[As reported by Finnair’s Blue Wings magazine, the airline’s virtual flights to visit Santa are not only an entertaining holiday experience for children and families during a pandemic but suggest future widespread applications of the presence-evoking technology. See the original story for a second image; a 15 second trailer is available on YouTube, as is a 2:30 minute promotional video from Visit Rovaniemi titled “Santa Claus presents: Welcome to Rovaniemi, my official hometown in Lapland, Finland”; for more on the Finnish VR studio Zoan, see the company’s website. –Matthew] FINNAIR’S PIONEERING VR HOLIDAY FLIGHTS POINT TO THE FUTURE OF TRAVEL…

[This is a fascinating and disturbing story about the intense presence responses evoked by an AI designed not to serve humans but develop an emotional connection with them. The original version from Sixth Tone includes four more images and a 4:05 minute video. See also a 2016 ISPR Presence News post. –Matthew] [Image: Left to right: The fourth, fifth, and sixth generations of Xiaoice, released in 2016, 2017, and 2018, respectively. From @小冰 on Weibo] The AI Girlfriend Seducing China’s Lonely Men In China, a sassy chat bot is stealing millions of men’s hearts. It’s also recording their most intimate…

[In addition to the impressive production values, big names and now important messages in the virtual reality productions of Baobab Studios, two stories in Variety (here and here) highlight the ways the studio is designing increasingly rich presence experiences; note the description of the company’s vision in the last two paragraphs below. For more information see the Baobab Studios website. –Matthew] Virtual Reality Studio Baobab’s Message of Climate Change Leads to U.N. Partnership By Carole Horst December 10, 2020 For Baobab Studios, partnering with the United Nations on VR short “Baba Yaga” was a natural step. The company, which has…

[Here’s a first-person report on a new virtual reality meeting app, along with some perspective on the potential of VR meetings during and after the pandemic. See the original version in Wired for three more images, and for more perspective see the Computerworld story “Cisco’s Webex vs. Arthur Digital and the future of collaboration and communication: Cisco looks to be moving toward video phones; Arthur is focusing on mixed reality. Somewhere in the mix is the future of communication.” –Matthew] VR Meetings Are Weird, but They Beat Our Current Reality A new VR app called Arthur allows you and your…

[The prospect of creating a digital replica of ourselves for people to interact with in even the distant future so that we are remembered and even continue to learn and evolve after we die epitomizes many of the things I find fascinating about presence, including the many complex ethical issues it raises. This CNET story describes some of the latest efforts and issues related to presence after death; see the original for a 1:07 minute video (also available via Vimeo). –Matthew] [Image: This isn’t Deepak Chopra. It’s Digital Baby Deepak. Credit: Deepak Chopra] Deepak Chopra made a digital clone of…

[This story from Futurism is about what it’s like to view and interact with the world in the third-person, as if you’re playing a video game, which logically involves multiple types of presence (including self and inverse presence). The original story features a different image; for a related 10 minute video see “Real GTA Simulator!“ on YouTube. –Matthew] [Image: Source: liam on Twitter] Living in “Third Person View” With VR and a Backpack-Mounted Camera With a VR rig and a backpack-mounted camera, you can experience life from a third person view — like a video game character. By Dan Robitzski…

[This story about a very positive application of augmented reality and gaming technologies to evoke presence and learning is from Adweek. The original version includes two more pictures and a 2:04 minute video (also available via YouTube); I added the three links in the second paragraph. –Matthew] Bring Down the Berlin Wall Using Augmented Reality in Minecraft Earth Created by a German museum, simulation puts users in the shoes of those who took part in the historic moment By Patrick Kulp December 5, 2020 A Berlin museum focused on life in former East Germany is transporting virtual visitors back to…

[This link-filled Forbes story reviews both the promise and peril of presence-evoking technologies in the area of human sexuality. For more on this topic see –Matthew] Future Of Intimacy: Sex Bots, Virtual Reality, And Smart Sex Toys By Bernard Marr, Contributor November 30, 2020 Now that we have intelligent lightbulbs, doorbells, refrigerators, and more, it was only a matter of time before our most primal and intimate lives became smarter through artificial intelligence. Since sextech was allowed to exhibit at CES 2020 among the health and wellness vendors instead of denied entry or tucked away in the back as in…

[The technology described in this press-release-based story from the Fort Bend (Texas) Independent allows children to talk to Santa Claus safely during the pandemic. See the technology in action in a 2:13 minute news report from KPRC via Click2Houston. For more on how Santas are staying safe while entertaining children this year, including via video conferencing, see coverage in The Washington Post. –Matthew] Real Santa, Virtual Santa Or Magic Santa? By Seshadri Kumar November 13, 2020 The holiday tradition of meeting Santa is not lost this year though social distancing is the norm of the day during the pandemic.…

[An intriguing project by Ziv Schneider explores responses to, and ethical choices concerning, one category of virtual beings by having an Instagram virtual influencer age and die. The original version of this Variety story and interview includes two different images; for more details and images see an earlier interview in Next Avenue, which includes this quote: “[Sylvia’s computer-generated] language actually has been pretty convincing for a lot of people to read. I think a lot of them didn’t know that it’s been automated. [snip] Most respond very positively to her, and a lot of people think that she is a…

[This story about the use of presence-evoking technologies to explore one’s gender identity comes from Dezeen, where the original includes three more images and the two short videos described in the story. More information is available on Marcel/a Baltarete’s RCA website. See also the February 2020 ISPR Presence News post “Using VR and presence to question and explore gender.” –Matthew] [Image: Baltarete’s animation shows their avatar with a translucent body.] Marcel/a Baltarete uses 3D animation as therapy for gender dysphoria By Jennifer Hahn 12 November 2020 Royal College of Art graduate Marcel/a Baltarete has created a series of short animations…

[Both the creative and financial potential of virtual reality art are explored in this link-filled story from Forbes, where the original includes two more images and three videos; note especially the link to the Radiance VR website, where you can review “documentations of more than 160 VR art experiences by 150 artists from 30 countries.” –Matthew] [Image: Bangkok, Thailand – 2020/11/05: People enjoying with VR headset in front of the Marina Abramovic’s artwork during the exhibition at The Parq Klong Toey. Bangkok Art Biennale (BAB) is a biannual art festival set in the capital of Thailand throughout the heart of…