[Samsung’s introduction at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) of a new form of artificial intelligence sure to evoke medium-as-social-actor presence has garnered lots of coverage, including this concise summary from CNET. See the original version for five more pictures and a 6:22 minute video report. –Matthew] Confused about Samsung’s Neon AIs? Here’s everything you need to know Never mind weather reports and playlists — Neon promises to keep your secrets, teach you yoga and help you find a great restaurant. But can the AI deliver? Dale Smith, Shara Tibken January 11, 2020 While other companies at CES 2020 looked…

[The Charleston Post and Courier reports on an interesting use of presence to reproduce the experience of hiking a challenging nature trail in a South Carolina State Park. See the original story for two different pictures and a 2:14 minute 360 video (a larger version is available via YouTube), and see the website of WYFF TV for a 0:45 minute news report. –Matthew] [Image: Source: GoUpstate.com] SC State Parks using virtual reality so more people can experience mountain’s summit By Emily Williams January 2, 2020 A new virtual reality experience — the first, but likely not the last, of its…

[The Kickstarter page for MarsCat calls it “a robotic pet to comfort you and surprise you.” The story below from The Verge has some of the details (and two different images); see the Elephant Robotics website and the Kickstarter page for many more details including images and videos. As of this writing the campaign has raised 3.5 times the $20,000 USD sought. –Matthew] There’s a robot cat you can back on Kickstarter It’s actually kind of cute By Jay Peters December 26, 2019 You may have heard of Aibo, Sony’s robot dog, but if a robot cat is what you’ve…

[For this last day of 2019, we have The Motley Fool’s optimistic review of the prospects for advances in virtual and augmented reality in the year ahead, led by Facebook. It’s followed by links to and excerpts from several other forecasts regarding presence-evoking technologies, which I can safely predict will continue to change our lives and provide new opportunities for interesting and important scholarship. Look here early in the new year for news about some exciting developments at ISPR, including the PRESENCE 2020 conference in Orlando, Florida in October and the formal launch of the International Journal of Telepresence (IJT).…

[Next Avenue provides a nice summary of innovative technology gifts designed to provide users with a sense of presence with distant loved ones; see the original story for three more images. –Matthew] [Image: Friendship Lamps (left), Pillow Talk (center) and Hug Shirts (right) are high-tech gadgets that keep loved ones connected. Credit: Credit: Filimin | Little Riot | Cute Circuit] Put These Tech Gifts Under the Tree Fun new technology items can bring you closer to your loved ones By Brette Sember December 18, 2019 Staying in touch with the people you love can be challenging if they’re far away.…

[This story from Artnet describes a new Microsoft-sponsored exhibit that demonstrates some of the potential of the company’s presence-evoking technologies for enhancing education, and more important, notes earlier missteps before outlining new promising efforts to expand the use of the technologies to advance social justice. See the original story for four more pictures and the Knight Foundation website for more on that organization’s funding of new projects “to engage audiences through immersive experiences.” –Matthew] [Image: The Hololens 2 at work at the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle. Credit: Microsoft] Museums Have Yet to Embrace Augmented Reality. But Microsoft…

[The technologies that allow for both dramatic and subtle alterations in the physical appearance of actors in films are evolving quickly, becoming more efficient, affordable and effective at creating presence illusions. This story is from  CBC News and includes three more images and three videos. –Matthew] [Image: While exploring the CGI techniques that have brought back younger versions of stars like Will Smith and Martin Scorsese, CBC’s Eli Glasner got put through the ringer himself [see 4:52 minute video in original story]. Credit: Sharon Wu] How digital de-aging is changing the face of movies More movies are using CGI to let…

[Even if the project described in this Chicago Tribune story doesn’t live up to the claim of “the most realistic digital rendering of a human ever created” it sounds like it’ll evoke a strong sense of “being there” at a famous, important and inspiring historical event. See the original story for a second picture and a 2:21 minute video, and for more information see Time’s “The March” website and its earlier announcement, and the websites of two related projects, the “I Am A Man” VR Experience and North Carolina State University’s Virtual Martin Luther King (vMLK) Project. –Matthew] [Image: Civil…

[Pink Floyd’s “hallucinogenic” music and surreal album art lend themselves to interesting presence experiences (see (e.g., see Goldmine and Bullet Music for examples). Next Reality reports on the use of web-based augmented reality to create the latest generation of Pink Floyd presence; see the original story for four animated gifs. A 0:49 minute video is available on YouTube. For more on the iconic art work see Medium. –Matthew] 8th Wall’s Web AR Brings Album Art of Pink Floyd to Life By Tommy Palladino December 20, 2019 What better band than Pink Floyd, the pioneers of psychedelic and progressive rock, to…

[This informal, frank, first-person story illustrates how those who create presence with perceptually and socially realistic digital characters can inadvertently ‘break’ the experience and create user backlash. It’s from betches, where it includes a different image and embedded tweets; for more details and reactions see Paper and PinkNews. –Matthew] [Image: Source: PinkNews] This CGI Influencer Claimed She Was Sexually Assaulted, And Just No By Dylan Hafer December 17, 2019 Of all the bizarre trends and pop culture moments we’ve been through in 2019, none felt quite as strange as the rise of the CGI influencer. Back in the summer, I…

[It’s always good to remember that presence-evoking technology is far from new. This story from The New York Times (where it includes six more images) describes the experience of using a 70 year old consumer photography and display technology. While it doesn’t use the term (tele)presence, its language will be familiar: Using the hand-held viewer to see a photo taken by the Stereo Realist camera is said to have a “strange, transporting effect — the way, through 3-D magic, a scene from the past can appear ‘shockingly present.’” Even on a projector screen it creates “the impression of time-traveling.” “[W]ith…

[According to this first-person report from CNET, the new Varjo XR-1 high-end virtual and mixed reality headset is capable of creating impressive presence illusions, including the inability to distinguish real and virtual objects. It’s for businesses now but as the author notes may be the future for consumers as well. See the original story for two more images. –Matthew] [Image: In the Varjo XR-1, it’s hard to tell what’s virtual and what’s real. Credit: Jonathan Hirshon] Varjo’s VR headset could finally be ready to replace TVs and monitors The $10,000 reality-blending, mixed-reality XR-1 headset can make 4K TVs and Volvo…