gravity of the world using your fingers. All the data is available for free to everyone on GitHub, so…

[The terminology for presence is different, but this story from Hackaday provides a valuable review and assessment of our progress toward compelling presence experiences. See the original version for an additional image. –Matthew] All the Good VR Ideas Were Dreamt Up in the 60s By Donald Papp January 4, 2021 Virtual reality has seen enormous progress in the past few years. Given its recent surges in development, it may come as a bit of a surprise to learn that the ideas underpinning what we now call VR were laid way back in the 60s. Not all of the imagined possibilities…

[This short story from Forbes describes Microsoft’s efforts to create audio and audio-visual chatbots based on specific people, including people who have died. Other coverage notes the idea’s similarity to the plot of the Black Mirror episode “Be Right Back” and/or refers to the bots as ‘ghostbots.’ For more on this topic see a new 22:46 minute WSJ documentary “How Tech Can Bring Our Loved Ones to Life After They Die,” which is also available via YouTube and is described in a short profile in The Verge. –Matthew] Microsoft Could Bring You Back From The Dead… As A Chat Bot…

[The ambitious project Odeuropa will use AI to analyze descriptions of smells from Europe’s past and then recreate them for use in immersive cultural heritage attractions. This story from Blooloop provides details. The original story includes a second image and for a press release and 2:59 minute video visit the Odeuropa website (which also features a series of interesting blog posts). Coverage in the Minnesota Star Tribune has more details about the challenges of measuring and reproducing smells, and a New York Times item focuses on the idea of a personal smell museum and links to an interactive example: “The…

[In this short piece from Wired, the CEO and co-founder of online gaming platform Roblox predicts the pandemic-accelerated increase in 2021 and beyond of social and spatial presence experiences in 3D virtual worlds, which will “become a human co-experience utility.” –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Leonie Bos] The Metaverse is coming A 3D virtual world where millions meet online will become our key social hub By David Baszucki, an inventor and the CEO and Founder of Roblox January 2, 2021 We will see a shift in the way people play, work, learn or simply hang out in 2021. Some of this connection…

[The pandemic has accelerated the development of innovative ways to link and merge virtual/mixed reality and designed physical spaces to create compelling entertainment experiences, as reported in this story from the Los Angeles Times (where the original includes two more pictures). –Matthew] [Image: “Star Wars: Tales From the Galaxy’s Edge” VR screenshot: View from inside a ship. Credit: ILMxLab / Disney / Oculus] How the new virtual reality ‘Star Wars’ experience gets us closer to a theme park ‘metaverse’ By Todd Martens, Game Critic December 28, 2020 After a fulfilling and action-focused ending to the second season of “The Mandalorian,”…