[As if today’s shameless denials and distortions of truth and polarizing media ‘bubbles’ weren’t big enough problems, this detailed and example-filled article from Fast Company argues that presence-evoking deepfakes will soon challenge our ability to understand and learn from our own history. See the original story for three videos. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: bashta/iStock] Fake video threatens to rewrite history. Here’s how to protect it AI-generated deepfakes aren’t just a problem for politics and other current affairs. Unless we act now, they could also tamper with our record of the past. By Benj Edwards October 3, 2020 Since deepfakes burst onto…

[Artificial intelligence will likely play an increasingly important role in our presence experiences and the new “dynamic film” Agence is an intriguing example of this potential. This story from Upload describes the project; see the original version for two different images and a 7:45 minute “gameplay walkthrough” video (also available via YouTube). –Matthew] Agence Is A Fascinating VR Deep Dive Into Evolving AI By Jamie Feltham September 28, 2020 While speaking to Pietro Gagliano of Transitional Forms and David Oppenheim of the NFB about their new VR film, Agence, Gagliano streams the piece itself. I watch as he toys with…

[Live Science is among the many publications reporting on a project to create presence-evoking portraits of Roman Emperors; see the original story for more photos. Excerpts from some of the other coverage that add more details and raise additional issues about efforts like this follow below. –Matthew] [Image: A description of Caligula said the emperor had “a glare savage enough to torture.” Credit: Courtesy of Daniel Voshart/The Metropolitan Museum of Art] AI ‘resurrects’ 54 Roman emperors, in stunningly lifelike images An artist used machine learning to create the photorealistic portraits. By Mindy Weisberger September 28, 2020 Ancient Roman emperors’ faces have…

[CNN Travel reports on a clever innovation in Japan that allows people to experience Halloween scares safely. As The News Wheel notes, Drive-thru haunted attractions are popping up all across the United States, hoping to keep Halloween on course despite COVID-19. But before The Haunted Road was announced in July, the concept of getting scared senseless from the safety of your car was given life (or unlife as it were) in Tokyo, Japan, thanks to Kowagarasetai and its drive-in haunted house. See the original version of the CNN story for a 1:43 minute video and see an AP story for…

[This story from Coveteur is a whirlwind tour of the increasingly blurred line between the physical and virtual in (especially the luxury) fashion world, encouraged in part by the pandemic; see the original version for two images and a video. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Instagram/@hanifaofficial] IS VIRTUAL REALITY FASHION’S NEXT FRONTIER? Marc Jacobs and Sandy Liang seem to think so. By Sara Radin September 29, 2020 Alongside the rise of CGI influencers including Lil Miquela, Bermuda, Shudu, and Imma, fashion brands have started making virtual clothes. For a few years now, cutting-edge designers at the forefront of the movement, such as…

[In this CNN story about an ambitious study of the effects of interacting with a robot, the executive director of Britain’s National Care Forum is quoted as saying the results do “of course, challenge our understanding of care as a purely human to human interaction.’” The original story includes a 6:10 minute video and some additional details are provided in other coverage. The Guardian includes this: “The wheeled robots, called ‘Pepper’, move independently and gesture with robotic arms and hands and are designed to be ‘culturally competent’, which means that after some initial programming they learn about the interests and…

[Here’s an interesting, and toward the end a bit philosophical, first-person report about the experience of using a virtual reality fitness program. It’s from The Cut’s Hot Bod, “a weekly exploration of fitness culture and its adjacent oddities.” Follow the first two links for videos, and for more see April 2020 interviews with the Supernatural trainers in a post on the Oculus blog and a July 2020 review from Mashable. –Matthew] [Image: Source: Mashable] Working Out in Virtual Reality, I Vanquish My Limited Self By Maggie Lange September 25, 2020 I’ve reached a stage of mourning I never thought would…

[This short story from EdScoop reports on a new, ambitious effort to bring engaging virtual reality experiences to higher education, and includes links to a few similar projects. The original version of the story includes a two-minute video (also available via YouTube) and the press release is available from No Proscenium. –Matthew] Arizona State launches virtual wildlife sanctuary for biology students By Betsy Foresman September 24, 2020 Arizona State University has begun developing new immersive locales using virtual reality, starting with a virtual wildlife sanctuary for biology students. Through a partnership announced last week with the virtual reality company Dreamscape…

[The Financial Times reports on new and earlier efforts to use presence-evoking technology to recreate the experience of busy trading floors; follow the link in the image description for a 3:42 minute video and see the story “Extended Reality offers financial services huge opportunities“ from Consultancy.uk for related information. –Matthew] [Image: Citigroup’s augmented reality workstation, combining 3D holograms and real-time financial data. The bank developed the system four years ago but never implemented it. Credit: Citigroup video via YouTube.] Traders set to don virtual reality headsets in their home offices UBS looks at recreating busy trading floors with London VR…

[The 1:08 minute video included with this press release from Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology via EurekAlert! (and also available on YouTube) isn’t very impressive on its own but it represents an important advance in presence-evoking technology. Optics.org provides a bit more technical information, including this: “[N]one [of the previous approaches] have produced a satisfactory balance between the pixel period, the image intensity, and the achievable frame rate. … [N]one of these methods [to use reconfigurable metasurfaces] has successfully achieved metasurface hologram movies of more than 4 frames per second, according to the TUAT project.” “TUAT took a public…

[The pandemic has increased the potential value of telepresence robots for tourism, with new robots and revenue models on the way. This story is from Skift, where the original includes two more images and a one minute video. –Matthew] Robots Came For Your Jobs, Now They’re Coming for Your Vacations: Here’s How Sean O’Neill, Skift August 28, 2020 SKIFT TAKE: Are there really enough people who want to remote-control a robot and visit places virtually? We’re skeptical. But the founder of the startup Propelmee is surprisingly persuasive at the potential uses for such robots. — Sean O’Neill The robots were…

[Posts here in April and July highlighted the use of cardboard cutouts to provide a sense of the physical presence of people who can’t attend events because of the pandemic. The trend is continuing and expanding, including in my hometown, as reported in this story from The Philadelphia Inquirer (where the original version includes three more pictures). Any web search will reveal many more examples, but here are four that show the breadth of the phenomenon: How Jesús Luzardo connected with family of victim of Florida school shooting through cardboard cutout (Daily Democrat) Conan O’Brien will turn you into a…