[This post from IEEE Spectrum describes a major initiative to conduct research to understand the dynamics of, and develop sophisticated media technology that evokes, both remote telepresence and medium-as-social-actor presence. See the original version for five more pictures and two videos. –Matthew] [Image: Some of Haru’s unique features distinguish it from other social robots and suggest new opportunities for human-robot interaction. Credit: Evan Ackerman/IEEE Spectrum] Meet Haru, the Unassuming Big-Eyed Robot Helping Researchers Study Social Robotics Honda Research Institute roboticists are experimenting with social robots as a new kind of trustful companion By Dr. Randy Gomez, a senior scientist at…

[Here’s a nice summary from WebMD of different ways virtual reality and the presence it evokes are being used in medicine; for more on the study of VR for women in labor see MedPage Today and Good Morning America. –Matthew] [Image: Erin Martucci, of New York, used virtual reality while in labor with her daughter Elizabeth. Source: Good Morning America.] Virtual Reality Brings New Vision to Health Care By Jennifer Clopton February 10, 2020 Linda Larrimore has been getting chemotherapy every other week for 6 years to treat and manage colon cancer. The chemotherapy is keeping her health stable, so…

[It may sound like an episode of Black Mirror (to name the specific one would constitute a spoiler), but the author of this piece from Wired presents the benefits and risks of virtual prisons, where presence has a prominent role. –Matthew] Forget prisons, the future of punishment will be virtual Physical jails don’t work. Will virtual punishment succeed in replacing them – or will it just create more risks? By Tom Gash, honorary senior lecturer at University College London’s Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science 10 February 2020 Prisons have become the dominant symbol of punishment in modern democracies. But…

[A compelling example of the desire and potential benefits of using technology to simulate loved ones who have died is reported in this story from Road to VR. The original version includes more images and the 9:38 minute documentary segment referenced; for more details about the documentary and viewer reactions see coverage in Koreaboo, and for more on the uses of technology to transcend death and the ethical questions this latest effort raises, see coverage in Virtual Reality Times. –Matthew] Mother Meets Recreation of Her Deceased Child in VR By Scott Hayden February 7, 2020 South Korean TV broadcaster MBC…

[This story explains how one company developed and is implementing the use of VR and presence to train drivers of trucks that carry hazardous and other materials to prepare them to deal with dangerous but rare situations. It’s from CCJ (Commercial Carrier Journal), where it includes a second image; Forbes has a related story. –Matthew] Innovators: Trimac Transportation removes real-world dangers through virtual reality training Jason Cannon January 15, 2020 CCJ Innovators profiles carriers and fleets that have found innovative ways to overcome trucking’s challenges. The difficulty in learning how to deal with dangerous situations is fairly clear. It’s hard…

[This Gizmodo story describes how using artificial intelligence to enhance a famous “actuality” film from the dawn of cinema said to have evoked intense presence responses at the time makes it look “like it could have been shot just yesterday on a smartphone or a GoPro” and alters the viewing experience. The original story includes both version of the film. Coverage in The Next Web adds that “The video’s also had sound added, which makes it all the more eerily… normal,” and references an article in The Moving Image (via ResearchGate) about reactions to the original film. A commenter on…

[This interview with an award-winning visual effects and virtual production supervisor doesn’t mention the term itself but describes several ways presence is being, and could be, used by filmmakers to “unite the digital and physical worlds so we can tell any story we can imagine”; note the democratizing scenario in his answer to the last question. The original story in Forbes features four additional images. –Matthew] [Image: “I first met Ben at Unite Vision back in 2017, where we discussed the future of immersive.” Credit: Unity.] Virtual Production And The Future Of Filmmaking—An Interview with Ben Grossmann, Magnopus Sol Rogers,…

[The story below from IndieWire describes three examples of how storytelling artists are using virtual reality to create body-centered presence experiences. For more on “Spaced Out” see coverage in /Film and CNET; for more on “Hypha” see VRScout; and for more on VR trends at Sundance 2020 see Forbes. –Matthew] [A still from “Spaced Out” by Pierre Friquet, an official selection of the New Frontier Exhibitions program at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Credit: Courtesy of Sundance Institute.] Sundance VR Programming Showcased Much More Than Movies in a Headset The potential for VR to immerse users in new bodily experiences…

[Last week Stephen Colbert, the host of The Late Show on CBS (in the US), used a clever iPad-based invention he calls the “Ask-O-Matic” to interview voters and a presidential candidate in advance of today’s Iowa caucuses; the funny 7:46 minute video segment is available via YouTube. But this technology isn’t new: Colbert introduced it on the September 20, 2012 episode of his previous TV program, The Colbert Report, when he interviewed documentarian Errol Morris. See a brief discussion on the New Territory Media blog and watch that earlier segment (start at 3:46) as well as the episode’s sign-off on…

[This post from Scientific American’s Voices blog makes a strong argument that creators of presence experiences need to work hard to make them accessible to all of us. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Getty Images] Virtual Reality Has an Accessibility Problem It’s been touted as an “empathy machine” that lets users see what it’s like to have a disability—but people with disabilities often can’t use it By Kaitlin Ugolik Phillips January 29, 2020 Virtual reality has come a long way since the 1960s-era Sensorama, which looked like a vintage arcade game and required the user to walk up and stick one’s head…

[This story from the Frontiers Science News blog describes a new study that uses virtual reality to manipulate the nature of experienced reality (i.e., presence) for participants to investigate how human-sensory systems integrate different types of perceptual cues. –Matthew] [Image: Source: Porras, D. C., Zeilig, G., Doniger, G. M., Bahat, Y., Inzelberg, R., & Plotnik, M. (2020). Seeing Gravity: Gait Adaptations to Visual and Physical Inclines – A Virtual Reality Study. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2019.01308] What goes up may actually be down By Michael Becker, Frontiers Science Writer January 24, 2020 Gravity is the unseen force that dominates our…

[This piece from SMPTE’s monthly Newswatch is a long but useful read about enhancements and limitations in our ability to replicate nonmediated reality and the value of devising tools to distort it for artistic reasons; in both cases it argues that we need to understand the capabilities of the human perceptual system. See especially the discussion of the misleading term “hyper-reality” and the proposal at the end for developing “adaptive technology.” –Matthew] [Image: A shot from Ang Lee’s technically groundbreaking “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.” Credit: Mary Cybulski/Sony-TriStar Pictures via Associated Press. Source: Los Angeles Times.] Hot Button Discussion How…